Office of Experiments: A One Day Field Guide to the Secrets of Portland

Hosted by EXPLORATORY LABORATORY  - Art, Science and the Jurassic Coast

SATURDAY 14 MAY

Following on from highly successful bus tours conducted by members of Office of Experiments in 2010 (see links below), Office of Experiments artist Neal White will host a One Day Field Guide to the Secrets of Portland. Office of Experiments Critical Excursions’ allow the audience to immerse themselves in a guided experimental journey unlike any standard tourist bus tour.

Portland’s extraordinary marine and natural landscape of flora and fauna, its geomorphology and remote coastal location have helped shape one story. In this tour, White will lead participants around other potential narratives as a series of previously unlinked sites and events in Portland are mapped as a setting for experimental activity. From sites of cold war secrecy, experiments on the public and secret military research, to Portland’s own interpretation of its geology, industry and social history, participants together will experience a rich web of fact, place, and in some cases fiction. Operating beyond the role of an educational tour, participants are invited to become experimenters and researchers themselves, encouraged to consider the journey as an exploration within the tension between nature, the imagination and the real.

This project continues the OOE’s ‘Field Users Guide to Dark Places - South Edition’, which was commissioned by The Arts Catalyst.

http://www.o-o-e.org/blog/
http://www.artscatalyst.org/experiencelearning/detail/darkplacesbustour/
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/guru/research/security/SteveRowellVisit.htm

Amanda Wallwork
Exploratory Laboratory Curator
Big Picture Projects
www.bigpic.org.uk