MY MAP IS NOT YOUR MAP
Seminar | Workshop
sep 21, 2009 - sep 25, 2009

MY MAP IS NOT YOUR MAP

Parte-hartzaileak
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Coordination: José Luis Pajares.

Participants: 12

Inscription: 14th september. Send your personal dates with your CV to arteleku@gipuzkoa.net

This seminar presents projects that work with active maps and territory, showing the possibilities of technologies such as geopositioning  (GPS ) for the development of artistic projects.

Attendance to this workshop can be authenticated in the form of 1 free-choice credit in the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)

 

With the expansion of GPS for public use, an increasingly large group of artists and researchers have felt the need to break away from the spatial organisation represented in the official maps and the mechanical and thoughtless orientation imposed by the commercial positioning systems. This dissent has led to the creation of subversive cartography and mobile and web-based works of art, which alter our perception of space, as well as the publication of numerous articles that come under the disciplines of locative media, urban computing and radical mapping.

Parallel to the seminar, a workshop will be held which centres on the conceptual design of interactive locative media on mobile systems and their eventual development with Mscape. The proposals will be defined and selected by the participants in the workshop itself and will be focused on the creation of interactive experiences located in the geographical surroundings of Arteleku.

 

Open conferences:

September 21, at 18:30h, José Luis Pajares: "My map is not your map". At 19:30h, Dick Van Dijk: "Out there: connecting people, places and stories".

September 22, at 19:00h, Lize Mogel: "Counter-cartographies".

September 23, at 19:00h, Fabien Girardin: "People as sensors, people as actors".

September 24, at 19:00h, Giles Lane: "Beyond cartography".

September 25, at 18:00h, Workshop conclusions, at 19:00h, Julius von Bismarck. Performance: "The human reconstruction of space and time". To take part, it is necessary to sign up in arteleku@gipuzkoa.net

 

We would like to thank Santa María La Real Museum, Zarautz, for the assistance in this workshop

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“!My map is not your map!”

The phrase "my map is not your map" can be pronounced mainly in two ways: with a strangeness tone, in the context of visiting a new city, realising that the same space is not organized in the same way as in our friend's map. In this case the next reactions might be "What is the right map? are we lost?”. The second possible tone would be more severe or aggressive, a reassertion reclaiming a vision of the space that others does not share, as in the context of the palestinian-israeli territories.


Introduction to the seminar

After the extension of GPS technology for public use, a growing collective of artists and researchers have felt the need for breaking with the spatial organization represented in official maps and with the unthinking and mechanical orientation imposed by commercial positioning systems. This disagreement has led to creation of maps and subversive artworks over web and mobile platforms that change our perception of space, as well as the publishing of numerous articles on subjects as locative media, urban informatics and radical cartography.

These disciplines do not focus on the development of precise positioning and mapping technologies, but on transforming the meaning and context of this positioning. Concerned with describing the physical space not only by objective geographies but also relative, based on the idea that a place is never neither purely Cartesian nor psycogeographic.

The artists and researchers of this seminar uncover these sociogeographic disorientions to invent and play with new mapping and location interfaces. Technologies and tactics that are recovering the sense of navigation as a transcendent search, transforming our perception of the territory, redrawing the map that describes the social footprints ignored by satellite images.

Given this background of conflict in the representation of the territory with new media, the seminar will focus the discussion on these specific issues:

  • Strategies, tools and examples of subversive remapping. 
  • Show, exploiting or reconciling discrepancies in collaborative mapping. 
  • Altering the perception of the physical environment: hybrid interfaces and tactics. 

 

 

Parallel workshop of collaborative projects with Dick Van Dijk y José Luis Pajares (gelo)

 

Parallel to the seminar it Will be held a workshop centered in conceptual interactive design of locative artworks over mobile systems and its developing with Mscape. Proposals will be defined and selected by participants in the workshop and it will focus in create interactive experiences located in the Arteleku geographic environment .

 

The workshop is intended for everyone: artists, engineers, geographers, architects, programmers, designers, musicians, hackers.. whether professional or amateurs. 12 participants.

 

Inscription:

(personal and professional data. Motivation to participate in the workshop)

 

Methodology:

After receiving a theoretical introduction, participants will present their project proposals to develop them into working groups. Participants will choose the three proposals that raise more interest and their participation in one of them. Once groups are formed they will have the conceptual and technical advice of teachers and, eventually, of the speakers at the seminar.

 

The last day the participants will briefly present the work done and the prospects of continuing it.

 

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Open conferences:

September 21, at 18:30h, José Luis Pajares: "My map is not your map". At 19:30h, Dick Van Dijk: "Out there: connecting people, places and stories".

How does an enriched relation between people and locations lead to new forms of interaction? Location based media allows for the enhancement of any given environment offering explanation and commentary on what the user is looking at through a combination of media. The location-aware device can deliver interpretation of cities, parklands, museums, heritage sites, events or any other environment where location based media is required. As we are dealing with interfaces between the fictional and the real, between physical and virtual spaces, and with the interaction between street and ‘players’, it is a logical step to connect the location based experience to gaming and theatre and performance art, in order to trigger active user participation.

Waag Society’s Locative Media Programme has its roots in the Amsterdam Realtime project - using traces of people to create a dynamic map of the city. Later came, amongst others, the development of Frequency 1550, a mobile educational game for young students mixing medieval times with today's city plan. In his presentation Dick will analyse several projects. These projects are conceptualized very differently - due to the nature of their respective subjects - leading to different technological solutions.  In his examples he will argue that the physical environment is a great setting for appreciating cultural content, to foster reflection and to induce active user participation.

Interesting links:

Waag Society Projects / www.waag.org

Emotional mapping / Christian Nold / www.softhook.com

You Are Not Here / www.youarenothere.org

Loca Lab / Drew Hemment / www.loca-lab.org

Nomadic Milk / Esther Polak / www.nomadicmilk.net

Call Cutta / Rimini Protokoll / www.rimini-protokoll.de/website/en/project_2766.html

Software platform / 7scenes / www.7scenes.com


September 22, at 19:00h, Lize Mogel: "Counter-cartographies".

e-map is a tool of power, available to whoever wields it. There is a growing movement of artists, activists, geographers and others making, using, and understanding maps as a form of resistance. These counter-cartographies appropriate the map’s familiar and inherently political nature in order to analyze and create a balance of power. Lize Mogel will discuss recent counter-cartographic projects (her own and others) that use mapping strategies for activist and pedagogical practices.


September 23, at 19:00h, Fabien Girardin: "People as sensors, people as actors".

The ubiquitous technologies that afford us new flexibility in conducting our personal daily lives are simultaneously providing the means for our traceability. This talk will explore how the logged interactions with contemporary soft infrastructures reveal elements of our mobility and indicators to measure the urban hybrid environment. I will consider the asperity and potholes of this emerging informational overlay. But insead of exploring a utilitarian perspective that models the city as a system and aims at improving its efficiency, I will focus on the human side of the data and how their subjectivity and contingency alter our relation with space.

 

September 24, at 19:00h, Giles Lane: "Beyond cartography".

Giles Lane will present an overview of Proboscis' projects exploring place, public authoring and sensing conducted since the 2002 (e.g. Urban Tapestries, Social Tapestries, Feral Robots, Snout, Sutton Grapevine & Sensory Threads. Proboscis' work has always focused less on the technological than on the relational nature of linking human knowledge and experience to place - why and how people tell stories and construct narratives around the places they inhabit and which hold meaning for them.

http://proboscis.org.uk


September 25, at 18:00h, Workshop conclusions, at 20:00h, Julius von Bismarck. Performance: "The human reconstruction of space and time".

To take part, it is necessary to sign up in arteleku@gipuzkoa.net

1: Navigating through the real world with artificial view angels like the top shot view in pc-games or in “Google World”.

2: The human reconstruction of the environment with minimal visual information.

3: The inner eye versus photography.

4: The difference between a still image and the moving world, and how it is used by media to construct or manipulate an image of the reality

Each topic is represented by a different work or experiment:

1: Top Shot Helmet

2: Two People and Two Flashes in Darkness

3: The Dorm

4: Image Fulgurator

 

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José Luis Pajares (gelo). Director del seminario-taller. Gelo is an social comunication and locative media artist and investigador. Nowadays, he works at the CESyA at Univ. Carlos III in several public investigation projects. His works apply natural interfaces that redefine the social interaction in public spaces, specially urban places.

More information:  www.gelo.tv

 

Dick van Dijk is concept developer at Waag Society. Waag Society is an Amsterdam based Medialab investigating the interplay of culture and technology in relation to society, education, culture and healthcare. Waag Society wishes to make a contribution to the design of the information society by looking at the possibilities of people, their creativity and culture. 

Dick has particular responsibilities for Waag Society’s programme on narrativity, exploring the use of narrative structures in new media. Among Dick’s projects are several location-based projects. Dick studied business economics and history of art. 

www.waag.org

 

Lize Mogel is an interdisciplinary artist who works with the interstices between art and cultural geography. She inserts and distributes and cartographic projects into public space and via publications. She is co-editor of the book/map collection "An Atlas of Radical Cartography" and co-curator of the exhibition "An Atlas", which is touring nationally. She also co-curated "Genius Loci", an exhibition of conceptual mappings of Los Angeles (Sci-Arc, Los Angeles, California Museum of Photography, Riverside). She has also worked with groups including the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Exhibitions include the Gwangju Bienniale (South Korea,) common room (NYC), Overgaden (Copenhagen), and “Experimental Geography” (touring). She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, the LEF Foundation, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Danish Arts Council for her work. www.publicgreen.com www.an-atlas.com

 

Fabien Girardin is PhD at the Grupo de Tecnologías Interactivas de la Universidad Pompeu Fabra and affiliate to SENSEable City Laboratory of the MIT. Through his blog and various scientific journals, he tirelessly publishes his research about human practices in connection with location-sensitive systems.

More information:  http://www.girardin.org/fabien/



Giles Lane is the director of Proboscis, a group that since its founding in 1994 has studied how networks and the media - virtual and physical - can encourage building communities of people and interests. One of his best known projects is "Social Tapestries," which studied the social and cultural applications of the mapping in collaboration with artists, associations, industry and academia.

More information: http://proboscis.org.uk/people/index.html

 

Julius von Bismarck launched last year his work "Fulgurator" , a modified camera that detects the flash of others nearby to project an image for a millisecond. The result, ghostly apparitions and unexplained photographs taken by those around them. With its gleaming interventions, Julius seeks to transform our relationship with objects, people and spaces around us we thought well known.

More information:  www.juliusvonbismarck.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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