Oh Europa

Oh Europa is a geolocated collection of love songs recorded and shared on-site throughout Europe by Action Hero, an artist collective that “create arenas for the collision of action and ideas.”

I accessed the piece using the Oh Europa app in Christiania in the middle of Copenhagen. As I walked through the gate on a sunny Saturday afternoon and moved into one of Denmark’s most well known tourist attractions with earbuds in, the silence was suddenly replaced with the white noise of a radio between stations. The noise only lasted a couple of seconds before the Oh Europa feed started playing.

Oh Europa

The songs in my ears were sung by one or two people at a time but with no instruments, so the background bled in as I walked past the cannabis dealers with tattooed up necks and tourists craning their necks to take in the scenery.

904 love songs make up the ever playing feed, that has been collected by the artists Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse as they travelled 38,205 kilometers across Europe in their rolling studio. Mostly to stop and record near borders of different kinds.

This simple but beautiful form of audio AR enhances numerous locations throughout Europe with on-site music, reminding us that wherever we go, there are people in love and people expressing their love for each other.