Glowlab

F Train Map Rendering

The New York Times on the Web has a great map rendering by Danny Gregory of the F Train line. I think I worked with the guy from York Street...

You Are Here

I just got a book that a few readers might enjoy. You Are Here, Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katharine Harmon shows a vast collection of drawings that blend between psychogeography and cartography. What is truely beautiful about this book is that Ms. Harmon juxtaposes maps from the 1700s with maps from contemporary interests that speak of parallel topics. The comparable topics show how cartography and psychological aspects have long lasting interactions beyond a contemporary interest. Recommended to me by Lori Napoleon with good reason. Thanks Lori!

Psy-Geo Provflux

Psy-Geo Provflux is having a call for entries for a May 14-15 show in Providence, RI. Hosted by 2003 Conflux participants PIPS, the Provflux will be a "two day event investigating how the urban landscape of Providence affects its social and artistic community."

In addition to the object/project exhibition, PIPS is publishing a newpaper called Crosswalk. If you have psychogeographic content in literary form, please e-mail your submission to PIPS.

The deadlines for entries have been extended. Contact PIPS for exact details.

Project exhibition excerpt:

"Know any lost or forgotten spaces? The Psy-Geo Provflux is a two day event investigating how the urban landscape of Providence affects its social and artistic community.
PIPS is currently reviewing proposals for the Psy-Geo Provflux, which will take place in Providence from May 14-15. We're interested in public-space projects (drifts/derives, mapping experiments, fieldwork, mill tours, temporary installations, recycled materials projects, performances, interventions, mobile-tech/GPS projects, audio/visual works) as well as artist presentations, workshops and lectures that adddress issues of psychogeography."

Literary exhibition excerpt:

Crosswalk, a publication discussing current issues and events in urban psychogeography, will make its debut in conjunction with the Psy-Geo Provflux. The first issue will focus on defining psychogeography in the context of its affect on the creative process. It will feature the Provflux, including maps and schedules for the events, artist's statements, and general dialogue about how and why artists choose the city as the canvas for their work."

International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance

International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance is being held in Toronto's Colony Hotel on April 12, 2004.

"IWIS 2004 will be a small intimate discussion group, limited to 25 participants who will explore topics including: Recording experiences in which you are a participant; Ethical, legal, and policy issues; Privacy and related technosocial issues; Person-to-person sharing of personal experiences; Lifelong Image Capture: data organization; Social Issues: fashion, design, acceptability and human factors; Psychogeography, location-based wearable computing; and Augmented/Mediated/Diminished Reality, among others."

Follow the link above to more links about the event and a more indepth explanation.

New Sound, New York

New Sound, New York is a city-wide festival of performances, installations and public dialogues, featuring new works by sound artists who are exploring fresh connections among music, architecture and the visual arts. Running March 30-May 16, 2004, the festival is organized by The Kitchen and The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, in conjunction with eleven arts organizations: Art in General, Charles Morrow Associates Inc., Creative Time, Dancing in the Streets, Diapason Gallery, free103point9, Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center, Hugh L. Carey Battery Park City Authority, PhenomenArts, Inc., SculptureCenter, World Financial Center Arts & Events Program.

All the events happening here are promising to be great. Music and architecture have a close relationship in this show, which makes for the consideration of people in "space and place" (psychogeographic interests) a predominant feature here, although not acknowledged by the text shown in the website. The Live Performances section features a project called tune(in))) the kitchen in which Conflux participant Free 103point9 is participating. christopher janney: sonic forest '04, o+a (bruce odland and sam auinger): blue moon and shirazeh houshiary: breath (2004) are a few other projects that intially caught my interest.

Poke around this site and if you are in NYC, definitly check out the show. For more info go to: The Kitchen.

Sidewalkers behaving badly

"The most obnoxious situation is to be stuck behind human barricades of three or four people who are sauntering down the sidewalk, sometimes amicably talking among themselves, oblivious to the bustle of humanity all around them. They exist in an ignorant bliss that as New Yorkers and Americans we have a duty to destroy."

Please -- learn how to walk already. Read 'City Sidewalks, Cluttered Sidewalks' by Matthew Sheahan.

the Degree Confluence Project

the Degree Confluence Project is a project that could motivate any psychogeographer to get up and out into the world. "The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here."

If anyone is thinking about a road trip, check this site first to see if you can contribute to the project. "The project is an organized sampling of the world. There is a confluence within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you're on the surface of Earth. We've discounted confluences in the oceans and some near the poles, but there are still 13,223 to be found."

Take a look at New York State to get an idea (locally) of what this project is about. Also, New Jersey has one spot left. Looks like a nice derive for a weekend...

Christian Nold Interaction Design RCA

Christian Nold Interaction Design RCA allows the late nights of derive-hungry psychogeographers the opportunity to create their own virtual adventures. This quick download reveals the potential for a viewer to dictate the potential happenings in spaces, but also to see the variety of gatherings for a single place.

The programming might be of interest for the technology gurus reading this, simply because the program is quasi-tracking/voyerism/technology driven. What can you see and predict for a place in a digitally rendered world? How much detail do you want to know, or how fast do you want the new scenarios to take place? Could new scenarios be made with GPS/Bluetooth phones or GPS JPEG images? Each of the aspects are pieces to a whole program that delivers predictable results, but in being a compilation the results keep the viewer/participant engaged.

For the not-so-technology driven readers (my group), this simple program allows an interaction with a space that has obvious limits due to it's digital nature, yet it retains enough allure to keep us clicking away. I do not really know what all the possibilities are for this program, but if I feel the need to people watch at 3am, Christian Nold Interaction Design RCA allows me to dictate the crowds.

made for walking [and talking]

We need a pair of these....

SEVEN MILE BOOTS. SIEBEN MEILEN STIEFEL . SEITSEMN MAILIN SAAPPAAT
"Seven mile boots, the magical footwear known from folk tales, enables its owner to travel seven miles with one step. With little effort one can cross the countries, to be present wherever it seems suitable and to become a cosmopolitan flaneur with the world as the street."

The project SEVEN MILE BOOTS is a pair of interactive shoes with audio. One can wear the boots, walk around as a flaneur simultaneousy in the physical world and in the literal world of the internet. By walking in the physical world one may suddenly encounter a group of people chatting in real time in the virtual world. The chats are heard as a spoken text coming from the boots. Wherever you are with the boots, the physical and the virtual worlds will merge together.

[thanks for that to Kate Armstrong via the Socialfiction list.]

subk.net - maps

Mapsproject is a project by Lori Ann Napoleon taking hand drawn maps she comes across that people make for her of spaces she is new to. "I collect personal maps people draw. one's memory and perception of a place is very personal, so each is a reflection, however small or large, of how the individual connects to their environment: knowing, organizing, and understanding it."

Cartography has two sides: the GIS precision and the psychogeographic personal experience. Lori Napoleon's Mapsproject shows the potential for the psychogeographer in all of us to be revealed in the sketches we make when we try to orient ourselves in an urban environment.

The commentary reveals Napoleon's interest and relationship in each drawing while also raising the issue of what details are truely important in a traditional map. Napoleon has found each map has a focus of its own whereas once the maps are placed together, the collection reveals an aspect of her personality. In this realization, Napolean acknowledges the potential of this collection to be an evolving piece. In her continuing additions to the site, the collection has the ability to reveal not only the places she has been, but her habits within spaces (which it is already revealing her preferences for record stores) and her actions within the spaces; a true psychogeographic examination of herself.