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 collection_agency
Location: montreal
Gender: Female
 |  | mapping UE
< on 7/2/2004 6:42 PM >
|  | | | i was just reading Ninjalicious`description of how the Situationist International movement in France and Scandinavia, 1950`s-60`s, and contemporary EU are quite aligned in their objectives. the one main difference, it seems to me, is that the Situationists manifest or expressed their urban explorations or `derives` as `psychogeographical maps` -- ink-stains, sketches, and photo-collages that became important and interesting graphic evidence of their discoveries.
i am really interested in how UE seems to exist, at this point, without much varied documentation -- this and other websites with text and photo galleries seem to be the best mode of documenting UE from place to place.
if maps are considered as the `ground` or the graphic status quo, then UE activity, which is decidedly underground, brings the graphic conventions of maps into question-critique.
are there any Urban Explorers who are making graphic documentations or records or their explorations? i know that the Space-Invaders make maps of their interventions, but as ceramic-grafitti artists, their ethics differ somewhat from UE as stated on this site.
i think this graphic issue is especially interesting considering the rule against specifying access points to sites. but in such a visually-oriented society, i`m wondering why UE is remaining largely as text-conversation.
[last edit 7/2/2004 6:46 PM by collection_agency - edited 1 times]
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Ben
  
Noble Donor
Location: Mojave Desert
Gender: Male
| |  | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 1 on 7/2/2004 7:10 PM >
|  | | | Psychogeography is about feeling of a view or location, so a map based upon it would be useless to any other person at any other time. It would be interesting to make one, to see what could be done with it.
I had an idea for remote user-driven psychogeographical mapping. The walker would walk around with a laptop with wireless internet connection, and a digital camera. He would occasionally stop and take two or three photos of directions he could go, and the users on his website would vote, live, for the direction that was most appealing to them. He would then take that direction, and his trajectory would be plotted on his site via GPS as a low bandwidth video was streamed from hs camera. After some arbitrary or even random distance, he would stop and repeat the vote.
Some people overlay the direction of the photographs they take of a location over a map of the location. Since a photographer only takes pictures that interest them, or that they think will interest other people, this is a sort of phycheographical map.
Normal maps, showing a trip, or documenting a mine or steam tuunnel system, are much more common than anything else. Mine and drain maps are generally not shared publically online, because it gives away the location. An unfinished map displays some level of psychogeography, in that unexplored parts were less appealing than explored parts--for whatever reason-and that's why they're unmapped and mapped, respectively.
[last edit 7/2/2004 10:12 PM by Ben - edited 2 times]
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collection_agency
Location: montreal
Gender: Female
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 3 on 7/2/2004 7:27 PM >
| | | | but it`s also a general query about any visual or graphic culture emerging with UE activity.
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Asylunt
Location: MPLS
Gender: Male
The Friendly Beer!
| | |  | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 4 on 7/2/2004 9:23 PM >
| | | | Collection_agency,
This has to be one of the best threads I've read in a long time. Very intelligent post.
Ninj,
Thanks for putting that up, I highly enjoy the ideas and concepts presented.
Asylunt
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain |
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Ben
Noble Donor
Location: Mojave Desert
Gender: Male
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 5 on 7/2/2004 10:16 PM >
| | | | I edited my post above a bit. I typed it as fast as possible at break, and it was a bit ugly.
The specific Usufruct entry being discussed is on its own page here: http://infiltration.org/usufruct/archives/000192.html
Get Petr Kazil in here, he's been the most vocal proponent of and experimenter in psychogeography I've heard.
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Slim Jim
 
Noble Donor
Location: St. Paul, MN
Gender: Male
Maze is 100% done now!!! Someday when it's -10 out and the generators won't start I might upload th
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 6 on 7/2/2004 10:37 PM >
| | | | Wow, this is really interesting stuff.
I absolutely LOVE maps. It's wired into my brain. Most, but not all, of why I love UE relates to maps and psychogeography. And it doesn't stop at UE locations only. I can stare at a map of my home state of Iowa for hours and not get bored. If I'm planning on going from point A to point B, or even if there's a chance that some time in the future I'll be going from point A to point B, and there's time (rarely, heh), I'll calculate miles vs. speed limits of the different routes (if there's more than one that's practical) to figure out which one's fastest, even if they're only 2-4 minutes time difference. This is in cases where there are different routes that could be close, timewise. On the flipside, if I'm not in a hurry, I'm excited to take detours, or a different, longer, route altogether to see different scenery.
Also, visiting a UE location, or city with interesting streets for that matter, without a map is often much more exciting than with a map, or at least after looking at the map, because you have no clue what's around that next corner or how far that tunnel (or street) will go. Despite this, I'll make an effort to get a map of any city or underground site that I plan on visiting. There are advantages to both.
A group of us are in the process of mapping out a decent-sized UE site, and although a map exists somewhere, it's still really fun to map it out ourselves. Not to mention that it would take an unknown amount of effort to acquire said map, if it's even possible.
Would be curious to see how many other UErs are very interested in maps.
I want to be different. But I want to be different just like everybody else, because if I really were different, everybody would think I was crazy and weird.
Iowa is Minnesota's bitch. There's an art to pooping. |
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xrahy
 
Noble Donor
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 7 on 7/2/2004 10:56 PM >
| | | | excellent topic collection_agency, and thanks for the link Ninjalicious. I have had a map fetish ever since I can remember, and like Slim Jim, I can be perfectly entertained pouring over maps and atlas for hours. The concept of a 'psychgeographic' map is one that I would like to incorporate into a website, should I eventually create one.
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DjMalign
Location: Fort Collins, CO
Gender: Male
Sexy, sexy, sexy
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 8 on 7/2/2004 11:33 PM >
| | | | its a great idea. The journey to the site is often half the fun, especially sites that are hard to get to.
I hate all of you |
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Freak
Location: Usually Alaska, now MSP.
Gender: Male
Hypocrite
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 9 on 7/3/2004 4:24 AM >
| | | | I also enjoy making and reading maps. I especially like creating maps and then comparing them to official maps (if available) to see how accurate I've been, if there are things I've missed, or more interstingly, if there are things I've found that aren't on the official map. I've done this with a mine near here, I was later able to find the survey map that showed I've been pretty accurate. I haven't yet gotten my hands on an official copy of my campus tunnel map, but I know mine is probably much more detailed in showing connections, alternate routes, abandoned sections, gates, doors, vents, hazards, interesting features, and odd forgotten areas. Right now I'm trying to get my hands on a 3-D map that I once saw of an extensive mine system nearby, since the mine has over 100 miles of tunnels I'm a bit hesitant to explore it without this map (which also shows unstable or collapsed sections). I'll probably end up going anyway since I don't think the entrances will remain open too long.
I'm also thinking of getting some 3D mapping software for my pocket PC, has anyone played around with something like that?
Turn off the internet and go play outside.
http://spamusement...hp/comics/view/137 |
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ravuya
Location: Cowtown
Gender: Male
Proud Communist OS User
| | | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 10 on 7/4/2004 3:13 PM >
| | | | This is a really interesting thread.
I've considered building computer-based maps for a number of downtown locations around here, including the plus 15 system. I especially like the "vote where I go next" concept -- which could easily be realized if you had a wireless link back to your car, which then would have a stronger wireless link to someone's stupidly unprotected wi-fi router.
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collection_agency
Location: montreal
Gender: Female
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 11 on 7/5/2004 4:27 PM >
| | | | but what if UE activity started manifesting itself in maps that became its own official graphic language, and less an activity that always affirmed its marginality through relating itself to 'official' maps, and consequently the 'official' built environment. implicit in OS maps, or common street maps, are attitudes that are not necessarily aligned with UE. just like an urban planning proposal or an architectural design, what is considered unimportant, or ideally eliminated, is not represented.
i just read an article by Diana Agrest called 'The City as the Place of Representation.' thinking about UE as i was reading, made me more excited about the powerful and subversive potential in making UE activity into a form of representation - or mapping. in her article, Agrest says that 'urban chaos' is a 'new kind of order.' by this, she largely means a 'non-urban' realm 'in which accessibility and not proximity' are important. the 'non-urban' realm is that which we know through disembodied representations, computer renderings, media, especially television.
while i see where Agrest is coming from, i also see movements like UE where people are driven to physically connect with, explore and document the very, very urban environment - ruinous, derelict, abandoned, decaying buildings. while the 'non-urban' type of representation is based on non-physical relationship and visual idealization, the UE environment is characterized by the extreme opposite - the residual traces of life, refuse, decay. it is this extreme opposite perception of the city that i think is important to reflect in some form of representation - mapping. maps of disorder, maps of decay. is there a more systematic way to do this beyond the current photo and conversation exchange?
also, in my original message i referred to the space-invaders as a community somewhat similar to UE, but exercising map-technique-making. their website is great:
www.space-invaders.com
[last edit 7/5/2004 4:31 PM by collection_agency - edited 3 times]
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quirk
Location: Ypsilanti, Michigan
Gender: Male
You are special.
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 12 on 7/7/2004 7:09 AM >
| | | | I found this project on Slashdot yesterday:
http://urbantapestries.net/
here's the slashdot link:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/06/0418230&mode=thread&tid=137&tid=193&tid=215
Basically, the goal is to create a method by which an individual can leave an electronic note in a physical location (using a cell phone, laptop, etc), so that when someone else comes near that coordinate they can read it. The technology is pretty straightforward, and basically it just keeps track of where you are when you write a 'note', and then alerts others in the future that a note is there for the reading.
it would certainly seem to have some applications for UE, in my opinion, such as historical information and safety warnings.
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collection_agency
Location: montreal
Gender: Female
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 13 on 7/7/2004 3:04 PM >
| | | | thanks for the link, quirk.
the Urban Tapestries software and the idea of 'Public Authoring' that it promotes is very interesting and the website is very persuasive. i look forward to the report that it will publish from the june trial in london.
it comes as no surprise that UT is supported by the telecommunications companies, Orange and France Telecom, as well as Ordnance Survey. coming from a primary interest in the actual form of graphic (or other) representation of the city, UT is not so innovative. rather, it reaffirms the significance of the already ubiquitous and status quo street map (one product of Ordance Survey). the forms of representation that the users are able to contribute on top of the street maps are not that different from the forms UE members use on this site - text, photos, and descriptions of locations, although in UT the locations are more precise, as circles on maps. so ultimately, i think it`s super interesting and fabulous in principle but lazy and disappointing in representational innovation.
it reminds me of a similar project undertaken in berlin called urban diary:
http://www.urban-diary.de/
check it out. the whole idea was to make a public forum in a central subway stop for people to send SMS text messages about their daily experiences, opinions, etc, in the city, and they would be digitally posted on a screen.
in both cases, the assumption that mobile phones are a democratic way to participate in public-urban dialogue is very, in my experience, european. there, mobile phones are just a given. everyone has one or two with many functions - phone, text, data storage, photos, email.
regardless, i feel that relying on given technologies restricts imaginations in terms of how things could be represented.
[last edit 7/7/2004 3:06 PM by collection_agency - edited 1 times]
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uair01
Location: Rotterdam.NL
Gender: Male
-=|x|=-
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 14 on 7/7/2004 7:37 PM >
| | | | There is a very nice mapping project here:
http://www.oneblockradius.org/obr.html
One Block Radius, a project of Brooklyn artists Christina Ray and Dave Mandl [known collaboratively as Glowlab], is an extensive psychogeographic survey of the block where New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art will build a new facility in late 2004.
Engaging a variety of tools and media such as blogs, video documentation, maps, field recordings & interviews, Glowlab creates a multi-layered portrait of the block as it has never been seen before [and will never be seen again].
"Not to look behind a door is an insult to the door, and the reality it is hiding." |
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quirk
Location: Ypsilanti, Michigan
Gender: Male
You are special.
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 15 on 7/7/2004 9:45 PM >
| | | | Jacob Riis and others were creating 'Psychogeographic' maps as early as the nineteenth century (although they didn't use the term), in an effort to catalogue the economic conditions in specific areas as it related directly to the quality of life, and as such also the emotional effects upon the population. Riis's masterwork "How the other half lives" includes detailed mapping techniques to describe the physical marginalization of specific demographic groups, and the effects of that marginalization.
Personally, while I like the spirit of this thread, I must confess to some cynicism regarding 'psychogeography' as a serious movement, and feel it should instead be a fairly innocent adjective to describe characteristics of certain mapping systems.
While most UE-types would simply love to convince themselves of operating in some dark underbelly of reality, completely divorced from society and needing their own language and cartographic systems by which they can find identity, I think this is at best an attitude of ignorance, and at worst one of egotism. We're human beings, we use human maps, we use human technology. Maybe the maps are antique (old factories, remote rural locations), or obscurely specialized (drain systems, steam tunnels), but when we use them we're employing the same tools (just like flashlights, the internet, and automobiles) as the rest of humanity. I wouldn't want to trade a decent map for something bordering on bad surrealist poetry to get myself from point A to point B, and I certainly wouldn't denegrate the skill required to produce 'mainstream' mapping systems throughout the history of mankind.
I also must take issue with the above complaint that employing existing technologies to do new things isn't 'innovative' enough. Most development technologically requires a very slow proccess of finding new uses for old tools, reconfiguring components, and then refining the design. I don't think that a creative application for something like a cell phone should be dismissed due to their ubiquity, as this was the same attitude many had when George Eastman patented flexible film and enabled an explosion in the amount of photographic documentation of our world- "Imagine all the bad pictures that will be taken!", screamed his critics. I own photographs of my family going back to the earliest days of 'amateur photography', and I can assure you that even the worst of them provides me with emotional, historical, and even cartographic information that I find invaluable.
Certainly, I agree that mapping should have much more value and application than simply providing a geographic location- but I regard that the process of improving on it should be one of an additive nature and not a reinvention of the wheel. For example- take a camera, add a GPS, link it via phone to a large computer network, and allow text/audio input (and possibly biodata of the user). The resulting triangulation of such a project would be a far superior mapping system than anything currently employed, and with an added fourth dimension of dated entries would provide a much more realistic interpretation of human data than anything I see any of the above-mentioned 'psychogeographic' 'artistes' producing.
That's my 2 cents.
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uair01
Location: Rotterdam.NL
Gender: Male
-=|x|=-
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 16 on 7/8/2004 5:43 PM >
| | | | 1) Sociologically speaking - I think UA / UE is an upper middle classhobby. In general the lower classes prefer hobbies that are useful in some way (example: kick boxing) while the upper classes have the luxury of engaging in not useful hobbies (example: aikido). In this model UA / UE is a totally non-useful hobby.
2) Maps are fascinating because of their information denseness. And they are pointers to the unknown : wow I really want to go there or I'm curious how it looks like there.
3) In the practice of UA / UE maps are of little use. All the locations in Rotterdam I've found by hard footwork. Just driving around until you stumble on a good location. - Still I can spend a pleasant hour with a map of Rotterdam.
4) UA / UE locations live on the boundary between living space and dead / empty space. Maps don't show that kind of information.
5) The closest to my ideal map is not a map at all - but a book. It's
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375753850/ref=ase_wwwlink-software-21/202-5620509-0182214. This maps an area in it's entirety - history, fiction, fact, people emotions etc.
6) The other map I'm fascinated with is : http://www.confluence.org
7) But one of the best "mappers" is CLUI http://www.clui.org/. See for example : http://www.clui.org/clui_4_1/ondisplay/owens/index.html and read the description of the expedition. Or this one : http://www.clui.org/clui_4_1/pro_pro/extrap/proj/submer/subbur.html
8) One of the individual mappers that I like is forgotten NY http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SUBWAYS/connectingrailroad/connectingrailroad.html
End of brainstorm ... mapping / UA / UE is a broad subject IMHO
[last edit 7/8/2004 7:26 PM by uair01 - edited 1 times]
"Not to look behind a door is an insult to the door, and the reality it is hiding." |
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collection_agency
Location: montreal
Gender: Female
| | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 17 on 7/9/2004 3:50 PM >
| | | | firstly, in response to quirk`s recent comments -- i completely agree and uderstand where you`re coming from. in no way am i suggesting that we should 'reinvent the wheel' where cartography is concerned. i am simply advocating a plurality, because i know that there are alot of ways that people document or 'map' places, i would like to know how this variety of methods of map-making are made manifest graphically. i am not anti-OS by any means, but i am cautious and skeptical towards any media that seems to have a complete monopoly over people's opinions and perceptions. there are many types of accuracies, and depending on what one is looking for, a map that gets you from A to B may not have any qualitative importance, relevance or use, as mentioned in the last posting.
'psychogeography' was referenced not in any way as a single alternative to mainstream mapping methods. rather, i brought it up in the beginning of the thread as a response to the article that ninjalicious cited on infiltration.org. while i think that it offers an interesting method and perspectives on bodies in the city, i mentioned it to try to start amassing as many different modes of mapping as people knew of and-or practiced.
i was recently reading about how maps generally can be considered either qualitative or quantitative in their representations of a place. ways of measuring or quantifying and then classifying and coding places have primary significance and are considered generally more credible, it seems, in north american map-reading and making practices. qualitative map-making methods are generally dismissed as subjective and innaccurate, by qualitative standards. like the 'psychogeographic' collages and writings, they are usually considered the whimsical work of artists.
but i don't believe that maps exist as exclusively the product of one or the other approach. there are biases and subjective attitudes that inform quantitative mapping just as some 'subjective' or 'personal' maps are constructed quite systematically, often just with a different focus or set of priorities.
what do you think?
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Ninjalicious
Gone, but always with us
Location: Toronto
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 18 on 7/9/2004 6:13 PM >
| | | | I think I feel inspired to make more maps, for one thing.
I'm not sure about Petr's contention that maps aren't very useful for explorers. I've certainly found them useful on a few occasions. But even if they weren't useful, making them is still quite a lot of fun... probably even more than reading them. I'd love to see more explorer-made maps. I always enjoy them.
Ninj
http://www.infiltration.org
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uair01
Location: Rotterdam.NL
Gender: Male
-=|x|=-
| | | Re: mapping UE
<Reply # 19 on 7/9/2004 7:16 PM >
| | | | Posted by Ninjalicious
I'm not sure about Petr's contention that maps aren't very useful for explorers. I've certainly found them useful on a few occasions. |
Please elaborate 
But mapping can be fun. What fascinates me - and is a good subject for mapping - are the boundaries in the city. You pass a line and you think - yes now I've passed from the city into the centre - or - now I've left the city and entered the country - and this is the periphery - and here is a development area that is left alone as long as development waits - and this is a shopping area - and now I enter a poor part of town.
Being aware of these boundaries is IMHO a form of Urban Exploration too. It doen't have to be "extreme" ...
And there a lots of interesting "indicators" that you can use to see in which part of town you are - islamic butcher shops - chinese supermarkerkets - car demolishers - large electronics outlets - mac donalds - cheap hotels - large gardens and stand-alone houses - blackbirds and ducks - car types - graffiti etc.
Maybe we could organize an experiment - take a random patch of town - say 2*2 km and draw the boundaries between the boring and non-boring areas of this patch. I think I would enjoy it immensely to explore, document and map a piece of Rotterdam in this way. And I would discover a lot about the city and myself - but would anyone else be willing to participate?
[last edit 7/9/2004 7:24 PM by uair01 - edited 2 times]
"Not to look behind a door is an insult to the door, and the reality it is hiding." |
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