Saturday, June 16, 2012

Paul's Cross Project on Television



Go HERE to see a local TV station's story on NC State's Hunt Library.

The spokesperson for the Library is Maurice York, with whom we are working for the installation of the Virtual Paul's Cross Project as part of the opening of this library early next year.

If you bear with him for about a minute and a half, he discusses our project.

You know you are getting close when he starts talking about the Navy's installation of a ship simulator in the other multi-media lab, the one we are not using.

Monday, June 4, 2012

The First Sounds of Paul's Churchyard


You are sitting on a bench about 20 feet in front of the Paul's Cross Preaching Station, surrounded by a crowd of about 500 people.

The date is November 5th, 1622, at 10:00 in the morning. The crowd has gathered. The preacher has processed to the Cross and taken his place in the pulpit. The cathedral clock has struck ten.

Click HERE.

This recording starts at the beginning of the sermon and runs through the opening prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer.

Feel free to join in.

Wall Delivers Paper at SDH-SEMI Meeting


I delivered a paper on the Virtual Paul's Cross Project on May 28, 2012, at the annual meeting of Canada's Society for Digital Humanities/Société pour l’étude des médias interactifs.

This meeting was held as part of Canada's annual CONGRESS for the Social Sciences and Humanities, held this year in Waterloo, Canada.

My paper was entitled  "The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project: Documenting the Experience of Public Preaching at Paul’s Cross, London, in the Post-Reformation Period." 

I discussed the challenges of recreating the experience of the Paul's Cross sermon, including the complexities of interpreting primary evidence, of understanding relative degrees of approximation, and of holding in tension past and present models of interpretation. 

The highlight of the event for me was the chance to play our first effort at recreating performance in the acoustic space of Paul's Churchyard. 


Damian Murphy Joins Advisory Board

I'm pleased to announce that Dr. Damian Murphy, Lecturer in Acoustics at the University of York, has accepted an appointment to the Advisory Committee for the Virtual Paul's Cross Project.

Damian's research is focused on physical modelling, spatial sound, and virtual environment modeling. You can learn more about him and his work here (his professional web site) and here (his site at the University of York).

Damian's role will be to advise us on best practices as we move forward on the Virtual Paul's Cross Project and also as we prepare to apply for funding for the Virtual St Paul's Cathedral Project.

He has experience in modeling large gothic buildings with unfortunate histories, having been involved in a project to recreate the acoustic properties of Coventry Cathedral.

You can find links to some of his work on this project here.