Stefan Schemat *1960 (Hamburg)

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Water (Augmented Reality Fiction, 2004)

Stefan Schemat develops new location-based hypermedia, transforming urban or rural landscape into an interactive radio-play. Equipped with a notebook, GPS-System and earphones, he sends his "audience" on a walk to explore a story determinated by their movement in space. The story varies according to the way the user takes. The recipient becomes a receiver who has to generate the story himself, walking. The fiction returns to its settings. For Cuxhaven, Schemat hat evolved a plot who's starting- and endpoint is a spatial co-ordinate, situated in the centre of the banks. A person disappeared. The visitor becomes the detective, who is equipped with an augmented-reality-suite and has one hour to solve the enigma. "If perfect, the story should fit so much to the setting, that the listener gets completely wrapped up in it", Schemat describes his demands. The sounds of the sea and the gulls, voices and ship-motors amalgamate with the text to a unique experience. With his projects, Schemat realises the vision of an alternative use of today's location-based services. Whereas as commercial products they promise a continuous, site-specific supply of the society with any information they need, Schemats installation is pure poetry, in which the listener can get wrapped up.

With the collaboration of Heiko Idensen, Dominica Freier, David Reuter, Oliver Lehmann and the actresses Stefanie Borgert and Uta Bonz.

After the closing of the exhibition, "Water" stays in Cuxhaven as a permanent exhbitioncontact info@ohne-schnur.de to arrange for the loan of the device.