En 1929 la revista Variétés publicaba un insólito «Mapa del mundo en la época de los surrealistas», cuya cartografía dislocada, de fronteras sorprendentes, anunciaba otras futuras puestas en cuestión de las prácticas narrativas consensuadas en nuestra cultura. Y es que transgredir el mapa equivale a revisar el mundo, porque el mapa no es sino el producto de cierto diseño «a la carta» que se propone e impone desde el poder. El cartógrafo no es el ser ausente y omnisciente que ha tratado de presentar la tradición: la geografía es combativa. Siguiendo el rastro de las cartografías codificadas, el presente libro plantea el uso de los mapas entre los artistas actuales como un arma arrojadiza contra las narrativas impuestas y sus trampas, implícitas y heredadas. Se trata de abordar el análisis de las metáforas espaciales, mostrando la imposibilidad de que puedan presentarse como formulaciones neutrales, apolíticas.

The author comments in El País newspaper, 09/04/2008:

“Nos hacen creer que el mundo es abarcable. El que controla el mapa tiene el poder y a la vez todo lo que contiene es un misterio”. [...]
“La pintura holandesa recoge en sus paisajes de interiores el afán de poseer el espacio. Recordemos esos retratos de nobles y señores de la época cuyas manos siempre están próximas a un globo terráqueo, el mundo que gobernaban”.

• Strategies, tools and examples of subversive remapping.
• Show, exploiting or reconciling discrepancies in collaborative mapping.
• Altering the perception of the physical environment: hybrid interfaces and tactics.

In parallel we will run a workshop that will address the production and design of location-based experiences, using mobile devices and theMscape software.

Full program and registration (free) in the arteleku website.

The meeting will feature the following speakers:

Dick van Dijk is concept developer at Waag Society. Waag Society is an Amsterdam based Medialab investigating the interplay of culture and technology in relation to society, education, culture and healthcare. Waag Society wishes to make a contribution to the design of the information society by looking at the possibilities of people, their creativity and culture.

Dick has particular responsibilities for Waag Society’s programme on narrativity, exploring the use of narrative structures in new media. Among Dick’s projects are several location-based projects. Dick studied business economics and history of art. www.waag.org

Lize Mogel is an interdisciplinary artist who works with the interstices between art and cultural geography. She inserts and distributes and cartographic projects into public space and via publications. She is co-editor of the book/map collection “An Atlas of Radical Cartography” and co-curator of the exhibition “An Atlas”, which is touring nationally. She also co-curated “Genius Loci”, an exhibition of conceptual mappings of Los Angeles (Sci-Arc, Los Angeles, California Museum of Photography, Riverside). She has also worked with groups including the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Exhibitions include the Gwangju Bienniale (South Korea,) common room (NYC), Overgaden (Copenhagen), and “Experimental Geography” (touring). She has received grants from the Jerome Foundation, the LEF Foundation, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Danish Arts Council for her work. www.publicgreen.com www.an-atlas.com

Fabien Girardin is a researcher and engineer at Lift lab, a research agency he co-founded. He studies and provokes the interplay between urban infrastructures, ubiquitous technologies and people practices. His research employs qualitative observations to gain insights from the integration and user appropriation of technologies in urban environments. Subsequently, Fabien mixes the gained knowledge with engineering techniques to foresee and prototype ideas and solutions for designers, urban service providers, city planners and decision makers.

Giles Lane founded and co-directs Proboscis. He leads its research programme (SoMa) as well as directing major projects and initiatives such as Social Tapestries, Urban Tapestries and Mapping Perception. Giles founded and edited COIL journal of the moving image, co-edited Ghost Stories by Pavel Büchler, conceived the DIFFUSION eBook format and the eBook Generator and designed the StoryCubes format. Between 1998 and 2002 Giles worked at the Royal College of Art, first in the Computer Related Design Research Studio (1998-2001), and latterly as a Research Fellow in the School of Communications. Giles is a Research Associate with MEDIA@LSE, the media and communications department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Giles is currently a visiting tutor on the MA Design Course at Goldsmiths College, University of London and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2008.

Julius von Bismarck presented last year his work Fulgurator, a modified camera that detects the camera flash of nearby people to project an image in the environment for milliseconds. The result, ghostly and unexplained apparitions in the photographs taken by those around him. With its gleaming interventions, Julius seeks to transform our relationship with objects, people and spaces around us that we assumed well known.