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The
Mapping Projects:
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Introduction
Mapping
weekend Feb 04.
To
receive a copy of the mapping publication email jennie@jenniesavage.co.uk
The
mapping project sought to bring together a group of people for whom
mapping is a central theme or issue in their research. The aim of the
weekend was to create a dialogue within this context, that would examine
the multiple themes currently associated with both social and representational
hierarchies. Through my own work as a visual artist I have been exploring
the idea of the exploded map. That is, ways in which one can map a phenomena
across space and time, giving people a voice in the drawing of their
own map, and the recording of the qualitative details of place through
the act of storytelling and the creation of archives. Through these
projects I developed an interest in both the power structure of mapping
processes and the possibility of creating temporal maps, which act as
a documentary of a place.
It is through these interests that the mapping project evolved. I wanted
to create a platform where a diversity of practices could establish
a dialogue, focusing primarily on the idea of this new topographical
layer of social mapping and asking questions about our relationship
to this information and the technologies which have been developed to
record it. Each practitioner invited to take part in the project represented
a different approach to this context and in a sense this publication
is the result of that conversation.
The event took place over two days. On the first day each participant
ran a workshop or gave a presentation about an area of interest or a
process they had developed in relation to cartography. On the second
day of the project we went for a walk. Each "mapper" approached
the walk from the position of their own practice as an artist, writer,
geographer etc. We walked about half a mile in two hours stopping to
take photographs, climb on buildings, etc. But in fact much of the day
was spent talking to the other mappers and digesting the previous day’s
presentations.
The main discussions that arose from the debate focused on the idea
that this new territory being mapped was a conceptual territory. Where
as in previous communities local knowledge was shared and observed by
other community members, this new terrain is secret, hidden and a form
of social control through information. There was also lots of excitement
about GPS and wireless technologies which artists were using to "draw"
movements across a geographic terrain, questions about mapping an archaeology
of place and walking as a process. The map as an historical system of
signs was also discussed, as were personal and perceptual maps.
The weekend was a fascinating window into mapping practices and the
mapping publication has been produced in response to the weekend. Each
artist has included either text or a new piece of work that has been
made as a result of the mapping dialogue.
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Saturday
28/ 02/04
Outline of mapping weekend.
Studio 6, Chapter arts centre, Cardiff.
Artists
who took part in the project or contributed tot he publication
Day 1: (artists appear in order of presentations)
Workshop: Stefhan Caddick
Visual Artist/ Designer
Stefhan Caddick organised two workshops looking at ideas of core and
periphery. The first project was a word association game using the words
core and periphery to build a language framework around the two notions.
The second project invited other mappers to draw three maps, from different
ages (5 through to current age).
Stefhan Caddick is a visual artist based in Wales. His work is
multidisciplinary, encompassing visual art, new media and elements of
performance The work takes the form of manoeuvres; strategies or methodologies
which result in an action, installation, or other form of presentation;
He will adopt a methodology at the outset and then carry out his own,
self-imposed instructions until the task is complete. As a result, the
work is often as much an invitation to interrogate the methodology as
the direct experience of the work in the gallery or online space.
Links: www.useblackinkonly.com
Presentation:
Mike Pearson
Performance artist and lecturer.
Mike Pearson talked about the role of mapping in his work and in particular
matters of scale and approaches to a 'sense of place'. He also discussed
the notion of 'deep' mapping" and showed a video of his performance
"Bubbling Tom."
Followed by questions/ discussion.
I was born and brought up in a rural community in north Lincolnshire.
In 2000 I created and performed 'Bubbling Tom' (2000) in Hibaldstow
- the village in which I was raised - and I'm currently writing a book
on 'performance and land' that takes the form of a series of excursions
in that area. In the presentation I'll consider the role of mapping
in my work there and in particular matters of scale and approaches to
a 'sense of place'. And I'll discuss the notion of 'deep' mapping.
Mike Pearson is professor of performance studies at the University of
Wales
Aberystwyth.
Simon
Whitehead: Workshop
Movement artist
micro walks / remote instructions for the group:
1. solo exercise (a4 paper)
take 1 minute to draw the house you grew up in.
(eyes closed, non dominant hand)
2. collective exercise (one large sheet of paper on a table)
each person choose a position at the edge of the table, take 1 hour
to follow the movement of your pencil across the sheet of paper. The
pencil should continue to move slowly, walk in silence.
(non dominant hand).
© simon whitehead
Simon Whitehead is a movement artist based in west Wales.
www.untitledstates.net
www.ointment.org.uk
Saul Albert:Presentation.
Artist, Dorkbot organiser.
Saul presented, "a synthesis of various texts from the journal
Cartographica (see below) into a very quick tour through the cartographic
reformation of the 18th Century, the various academic attempts to 'deconstruct'
the map as an archive in the 60's and 70's, and an attempt to relate
pre-reformation cartographic tendencies to current political/artistic
and multiply subjective modes of mapping and information visualisation."
bibliographies:
* John H. Andrews, `Map and language: a metaphor extended', Cartographica
27, 1 (1990), 1-19.
* Barbara Belyea, `Images of power: Derrida/Foucault/Harley', Cartographica,
29, 2 (1992), 1-9.
* Denis Wood, 'The Fine Line Between Mapping and Mapmaking.' Cartographica
30, 4 (1993): 50-60
* J. Brian Harley, `Deconstructing the map'. Cartographica, 26, 2 (1989),
1-20.
Followed by a discussion
Saul is part of the cartographic congress and based at Limehouse town
hall (London). http://twenteenthcentury.com
Presentation: Lottie Child
Artist and lecturer.
Lottie showed images and video from a number of projects she has worked
on with children and young people using mapping techniques as a way
of challenging the heirachy’s present in schools and institutions.
Followed by questions.
Lottie Child is an artist and lecturer. As a founder member of the University
of Openness she co-organised the "Cartographic Congress" London.
She regularly climbs buildings and monuments in urban places. She is
based in and devoted to Limehouse Town Hall independent centre for cultural
production in London.
Lottie Child engages critically with projects in gallery education and
schools residencies as part of her art practice.
She is a member of the artists collective Twenteenth Century.
For more info http://twenteenthcentury.comPresentation: ARTMAP by Artstation.
Artists Glenn Davidson and Anne Hayes of Artstation were amongst the
first in Wales to use computing and software development in their work,
as part of installation, sculpture, video, media and web based work
. Their influences are conversation and cybernetics used to socially
engage their viewers. The artists presented ARTMAP their latest work.
Presentation: Heike
Roms
Lecturer and writer
Heike spoke about a performative mapping collaboration between artists
Simon
Whitehead (Wales) and Rachel Rosenthal (USA), entitled ‘The River’s
Journey’
and commissioned by the Restless Gravity Festival/ CPR in 2000-1. Heike
was
involved in this project as witness/ observer and accompanied the two
artists on
their journey along the river Ystwyth from its source in the Welsh uplands
to
its estuary in Aberystwyth. The Foot and Mouth crisis cast a shadow
over this
project and provoked a consideration of whether artistic counter-maps
are an
effective means of offering an alternative strategy for engaging with
our
environment.
Presentation: Ivan
Pope,
Artist
Ivan Pope spoke about how he is using GPS mapping systems in his work
and described his practice in relation to cartography.
"I have worked as an artist on and off since 1990. Sometimes I
go absent without leave.
This blog is intended to document my daily working routine alongside
everything else that goes into my creative life.
I am writing it because I believe that ordinarily next to nothing is
seen of a working routine. I am writing it because I want to study my
own working routine, to see what works and what doesn't. I aim to make
a living from my work. I want to use this blog to record my work, network,
publicise, comment and alter my life and working practice."
http://blog.ivanpope.com
http://www.ivanpope.com/tempor/cardiffmapping/
Presentation Derek
Mccormack:
Human Geographer.
Derek discussed how geographers have critically reflected upon the use
of maps and how they have begun to reimagine cartographic activity through
encounters with, amongst other things, artistic and performance-based
work. This was illustrated this through Derek’s research, interests
and activities in particular a project with dancers mapping space at
the white chapel.
Derek McCormack is a lecturer in human geography at the University of
Southampton. Among other things he is interested in the relations between
questions of space, affect, and the body.
Presentation: Neil
Jenkins
Artist
Neil presented his some of his most recent work which involves Pyscogeography,
programming, walks and web based projects that invite people to record
their own derive on a collective website.
Simon Pope
Simon Pope is an artist and NESTA Fellow. He lives and works in Cardiff
and
Brussels.
Simon Pope was unable to attend the workshop but has submitted a piece
of work which has been commissioned as part of Navigating History a
collaboration between Proboscis and Deborah Smith with East Sussex Record
Office in Lewes, Folkestone Library & Museum, West Sussex Local
Studies Collection in
Worthing Library.
The Worthing town
library provides the venue for Simon Pope's ' A Walk From London To
Worthing and Everywhere In Between'. Crossing the library's
lending, reference and local studies libraries, the walk is led by a
search
of the collections, looking for the facts and fictions that construct
our
ideas of London, Worthing and the relationships between them.
The walk is framed by our expectation of what the work of a walking
artist
should entail: endurance, exploration, endevour. In this case, the work
traverses the space of an information system, rather than geography;
the
movement between floors, shelves and books is reduced to a hand-drawn
line,
superimposed onto a map of the decimal classification system.
Commissioned for Navigating History, Oct. 2004.
URLs
http://www.ambulantscience.org/projects/navigating_history/radial_plot.html
http://navigating-history.net/
Phil Babot
Artist.
Phil Babot was unable to attend the weekend but has submitted a piece
of work. "Way Point" which is an excerpt from a project performed
by Babot at the 2004 National Eistedfodd in Newport, Wales.
Philip Babot creates live occurrences.
His physical and spiritual journeys evoke notions of universality, where
the necessity to commune with nature is revealed as an intrinsic element
of our humanity; as essential steps towards healing the planet through
maintaining equilibrium.Weekend organised and chaired by Jennie Savage,
artist and writer www.jenniesavage.co.uk
For more information about future mapping projects
e: jennie@jenniesavage.co.uk
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