This week has seen the launch of our new project – Chartist Live 2014. As projects go, the inception of this one was perhaps a touch unusual. Walking, on route to the National Museum, a couple of weeks ago, I bumped into Les James, pioneer of many of the very good things to have been developed of late which explore Chartist heritage. A sprawling conversation, which touched at length once more on the sad demise of archaeology in the National Museum Wales organisation, eventually – perhaps inevitably if you know Les – got onto the subject of the Chartist anniversary celebrations. It was from there that we discussed the range of promotional possibilities for the celebrations, and I was surprised to learn that nothing had been developed for twitter. From that point, there was no looking back. Having mentioned twitter, Les asked if I would be happy developing something on this front and, with my partners in Cyfarwydd (more on that next month), @ChartistsLive was born. There is no shortage of excellent examples of the use of twitter in association with heritage themed events, and I have no shame in saying that this concept very much follows on the back of the tremendously successful @RealTimeWWII feed. With some 300k followers, the World War II themed feed has really highlighted the way in which these ‘as live’ period specific feeds can engage audiences. The scope for @ChartistsLive is of course somewhat narrower in comparison, but we should not forget that the Chartist story has a very wide reach. Followers are already being attracted from Australia, which has some obvious Chartist connections, while core followers in Canada highlight the reach of a Welsh story to expat communities. Covering the events building up to that fateful day in November 1839, @ChartistsLive develops a day by day narrative, following the main players in the Chartist campaign. Henry Vincent and John Frost will feature prominently, largely because their actions are so well documented, in the case of Vincent, by himself. However the Chartist story was a headline grabber in its day, so we can make liberal use of print media from 1839 as well. All of this will help create, what I hope will be, quite a holistic overview of 1839 – connecting media commentary, personal reflections and wider social insights on the conditions of the working classes in this tempestuous political period. I’m also developing what might amount to an unhealthy interest in this period as a result, with morning research on the topic having become a steady part of my daily routine. Still, it is all proving to be exceptionally interesting, and early feedback seems pretty positive too. So, here’s looking forward to this project’s development over the coming months – I imagine November is going to be exceptionally busy when it comes to tweeting!
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As I understand it, there were some sixty odd thousand rugby fans at the recent Wales v Italy Six Nations fixture in Cardiff. Yet, for all those numbers present, there was something quite eerie about the sense of occasion, or lack thereof. I’ve mused in the past on the changing nature of the Welsh rugby fan, having come across some impressively violent types inside the stadium, who were the very antithesis of the stereotyped fan of old. There are wonderful black and white images of the moustachioed fan of the ‘70s to be found, where the size of your rosette seemed to be a good indicator of your commitment to the cause of the game. Film recordings of games from the period capture the era of song. Thousands would join in verses that went somewhat beyond the simplified rounds of ‘bread of heaven’, which appear to be all that we are left with today. Put simply, the Welsh rugby fan as we like to remember them, no longer seem to attend Welsh rugby internationals. The disengagement with the match day experience of old can be seen all across the Millennium Stadium. The age old issue of alcohol sales in the ground are a constant bug bear. The greatest dilemma faced by a fan now is not when to dash out to the toilets, but how much of the first half they should miss in order to secure themselves a four pack of beer, in advance of the second half. Twenty five minutes into any game, there is a sudden flurry of bobbing heads, as seated fans duck and weave around moving fans, on route to bar, or, as is inevitable in the second half, on route to relief. But alcohol is perhaps the lesser of the distractions to interfere with crowd quality in this decade. The view from the top tier of the stadium towards the pitch, has now become akin to a natural history programme. In the swirling throng of seated thousands, is a bobbing of light. Hundreds of glow worm like blurs appear scattered through those congregated. Of course these are no giant insects, but the ever present mobile / smartphone. With alcohol at least there is the possibility that reduced inhibitions will only serve to encourage raucous singing. With a smartphone, there is only the possibility of distraction. There are those making abortive attempts at phone calls, near impossible even with a disconnected crowd, sixty thousand are rarely quite, even when doing next to nothing. There are those busily texting, and there are those impressively checking details on the game that they are watching – that strikes as one of the most baffling decisions of all. There are those eagerly attempting to take ridiculously long range photographs, making a seemingly conscious decision to view the game through the tiny box screen of their phone, rather than with their own eyes. All of which conspires to create a situation in which the actual game becomes a secondary priority. The most pressing objective of match day would now appear to be to let people know via social and digital media, that they were at the game, rather than take time to actually experience it. The singing, rosetted rugby fan of old would find the modern international experience in Cardiff somewhat obscure. People are paying more and more to enter an international sports arena, where they are watching less and less of the actual game on the field in front of them. Now for a heritage blog, this might seem a little of a tangent, yet the match day experience, the Welsh rugby fan ideal, is one which travels, it is an extension of the intangible culture heritage that the Welsh rugby experience is, or at least used to be. Sadly, the singing, the camaraderie and the connection between fan and game, appears to be almost lost. The experience has changed, the Welsh rugby fan has changed, neither, unfortunately, for the better. So if you happen to be at Wales v France in a few weeks, maybe take the time to put down the phone, hold off on the beer, and maybe, just maybe, watch the game, and sing a song from the programme. You might find the whole experience something quite special. Or, you might just be going there to send a tweet, and pay £60 to walk around concrete corridors with a beer while thirty people chase a ball somewhere nearby you, out of sight. The choice, for a Welsh rugby fan, strikes me as being quite simple, but maybe, even in my early thirties, I am more of a relic of the ‘70s than a fan of the 21st century. Despite mixed signals regarding download rates and subsequent use, digital resources, frequently manifest in the form of an ‘app’, have become one of the most ubiquitous forms of heritage and museum interpretative tools in recent years. Now I’ve never held myself up to be among the most technologically advanced of people, and a phone that opened like an original series Star Trek communicator was wizardry enough for me for almost a decade. Equally, there was once an occasion where I hurled a book at a television in outrage at the perpetual references to ‘apps’ in television advertising. I did not give in to progression without some severe resistance. Yet, here I am today with my smart phone, upon which I can conduct the vast majority of my day to day business, and I love it – my inner luddite is screaming at me in protest I’m sure. As a result, I can now freely explore and take advantage of the growing range of heritage and museums apps, many of which are free to download. However, I’m still not particularly on the ball with things. The Archwilio app for instance is a classic. Launched just over a month ago, I was among those to be espousing the virtues of such a device, and naturally downloaded it on the day of release, and my new app sat proudly on the front page of my mobile phone...and there is stayed, untapped, unexplored, utterly redundant, for the following month. I can’t help wonder if this is the fate shared by many of our heritage downloads – can we effectively measure participation in relation to downloads? A question for another time perhaps. With the teaching year wrapped up, I have now had, at last, an opportunity to press the ‘A’ symbol on my phone, and finally give this app a proper run through its paces, and I was not disappointed. Some context here is perhaps necessary. Archwilio is a collaborative effort between the four archaeological trusts in Wales. The project looks to make available a digital archive of all of the archaeological sites and listed buildings located in Wales. Accessibility is at the heart of this project, and this arguably unique endeavour should be celebrated on principle alone – to make the entire national archive freely available, through mobile phone technologies, is a concept that must be applauded. The application is certainly promising. Again, I am no expert whatsoever when it comes to digital technologies. To the expert eye, this might be an utterly hackneyed effort at a mobile phone app, I simply would not know the difference (though I promise to expand my knowledge base on such resources over the winter period), but I have at the very least found it easy to use and make sense of, and, probably the most important result of all, I have learned about new sites because of it. Walking around Caerleon and Ponthir today, I enjoyed scanning the landscape to confirm the locations of previous excavations and find spots. It is important to note that Archwilio is far from complete. Checking up on some sites, including those I have excavated, I found odd gaps in the archive. Still, it is early days, and the resource is, or should be, continuously updated. The capacity for users to suggest sites for inclusion, additional information, and site images, is equally important, and reinforces the sense that this is not a prescriptive resource, but a participatory one. In terms of my test run, I discovered new sites in Ponthir, a community I walk through daily. Even visually prominent sites, such as the nineteenth century Baptist Chapel, were new to me. Having found the site marked on my Archwilio map, I then immediately swung by to visit the site. This alone must be seen as some sort of success for the app. The frustrated Pokemon collector in me would love to see some manner of check list, to tick off sites visited (after all, you gotta catch em all – excuse flashbacks to my youth), but this is far from essential. I’ll certainly be making generous use of this as I visit familiar and unfamiliar sites alike in the future. The potential of the resource is staggering and I would certainly encourage those with an interest in their surrounding landscape to at least have a look at Archwilio. It might not be the most polished app available, but as an open door to the archaeological landscape of Wales, Archwilio has no rival. Archwilio can be downloaded from google play, with more information available at the homepage. |
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