For an art against the cartography of everyday life
2010-10-02 10:35:32 - by Nicolas Malevé

A beautiful synthesis of the questions surrounding the emergence a few years ago of Locative Media. By Rian Griffis.

«The title of this essay is a remix of the title of an essay by artist Martha Rosler originally published in 1979, “For an Art Against the Mythology of Everyday Life†. Rosler’s text is an engagement with what was then the emerging context now often referred to as “post-industrial globalization.†More specifically, it is an engagement from the perspective of someone attempting to make things – art works – that can “address these banally profound issues of everyday life, thereby revealing the public and political in the personal†. She was particularly interested in both the oppressive and potentially liberating aspects of “mass media.†Here, I want to take up where Rosler left off, discussing the potential of art, and technology, to “step toward reasonably and humanely changing the world†using the example of what is commonly referred to as “locative media.†»

Read online

Rian Griffis references a few interesting resources, among others a polemic started from Questioning the Frame a text by Coco Fusco. A good part of the responses are compiled here.

Of interest too is Drew Hemment’s The Locative Dystopia.

Haïti and the importance of open maps.
2010-02-08 11:30:32 - by Nicolas Malevé

A bit after the fact, but still very interesting information. How Openstreetmap has been used to help NGO’s work in Haiti after the earthquake. A specific webpage has been set up for the occasion: http://www.openstreetmap.org.ph/

A thorough article by Camille Gévaudan, in ecrans.fr (in French).

Other informations in opensource.com

Quick selection of images:

– Map showing the depth of flooding, using OSM road data.

– Port au Prince before and After

The Road Map by Multiplicity
2009-05-28 13:37:26 - by Antoine Berlon

The territories of Israel and Palestine are, in these days, a laboratory of the world. This is a region where, in few acres, an incredible variety of borders, enclosures, fences, chek points, and controlled corridors are concentrated. On january 13th and 14th 2003, we tried to measure with our EU passport, the density of border devices in the surronding area of Jerusalem. On january 13th we travelled on the highway 60, along with a person with an Israeli passport from the colony of Kiriat Arba to the colony of Kudmin. The following day, we travelled allong with a person with a Palestinian passport from the city of Hebron to the city of Nablus. The two routes both start and end in the same latitude ; at some points they overlap. Their travelling times are profoundly different...
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Cherry Blossoms- When war comes home
2009-05-06 17:05:39 - by Antoine Berlon

Le projet Cherry Blossoms (2007) d’Alyssa Wright témoigne, avec le projet « Dead in Irak  » de Joseph Delappe, d’un certain activisme outre-atlantique consistant àdéplacer le monde de la guerre làoù on ne l’attend pas, en faisant entrer en collision le quotidien des civils irakien vivant àBagdad avec l’univers du promeneur dans la ville de Boston, aux Etats-Unis, pour le premier, et avec l’univers des jeux vidéos pour le second.

S’inspirant d’un mashup cartographique de l’artiste Paula Levine (Illustration 2) superposant la carte de Bagdad àcelle de San Francisco - et qui n’est pas sans rappeler certaines expériences de dérives situationnistes - Alissa Wright amplifie l’impact du rapprochement des réalités irakiennes et américaines en inscrivant, àBoston, des événements - explosion d’un sac àdos rempli de confettis quand le marcheur rencontre dans son parcours la localisation relative d’un décès (par GPS) suite àun attentat recensé par les informations - dans la marche du visiteur, proposant ainsi une singulière expérience d’ubiquité et d’empathie. Elle espère par làmême donner aux citoyens américains une idée plus juste d’une réalité qu’ils sous-estiment - en raison d’un certain contrôle médiatique - àsavoir celle des victimes civiles de la seconde guerre du Golfe àBagdad.
http://www.hyperurbain.org/