{"id":746806,"date":"2021-05-18T22:01:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T05:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-blog-post&p=746806"},"modified":"2021-05-18T16:15:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T23:15:08","slug":"beacon-on-the-banksy","status":"publish","type":"msr-blog-post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/articles\/beacon-on-the-banksy\/","title":{"rendered":"Beacon on the Banksy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, 1 March, word started to spread around Reading, UK, that a piece of graffiti by the anonymous street artist, \u201cBanksy\u201d, had appeared overnight. I found out that the artwork was located somewhere on the wall of the old Reading prison, but I still wasn\u2019t sure exactly where. Luckily, a friend had seen it while out on their morning walk and created a Soundscape Marker for it!<\/p>\n

They shared the Marker with me, I set an Audio Beacon and off I went in search of it! Soundscape announced that it was 1.8km away as the crow flies, so slightly more to walk.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/p>\n

\"viewFollowing the Audio Beacon, I walked through the Reading university campus\u2014not the way I\u2019d usually walk, but I knew I’d get there if I just kept following the Audio Beacon. The campus is on the site of an old manor house, so the grounds are quite impressive, with a large area of woodland and a lake. It was a nice place to walk, with birds tweeting and the morning spring sunshine creating long shadows.<\/p>\n

Shortly after I\u2019d left the campus, Soundscape announced \u201cHuntley and Palmers building\u201d. I looked to my right and there it was, this is the last remaining building from the old Huntley and Palmers biscuit factory. In its heyday this was the largest biscuit factory in the world! I heard \u201cBeacon, 280m\u201d, I was getting closer!<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

As I got closer, I heard a callout for \u201cOscar Wilde Memorial Walk\u201d. Oscar Wilde, an Irish Poet and playwright, was one of Reading prison\u2019s most famous inmates\u2014imprisoned there between 1895-97. I was only 110m away from the artwork now. I had made good time so I decided to take a detour along this footpath which runs between the wall of the prison and the canal. The gates at the start of the path were shaped to resemble the writer, the fences along the walk have a number of quotes of his, and the benches are all the same size as a prison bed from the 19th century. It\u2019s a very interesting part of Reading that I hadn\u2019t noticed much before!<\/p>\n

In front of me I could see the taller buildings of central Reading\u2014I pressed \u2018Ahead of Me\u2019 and learnt that the buildings standing prominently in front of me was \u201cThe Blade\u201d, the tallest building in the town. Also known as Abbey Mill House, \u201cThe Blade\u201d is 86 metres tall and visible from almost everywhere in the town. To my right, I could hear the Audio Beacon coming from the direction of the artwork, and so I continued on my merry way.<\/p>\n

\"view<\/p>\n

At the end of the \u201cOscar Wilde Memorial Walk\u201d, I stumbled upon the ruins of an old Abbey which once stood in Reading. Built in the 12th century, Reading Abbey was once one of the largest in Europe until it was destroyed in the 16th century.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

I walked around the ruins, reading some of the information plaques and learning more about its history. As I continued through the ruins, I found myself in Forbury Gardens, which was originally part of the Abbey grounds and is now a public park in the centre of Reading. One of the main features of the park is the Maiwand Lion. I\u2019d always seen this statue when walking through the park, but I wasn\u2019t aware of its name until Soundscape called it out to me. I\u2019ve since found out that it\u2019s a war memorial and dates back to 1884 after the Battle of Maiwand, during the campaign in the second Anglo-Afghan War in Afghanistan. Locally it is known as The Forbury Lion.<\/p>\n

\"large<\/p>\n

With the Audio Beacon now coming from my right, and Soundscape announcing I was walking north, I knew I\u2019d walked half way round the prison at this point. I decided to keep going the rest of the way round rather than retracing my steps. I left Forbury Gardens and followed the road around the northern wall of the prison. I was getting closer, Soundscape announced that I was 330m away from the Marker for the \u201cBanksy Artwork\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/p>\n

As I got closer, I could see a queue stretching round the corner with people waiting to have their photos taken underneath the artwork. I queued up and waited my turn to get a proper look.<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/p>\n

The artwork shows a prison inmate escaping over the tall brick walls of the prison; they\u2019re using what appears to be a rope made of bedsheets, but these sheets flow seamlessly in to a sheet of paper coming from a typewriter, an ode to Oscar Wilde.<\/p>\n

\"twoI took a photo and sent it to my mum along with the Soundscape Marker of its location.<\/p>\n

In turn, she then sent this Marker to a few of her friends, and before we knew it, quite a group of people had used Soundscape to help them locate this new artwork!<\/p>\n

All in all, who would have thought that by simply following my way to the Marker for the \u201cBanksy\u201d artwork that I would end up taking a tour of some of town\u2019s many tourist landmarks and lesser-known paths and road. In the end I\u2019d walked 3km to get there, but it didn\u2019t feel like that much. Often, we take very little notice of what is around us, but today my eyes and ears were opened, thanks to Microsoft Soundscape.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Helpful tips<\/h3>\n

Creating a Marker on your current location<\/strong><\/p>\n

To create a Marker where you currently are, select \u2018Current Location\u2019 on the Soundscape home screen, then \u2018Save as Marker\u2019. You\u2019ll be able to give the Marker a name and annotation, then select \u2018done\u2019. Now that Marker will be in your \u2018Saved Markers\u2019 list.<\/p>\n

Setting an Audio Beacon on a Marker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Select \u201cSaved Markers\u201d from the Soundscape home screen. You\u2019ll then get a list of all your Markers, in order of the distance to them. If you then select the Marker you\u2019d like from the list. This will open the Marker Details page with an option to set a Beacon on your Marker<\/p>\n

Sharing a Marker<\/strong><\/p>\n

To share a Marker, select \u2018Saved Markers\u2019 from the Soundscape home screen, then select the Marker than you would like to share. When you select the Marker, you will be taken to the Marker\u2019s \u2018Details\u2019 page, where you can select the \u2018Share\u2019 button to share the Marker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, 1 March, word started to spread around Reading, UK, that a piece of graffiti by the anonymous street artist, \u201cBanksy\u201d, had appeared overnight. I found out that the artwork was located somewhere on the wall of the old Reading prison, but I still wasn\u2019t sure exactly where. Luckily, a friend had seen it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40306,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"msr-content-parent":835063,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"class_list":["post-746806","msr-blog-post","type-msr-blog-post","status-publish","hentry","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_assoc_parent":{"id":835063,"type":"group"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/746806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-blog-post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40306"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/746806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746857,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-blog-post\/746806\/revisions\/746857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=746806"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=746806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}