Fudge the Facts

Map Fest took place at Mediamatic Bank on July 6, 8 and 9.

The second evening of Map Fest was dedicated to Mapping for Clarity. Guests were Richard Rogers, Catalogtree and De Geuzen. Urban sociologist and researcher Merijn Oudenampsen moderated the evening.

Our talk was titled: Cartographies and Patterns: a view from the ladder

For this talk we spoke about decoupling mapping and mastery by moving through two of our projects, Looping the Hoep and Unravelling Histories. We discussed cartography as a form of undoing, in other words as a means of questioning territories as opposed to defining them. Maps have always been connected to authority; empires have defined themselves from a cartographical point of view. Borders are drawn and assurance is had through knowing exactly what belongs where. But there are other kinds of maps that are driven by curiosity and charted from a more intimate perspective. Without a bird’s-eye view, a point is drawn and a line is traced. Like Maria Reiche who mapped the Nazca lines while standing on a ladder, the scale and destination are not foreseeable, and the route is measured in close proximity to the body.

(Pattern) The Dress of Here, There and Other Dislocations: Unravelling History:

Badges which were a part of the souvenir package for the project, Looping the Hoep:

Ada Lovelace Pledge 2010

A few but not all of the women I admire:

Laurie Anderson, Femke Snelting, Maryanne Amacher, Allucquere Rosanne (Sandy) Stone , Donna Haraway, Ruth Catlow, Karin Spaink, Josephine Bosma, Steina Vasulka, Charlotte Moorman, Annie Abrahams, Olia Lialina, Rita Raley, Katherine Hayles, Kate Pullinger , Caitlin Fisher, Amanda Steggell, Ellen Røed, Michelle Teran, Mez Breeze , Aileen Derieg and too many more to list :)

The Global Anxiety Monitor by De Geuzen

ON GAPS AND SILENT DOCUMENTS
9 > 14 February 2010
STUK arts centre Leuven
go to site

In On Gaps and Silent Documents international artists question the absence of documents and data in archives, data banks and memory. What is missing? Has it never been there or has it been removed? Does available information exist that is not looked at, read or used? Archives and data banks are primarily determined by these gaps and silent documents. As Sven Spieker notes, “Archives are less concerned with memory than with the necessity to discard, erase, eliminate.” Creating archives is continual selection. As such, it reveals the priorities and blind spots of the keeper of the archives, his world and his time.

Since the beginning of time, ‘forgetting’ was always the norm. ‘Remembering’ was the exception. In this age of continuously transforming technology and worldwide networks, this balance seems to be shifting. Is it true that in our time, with its excessive storage capacity, everything is obsessively being saved? More and more, we face the question of whether we have the right to create our own gaps, to silence documents and erase our own traces. Privacy, intellectual property and censorship in our digital networked society require different and complex solutions.

On Gaps and Silent Documents uses ‘new’ and ‘old’ media and technologies, such as the Internet, websites, Google, newspapers, texts, books, film and video, photography, music scores, sound, telephones, Twitter, online newsgroups, printers, microfilm, light, computers, etc., to approach this theme from different (sometimes paradoxical) perspectives and question it in spatial installations, presentations and performances.

Artists: Alfredo Jaar - Sharon Daniel - Mariana Castillo Deball - Manfred Werder - Yann Sérandour - Haris Epaminonda & Daniel Gustav Cramer - Daniel Knorr - Anita Di Bianco - Sebastian Romo - Lisa Oppenheim - Joseph Cornell - Jonas Mekas - deepblue - Rafael Lozano-Hemmer - Elmgreen & Dragset- Christian Andersson - Yunchul Kim - Carlos katastrofsky - Jens Wunderling - de Geuzen - Hasan Elahi - Ben Rubin - Antoni Muntadas - | performance |Ellen Fullman & Konrad Sprenger - Luis Recoder / Sandra Gibson / Ben Owen - Martin Nachbar - deepblue - William Hooke

What a loss. She was simply an amazing conceptual sound artist. For me, definitely a female icon. Here is an article about her in The Wire, Expressway to Your Skull.

Wearable Resistance is an ongoing research thread within De Geuzen’s practice. It started off as an impossible proposal, a desire to transform the body into a billboard made of lights. Read more…

Now at HTTP Gallery:
Do It With Others (DIWO)
at the Dark Mountain
A Mail-Art project across physical and digital networks

I have a mix within the mix and it can be found online here. Although the experience was too short, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it with others!