t e a m :
w
w w . g e o g r a f i a f f e t t i v a . n e t (in the following.:
geanet)
“everything touches everything” Jorge
Luis Borges
“work became network” Benoit Roussel
i
n t r o :
geanet is about mapping the interconnectivity of life and how to provide
each member of a community the tool to in-form (“to put into form”)
his/her personal map(s) as part of a whole visualised network.
In the last hundred seventy years, lets say since the first photography,
people have changed their „way of living“. Various aspects
of life have changed such as the focus of daily work, communication with
other individuals and the relation to geographical locations. The developments
in the world of electronic communication, as well as the market itself,
provoke working and living in flexible structures, force the continuous
movement in space. Geographical/physical as well as intellectual and spiritual
life is becoming more and more “trave//ing”, or more precisely,
a dynamic instead of a static process (although the word ‘process’
could be understood as inherently dynamic). If we take an aeroplane or
send an e-mail: the whole or parts of us move and meet, inform and transform,
get informed and transformed. In each of those transitions we get linked
to new contexts, mind-, land- and “netscapes”. The network
of people, ideas and interests we are related to, oscillates and grows,
our emotional landscapes are changing, territories are becoming interrelated
fields of life and those fields become world. With respect to geanet,
terms like ‘individual’, ‘family’ and ‘community’
must be reconceived and seen within a much bigger context.
We think that these relational
and fluctuating fields provoke new ‘landscapes’ arising from
motivations and (e)motions which may be mapped into new representations
or fused with conventional geographical maps. These information objects
(“mapscapes”), containing ways, routes, destination and time
points, are all interconnected by individual emotional* bonds.
What kind of mapscapes can we generate/visualise if we reflect these movements
and define which spaces/places are emotionally significant? What are the
differences between travelling-based landscapes and trave//ing-based landscapes?
How does a map, defined by individual travalling paths and their intersections
rather than by static territories and borders, look like? How does this
map influence my “journey” if my way isn’t my personal
from A-to-B anymore, but a part of a dynamic cartographic composure of
related people, questions, interests and goals? And what can I “read”
when I overlay all these maps?
In this verbatim contextuality
geanet would like to become a hyper geographical-net-platform which can
cartographically be fed and grown by its members/users. Their specific
motivations, routes and destinations draw spots, lines, curves and intersections.
A hyperlinked multi-layer- pattern of “all” ways and stays
of a community composed by the individual movements and “meetings”
of people, their imagination, wishes and projects evolves:
a transpersonal cartography > an affective geography.
*We use “emotional” or “affective” in the sense of “what moves us” and “what makes us stay” (and vice versa) and “individual” in the “condividual” sense of “the one who wants to come to the other”.
p r
o j e c t :
geanet is made out of mapped layers which are abstracted from an individual
reality and interwoven with the complex reality of a community. each layer
can be seen as an alternative dynamic geography which “talks”
of my own way, my own affinities/interests, my own communication, my own
“measure and moral” of being attracted and rejected. It is
my polycartographical profile as a part of the world we’re taking,
making and giving.
geanets centre tools are the mobile phone and the www. on each layer or
facet these devices allow me to update my map.
> on the geographical layer/facet - the LOLAmap (LOngitude-LAtitude) - I can call the project number with my mobile phone, send the LO-LA values of my present position and a short message which already can tell something about my move/motivation. This call gets translated as a spot on my personal LOLAmap, linked with a fine line to my last call (spot) and on-mouse-over my message appears.
> on the intellectual/spiritual layer/facet - the IPmap (Internet Protocol) - I can, whenever I think it fits my IPmap, “tell” to my e-mail I’m just sending to leave a trace on it: a spot and a line between me and the person I am writing to (between our IP numbers) gets drawn and, if we want, its content linked to it.
> on the Affinity/Interest layer/facet - the AImap – I can inform the map by giving visibility to my AI’s. Single Terms are visualised in the way they are related to each other and in proportion to the frequency of their mention. This layer I either edit directly on the www or it gets indirectly influenced whenever I’m using one of the AI-terms on any other layer.
> other layers/facets (such as the personal spatial-scale-map or the future map) are in conceptual preparation. For now it is important to express just this “start” in order to point out geanets potential and to make clear that we’re interested in visualising a communities complexity by showing its aspects through layers of different world maps.
So geanets website contains layers of “affective world maps”. there are so many world maps as there are people informing the(ir) “world” and ones world is as big as his physical, spiritual and mental moves are.
But what means visualising
a communities world? we all are aware, or we all think we are.., that
reality is what we’re living, not what we’re mapping. But
through techniques of visualising what we are experiencing we have reached
a point where we see that these techniques give us new possibilities of
perception and cognition. We are transforming from “isolated individuals”
to “condividual knots” in the net that we’re calling
our life. In this sense geanet wants to explore and realise a “browser”
that lets me visualise and apprehend all this mentioned aspects in combination
or in any partial way I want. Depending on the combination and the zoom
level of my/our composed map I can “read” another appearance
of my/ourselves, other tendencies, directions, attractions and rejections.
I can see the LOLAmap as an overlaying of a geographical map and my/our
moves, just as the net-image of my/our moves, in combination with the
IPmap of someone else, of all..whatever. On a first level.
On a second one I can edit these spots, lines, curves and terms, that
means that I can open related to any detail I was editing in a first step
more information.
For instance I can open my LOLAmap, choose any spot or line (“way” between my stays) I want and link via an online-editing-tool more profound textual or visual information. This information appears then indicated on the spot/line and opens by clicking it. All maps will provide the one or the other possibility for immerse oneself in contents via online editing.
There will no be one geanet (one www), but many. We want to develop the prototype, but also offer to all those who are helping us doing it (partners, sponsors, etc.), to setup an own geanet, fitting their contexts and interests. That means that these people will get the prototype, can (aesthetically) design their own interface, define the criteria what a membership in their geanet implies and start to work with it. But not only those of course, every group/family/community/gang/tribe etc. can theoretically obtain one. We will see under what conditions and how the source can be open. The only basic common link these different “mapscapes” will have is a kind of portal we want to create and by which you can reach them all (www.geografiaffettiva.net).
Its obvious that this platform with the basic possibilities we just shortly described contains a lot more - conceptually and technically. Its potential is endless and wants to be discovered, discussed, defined and enhanced within the active geanets then. The theme itself makes that we don’t want to pre-define all those features. We think geanet will provoke a whole new way of accessing space and the other if its interacting with these living maps, drawn by a living net of people. So we also want that this way is imagined and found with this people.
Seen from the portal which leads to all the different platforms and ways to use this possibility geografia affettiva looks like a real living memory: The substance history and maps are made of.
Within geanet I’m browsing, playing and learning about what scientists call nowadays “the map of our interconnectivity” and about the “...real surprise...from placing these maps side by side” (LINKED: The New Science of Networks by Albert-László Barabási) or one over the other..
Reflecting another investigation we could say that geanet touches or even corresponds with a field of ethnology which is studying a manner of orientation/oration in which “not the individual but the environment assumes the direction”...”a geocentric, not an egocentric oration..” (Jürg Wassmann). Wassmann estimates that from the existing approx. 6000 living languages the geocentric ones overbalance.
a c c e s s : a geanet is divided in two
ways of accessing it:
public way :
everybody who knows the www, but is not an active member of the related
geanet has all passive possibilities of accessing the site, but the active
menus persist hidden for him/her. (s)he can enter and follow the development
of geanet online, use it for different researches, looking for information
regarding places, looking for people, their projects, connections, contacting
them, etc.. these options probably will mostly be used by people, who
are in relation to a member of a community. (s)he might just contact someone
(s)he knows or asks how one can become a member of geanet, etc..
affective way :
as an active member you enter with your password to the editing- and the
extra-communication-tools. this password gives you all possibilities of geanet., even to work on the extension of the source code (new plug-ins)
of the program itself. the e-tools give you skills to profound with text
and images your spot, your curves and your crossings. further upload features
can be assembled when the community feels the need for it and each geanet
server is potent enough (...). the extra c-tools let you get in direct
contact (e.g. Jabber) with other active members to exchange confidential
information such as plans for new features or simply private information,
data and stuff.
but how do you become
a member?
The growth of the first network - c a l c’s platform, which will
be the prototype of all following ones (and the one with which the partners
can work as well) - happens exclusively through the passing of the access
password from person to person. This password gives the new member possibility
to inscribe and to receive his/her personal login for future updates,
etc. Trust is the criterion why someone passes the word to another in
c a l c´s geanet.: Only if the other is a real part of the physical
net (a physical part of the real net > a good friend) he can become
an active part of the virtual one. This way the prototype grows designed
and set in motion by people who are, primarily, in a spatial and personal
relation. But “trust” might only matter in c a l c’s
geanet, other “affective pools of geography” (communities)
might formulate other criterion, just as they can give to the interface
an own look and work on the source code.
p l a n / p r o p o s a l :
our plan is to develop the prototype and each facet of its complex structure
and design in collaboration with an university (art, media, comp. sciences,
sociology, etc.) or any other educative or cultural institution, association,
foundation or organisation, which wants us to open up our ideas and questions*
to their students or members. we would like to do that with them and for
them. so the long term ambition of these collaborations should be the
own platform for these partners and their specific movements/interests.
on the other hand we also learn and generate new features for our own
g.a. as well as for all other platforms, which also can propose and assemble
new developments to their g.a..
Until now we were doing workshops and brainstorming with students of the Ecole superieure d’Art de Perpignon - France, art students from various universities in Medellin, Colombia and with the architect/artists group lapanaderia in Sevilla, Spain. The next ones are planned for/with art- and architecture students in Marseille - France (in the Bureau des Competences et Desires, end of March 2004) and with the Artists in Residence in Biella - Italy (UNIDEE – Fondazione Pistoletto, October 2004).
After we have the prototype running and we will have made experience in our own friends-net-context and the partner geanets do also agree, we want to offer the program and its possibilities to other groups, families, communities or any other kind of bunch of people who meet because of sympathies and interests, to initiate their own geanet platform.
*such as: how can we structure and visualise that independent geanets can overlay in case that one ore more are part of two or more independent geanets? how do we deal with the problem of surveillance/control? how can the interface be improved and the system be more autonomous (new editing possibilities, etc.)? with what basic attitude we should underline the contracts which have to be done with partners? etc., etc.
Our goal is to have the prototype until end of 2004 - beginning 2005 online. But it all depends on if we can find the necessary starting money..
t i m e :
The time required for the realisation, starting with working on the fine
concept until setting up the prototype, will be between three and four
months
t
e a m :
c a l c in geanet are
Miss Pi > Teresa Alonso Novo (concept, design, Spain), omi > Tomás
Scheiderbauer (concept, design, Austria), L°°ks > Lukas Brunner
(concept, basic programming, Switzerland), Malex > Marcus Spiegel (concept,
fine programming, Austria)
in colaboration with Reto Stebler (concept, fine programming, Switzerland) and lapanaderia (concept, design - Eva Morales Soler, David Cañavate Cazorla and Ruben Alonso Mallén, Spain)
..and all participating students,
professionals, friends and partners.
for more detailed information
about c a l c and us visit:
http://www.calcaxy.com/calcbio/