Dark Side, Port Side

Dark Side, Port Side is an Arts Council England (ACE) funded project. It will develop a fictional, poetry and film digital trail inspired and linked to ‘sailortown’ historic sites in Portsea Portsmouth, an area steeped in maritime history and developed as an online app by University of Portsmouth. (The trail takes the walker to 17 sites in Portsea. Each site has a brief description of an aspect of the sailortown story). Poets and film makers as well as specific local community groups will be invited to workshops led by experienced poets and specialists in the development of poetry films. We will also create examples of practice and use this as a trigger for a call out for submitted pieces of work.

16 short poetry film pieces will be selected for our digital trail. We would then explore ways in which these pieces can be accessed through locative media and augmented reality whilst audiences walk the trail. There will be 5 key stages to the project development, from creating an example of practice, invitations to poets and film makers to workshops, running workshops in the community of Portsea that Dark Side will be based on, presenting live performance events, calling out for submitted pieces and then working with the provider of this brief to create the digital trail.

Based on the UoP 'sailortown' app, this project will create an AR-augmented digital trail app that will guide walkers around Portsea. It will engage a range of creative practitioners and local community members.

For a modest investment by the Supernatural Cities and Port Towns, Urban Cultures FHSS faculty projects, we will be able to give the existing 'sailortown' app a £6,000 -7,000 upgrade and augmentation. At the same time, the Dark Side, Port Side project demonstrates a local engagement with, and the influence of, the sailortown app within the broader community.