Route Canal

**MANCHESTER - ANCOATS** **START AT CUTTING ROOM SQUARE OUTSIDE RUDY’s PIZZA** Welcome to Monuments by Jonnie Riordan. Part of the Walk This Play series by ThickSkin, commissioned by Step Up MCR, supported with Lottery Funding by Arts Council England. Featuring stories and voices from the communities of Ancoats, Clayton, Beswick & Openshaw. Celebrating the monuments big and small, the people that built the buildings from the ground up and that keep the beating heart of the area alive. *I am cobbles. I am red brick and stone. I am cotton mills. I am the water racing through the canals, connecting Manchester to the rest of the world. I am communities that care. Looking for a connection.* Monuments guides you around the Ancoats cobbles, old and new, asking you not to overlook the buildings and the communities that make the area unique. Cast Narrator - Julie Hesmondhalgh Creative team Writer & Director – Jonnie Riordan Composer & Sound Designer - Pete Malkin Assistant Sound Designer - Raffaela Pancucci Community Engagement Co-ordinator - Ailbhe Treacy Executive Producer - Laura Mallows Producer - Max Emmerson For more help or to share your feedback, please email admin@thickskintheatre.co.uk to get in touch with the Walk This Play Team. The pandemic has been a challenging time for the sector. Against the odds, ThickSkin has continued to make work and employ freelance artists through innovative projects. If you can make a donation, no matter how big or small, your donation will help us to keep going. Additional information: Keep your GPS and wifi enabled. Follow the instructions given by the narrator. The route is circular and will start and end in Cutting Room Square. When you start the walk, you will see your current position as a blue dot on the map. If the app asks you about location settings, select ‘allowed all the time’ to improve GPS. If the sound disappears, just check on your map to find your route again. The walk will last around 45 minutes (depending on your speed) with some inclines, but no steps. The walk will wait for you and can be enjoyed at your own pace. As this is an audio experience, D/deaf audiences can choose to use the in-app captions. Visually impaired audiences may need a walking companion for safety with crossing roads. Walk This Play experiences are suitable for ages 12+ Welcome to MONUMENTS.

An immersive playground of tortured guitars and words and phrases which were collected in response to a sound installation.

The PRIDE trail campaign celebrates the rich history of the iconic Gay Village and documents the LGBTQ+ community’s fight for equality throughout the decades.

A walk around BIMM (Bank Chambers).

an imagery pride that is comprised of memories, music, and foreign sounds.

A Meeting Place | 会议地点 layers original sound compositions and field recordings with photographs and oral histories from the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art's (CFCCA) archive, in which interviewees talk of their migrant experience, their identities as people of Chinese heritage living in the UK, memories of Manchester's Chinatown and Chinese festivals, and CFCCA’s first venue at 36 Charlotte Street. The audio for this work has been mixed in 360-degree binaural audio, providing a fully immersive experience that sonically animates the archival materials and creating the sensation that different sounds are being emitted from all directions around the listener’s head.

IDEAL START AT BIMM INSTITUTE ENTRANCE (FAULKNER STREET) You are an audionaut fresh out of Audionaut Academy. In your hand you have your cybernetic audio interface. This displays your location, objectives, and PDA. You are on a pilgrimage to find the Essence of Authenticity, which is hidden somewhere in Manchester 2077. Mandy, the city's integrated AI, will be your guide. Which way will you walk?

This sound walk through central Manchester explores the networked digital processes that are happening all around us in new, smart cities, through technologies which are embedded in the urban environment, but which often remain invisible to us. The walk takes between 50 minutes and an hour to complete. It is accessible to wheelchair users and a transcript is included below. If you have any other access needs or queries, please drop us a line at wildingthesmartcity@gmail.com. We'd be very happy to help. Please download the walk to your phone before you come to the starting point, which is St Peter’s Square in central Manchester and make sure you allow Echoes to use your location to trigger the sounds. It is designed to be experienced through headphones, so make sure you bring yours with you. These walks are part of a wider research project, so any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated. Please respond through this online questionnaire (https://forms.office.com/r/i2jYQN3Ysy) and get in touch at wildingthesmartcity@gmail.com if you would like to book a follow up interview to discuss your experience. The walk begins at Manchester Central Library, at the edge of St Peter’s Square in the heart of the city. From the front of the library, bear left and take a seat at the first wide bench you see in front of St Peter’s Square tram stop. All instructions and guidance will be offered within the audio, so you should be able to put your phone away for the duration. If you get lost or lose the audio, you can always check the map, which shows your route through the city. A transcript of the text of the walk is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ygxo9gFZgB4rl-tacpPa1qpRGEl-hcEI/view?usp=sharing PLEASE NOTE: due to a technical issue in the application, the final echo (Echo 8) is not playing on some devices. If you have any problems with this, please stop the walk and start it again, disabling Auto-Play, so Echo 8 can be played manually.