remarks at gafa » mapping

interesting links>shanghai dreaming

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:35:37 +0000

Dutch artist Jeanne van Heeswijk:
“is a visual artist who creates contexts for interaction in public spaces. Her projects distinguish themselves through a strong social involvement. With her work van Heeswijk stimulates and develops cultural production and creates new public (meeting) spaces or remodels existing ones. To achieve this she often works closely with designers, architects, software developers, governments and citizens.”

One of those projects is “Shanghai Dreaming, Holding an Urban Golden Card“, made for the Shanghai Biennale in 2008.

This work is a great example of an approach to public art, that involves the local public, it is created through the input and participation of the public, it uses various media, she used local businesses, for instance a marketing company, to communicate the work. I like very much how through the collecting of stories, and transforming them into a visual, physical manifestation, some residents of Shanghai, just everyday ordinary citizens become visible. And through their stories, in fact, a story about the social impact of city life emerges.
An interview with the artist about this project can be seen here:
http://www.dmovies.net/shanghai7/index.html

Consider this an example of how you could think about creating the monument for Nan Ting.

Jeanne van Heeswijk’s website: http://www.jeanneworks.net

interesting links>infosthetics

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 06:37:48 +0000

http://infosthetics.com/ is a weblog that: “explores the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization. More specifically, it collects projects that represent data or information in original or intriguing ways.”

It is a great source of inspiration when thinking about ways of visualizing information and stories. Or on thinking about the question:
How can we use new media to represent human experience
in INFORMATION society in new ways?

For instance for the subjective mapping assignment this is an interesting example:

interesting links>广州撑你! guangzhou cheng ni

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:31:30 +0000

An interesting project, pointed out to me by Mónica Carriço of movingcities, is Guangzhou Supports You! It relates, in certain ways, to the subjective mapping assigment that we began this term with:

“Guangzhou Supports You!” works like this: the organizers supply a “Guangzhou Supports You!” graphic (see below) that serves as the essential element of the entire activity. Participants simply need to choose a corner, alley, place, space, etc. in Guangzhou, take a photo with the graphic appearing somewhere in the photo, and then upload the photo to the official “Guangzhou Supports You!” website to share their affection for Guangzhou with everyone – that’s it.

http://www.guangzhouchengni.com/

An interview with the initiatiors of this project can be found here:

english http://edge.neocha.com/interview-profile/interview-guangzhou-cheng-ni2-0/
中文 http://edge.neocha.com/zh/interview-profile/interview-guangzhou-cheng-ni2-0/

hao ning’s treasure hunt

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:56:48 +0000

Here are some pics from the “treasure hunt” that Hao Ning organized as her project for the subjective mapping assignment. (click on the images to enlarge)

Hao Ning hands out our maps…

the maps are studied…

and off everyone goes…

which direction to take?…

Nan has found another clue…

a next clue is found af t Ground Zero Space…

there’s some discussion…

and the prize is…listening to a song

the maps are collected…

tea afterwards is quickly replaced by beer!

interesting links>the instant hutong project

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:59:56 +0000

Another interesting example of subjective mapping, in this case of different hutongs in Beijing:

URBAN CARPETS
Series of 8 carpets representing different maps of Hutong areas with a size of approximately one square kilometre and a population of 30000. Each of them has been isolated and presented as autonomous town within the big city. They are embroidered by hand with the same technique of the propaganda slogans on large fabrics used by the communist party during the seventies. The carpets have been filled with white wire wool insertions. All along year 2009 the urban carpets will be shown to the Hutong dwellers inside the courtyards and on the public lanes in order to share the project with people and bring it back to the city districts it was inspired from.
Look at the different carpets here: red, cyan, brown, green, orange

IDENTITY
1500 red stamps on 1500 grey clay beijing bricks

Stamps have a central role in Chinese people’s life: they use them to confirm agreements and validate their actions. In a certain way loosing your stamp is like loosing your own identity. Each stamp is not carrying a name but it has been carved with a fragment of Hutong district map, a group of houses, a piece of city, to mark the relationship and identification between people and their living space. The installation is part of the Instant Hutong art project.
Look at the link here: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/identity/232326

Interesting links> The Last Tourist

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 05:18:37 +0000

To walk in a city without a set destination is relatively new. It was only in the twenties of the last century that the writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin invented the flaneur, a modern day man who went drifting trough the cities that emerged.

The website The Last Tourist is an example of mapping through writing stories and making drawings. It’s a project by Dutch artist Jan Rothuizen, who traversed the Chinese cities of the Pearl River Delta in 2005.
‘The last Tourist’ is an online passage along hand drawn maps, texts and photographs. This website provides a personal reading of the cities that write themselves.