[Synapse elist] On mapping as an artistic language

[Allard van Hoorn]

Dear list readers and fellow guests,

It has been a pleasure reading your input as the discussion so far has been
raising questions for me about the way artistic language can make use of
mapping as a way of testing some of the characteristics that were mentioned
so far by for example Simeon regarding the use of memory as a mapping tool.

In art there is a long history in creating alternative systems of
representation that can be seen a ways of re-appropriating meaning or
alternative ways of describing territory.

Drawing from memory has been one of the exercises used by the artist Tobias
Rehberger who went to Asia and drew from his mind construction plans for the
sports cars of his youth. The cars that were built according to his drawings
and then exhibited to me were a way of mapping the function of memory and
the state it is in in it's current time. That is to say, how well does the
memory function and why. Rehberger seems to do a pretty good job, the
Porsche he had built looks awkwardly similar enough to be recognized
although problems occur. His car-as-a-map-of-a-chldhood-memory might be
accurate only to the level of information it required Rehberger to sustain
his memory for the purpose of maybe nostalgia. In other words his brain
invested just enough energy in that specific memory as to sustain the
function of the memory.

The more important the memory of an object or in case of the Inuit the
landscape becomes the better the brain has to specialize towards this
function. Nomadic peoples without written language rely heavily on their
systems of mapping. It can be of life-saving importance to remember exactly
where certain essentials like food, drinking water or other important
resources can be found. The memory becomes specialized in cartography if the
body that maintains it depends on it, aided often by songs which become the
maps themselves. Aboriginals use not only songs to describe the physical
properties of the land but also incorporate a system of descriptive tonality
in their Songlines that allow them to understand how the landscape looks by
interpreting the way the tones literally describe the visual e.g. a long
flat tone for open space etc. This allows them to understand how the
landscape looks in a part of their Songline where another language is
spoken.

So the ability to apply mental mapping and in which way might depend on the
way a territory is navigated and traveled. Navigating the United Kingdom by
roadmap, train tables and subway maps might be the adjusted cartographic
representation that render Simeon's students unable to draw the true outline
of their country.

Artist investigate this language of representation by testing the
functionality of mapping. For New York's Conflux Festival, a coming together
of artists who work with Psycho-Geographical systems, artist Lee Walton did
a performance called "Giving it up for life" where he was seen making a
final round in Union Square park, walking away never to set foot in the park
ever again, effectively excluding it from his world map. This is a way of
inverted cartography that erases rather than draws and to me represents an
idea of awareness about liberty of movement related to territory. Where can
we go and where not and how does this develop through time?

My own current exercise is about the language of representation where I use
a Pantone color guide to map cities by their color. For me this is a way of
re-thinking the way we usually map our environment using either a
cartographic approach or alternative systems like navigating routes like bus
lines. 

I'll leave at this for now.

All the best,

Allard

http://www.allardvanhoorn.com