I will not post on this blog anymore because the project is over. I going to continue to blog a http://darchphoto.wordpress.com
March 5, 2007
December 5, 2006
Its Here!
The map is here. Check it out at elephantandcastlemap.co.uk. and please upload any pictures you want to share at the Flickr group it would be really interesting to see what shots you have. Thanks. Oh and feel free to let me know what you think.
December 3, 2006
Other Map Blogs
The first blog I will discuss is the Critical Spatial Practice Blog. This is the blog of a group of academics based around the University of Illinois who attempt to present, discuss and analyse theories of understanding and representing space. You can read their very long project description by clicking here. There is alot to pick through on their blog, I will discuss a few of their entries that caught my eye. As well as the usual reverse chronological posts the Critical Sratial Practice (CSP) blog allows you to directly search their del.icio.us tags from within the blog. The presentation is clean and easy to navigate without antthing extraordinary. The CSP blog is a good resource for anyone interested in mapping more than geography. One example of this the Death and Taxes webpage. This maps the movement of tax dollars around the United States economy. This incredibly detailed graph is designed to raise questions about how U.S. citizen’s taxes are spent and the visual nature of it goes a long way to illustrating proportionally some quite unfathomably large figures in a way that the average person can contemplate.
A more traditional blog featured on the CSP blog is The Map Room. This is a blog concerned with all aspects of geographical mapping. It has a more commercial nature than most of the blogs on CSP. The Map Room does serve as good portal to current news and trends in mapping today as well helping you find maps to purchase online.
Another blog featured on CSP is PLATFORM. CSP says “PLATFORM has been described as many things – an arts group, a forum for political dialogue, an environmental campaign – but, in essence, it is an idea, a vision of using creativity to transform the society we live in; a belief in every individual’s innate power to contribute to this process.” Features include ethical issues such as ‘Unravelling the Carbon Web‘ covering ethenvironmental issues. The group also organises activities such as walks around London’s City and East India Dock, investigating the parallels between colonial ethics and those of todays multinational corporations. Interesting stuff.
Another blog I have been looking at is London: A Life In Maps developed from an exhibition on the history of mapping London at the British Museum. As the blog is quite new there are only a coulpe of posts on it, as yet. There are video interviews with well known Londoners about their relationship with London and the space around them. The best resource however is the interactive gallery with a Google map that you can click on various locations to view historical maps of those locations. These maps (and some of the ones on the Critical Spatial Practice blog) use software called Zoomify which I am going to try to incoporate into my map. I really appreciated the ability to zoom into the main map on this webpage. However it was just a straight Google map with their distinctive pins stuck in at various points to signify the locations the historical maps represent. I would have liked to see a general historical map of London or at least one with a unique style. I feel that to be able to ‘read’ the map with illustrations on the large scale map such as those found on the maps on the Critical Spatial Practices blog and my own is far more preferable than simple dots or marks. The ability to zoom in and therefore change the scale of maps on webpages allows this dimension of being able have far richer visual representation than traditional paper maps. On paper maps space is always at a premium, the scale is fixed and the cartographer usually has a very fixed set of criteria to adhere to – that of representing the space as accurately and literally as possible.
Here is a fantastic example of the maps available to view at the British Museum – a beautiful illustration of the zoo in Regent’s Park from 1854. It is in such detail it even shows the animals.
Some of the maps however were not displayed in such a large format, nor could you zoom in enough to inspect the document properly. It is great pity to have this resource online and not even be able to read the writing on some maps when clearly they do have the ability to let us do so.
Another website that I have been aware of for some time but have neglected to mention before on this blog is Geograph. This site is very relavent to work on photographic representations of space. It seeks to produce an online photographic map of the British Isles. We are encouraged to upload pictures for each grid square of the map of the British Isles. So far 45% of the total land surface has been represented by ordinary members of the public. The website is an invaluable resource for imaging the British Isles and a fantastic way for people to engage with the environment around them and understand it in the context of the nation as a whole.
As my website nears completion, I am seeing new ways to take the website further, for example, the ability to zoom into the map, I would like to try to add an optional overlay historical maps of Elephant and Castle over my contemporary map. However as time is of the essence, especially as I have to learn the techniques as I go I will have to consider very carefully how far I am to take it before I publish: something I would have already liked to have done. I would certainly like to develop the site further after the deadline for its presentation in class.
November 14, 2006
I went for another drift today. Except it wasn’t a true drift as I was forcing myself to go to areas that I hadn’t been to before. I wanted to find new interesting places to include in my map. What I did find was that there really isn’t much interesting around Elephant and Castle. At least it is near to some exciting places such as the South Bank which puts the Heygate way above some out of town council estates I can think of in the North of England. The most interest I find in Elephant is the potential it has, the buildings that will come, the investment it will recieve. This will all take time though. In a period where many are being displaced and no sign of any answers to the violent crime that much of South London suffers from things may well get worse around Elephant before they get better. As I wandered around today I wondered how much difference planning and architecture can make. I get very excited by new buildings, and Southwark has some pretty impressive ones in the pipeline, but I do know that others do not share my interest. Hopefully as South Bank University grows so will the input students give to area. Hopefully this map will encourage students to consider the area in which they study a little more and maybe make some differences that bricks and mortar cannot. That said, as it stands my map concentrates heavily on development and architecture in the area. One of the places I photographed today was a new building containing flats for the first of the people to be moved out of the Heygate Estate. Its unashamedly colourful exterior is surely designed to stick two fingers up at the austere, monotonous grey lines across the road. The future could be said to be red, yellow and orange…
There are more details about this project here and more about new development in Southwark and London as a whole here at the New London Archicture website. Another site I found about moving around London is the Legible London website with the interesting statistic that 45% of people use the tube map to navigate above ground. It seems that there is very little of these type of websites that concentrate on the local areas of London instead of the city as a whole.
So the map is nearly there. I have some night shots I want to take this evening. I need to do a little more research and find some more intersting places to include. One site that has been recommended to me is MySouthwark.co.uk so I shall be checking that out soon. Hopefully by the end of this week the map will be 100% completed. I have been reluctant to start the webpage until the map is done as I do not want to have to go back a change things later. By the end of next week I would like to have the Homepage and the page links in place so the structure of the site is done.
November 7, 2006
Map
This week I have been wrestling with my map. They are complicated things maps and I have never tried to produce one in such detail before. The basis for it is there now. I need to add my photographs. The couple I have tried out I have looked very blocky and undynamic like a photo stuck on a map (see below) so they need some further thought. For the paper version of the map I will produce a key, I would like to frame the photographs with different colours to represent the different uses of the buildings depicted. For example, red for entertainment likes pubs and restaurants and green for monuments and buildings of architectural interest. The online version should be much more interesting. Each picture will be a hot-spot that, when clicked, opens up a new page with information and pictures about the place selected as well as links. So for the Imperial War Museum, brief description and history like the one below, photographs (both mine and others) as well as a link to the museum’s website.
The main thrust of the map is to create awareness for the students of the space around them, in relation to the past, present and future. There will also be more practical elements such as where to go for food (something it took me many months to find out). I would also like to include links to travel websites and ‘whats-on’ type websites so hopefully students will consider this a worthwhile resource. Ideally I would like users to be able to add their own opinions and photgraphs but this will have to depend on how well I take to webdesign. There will certainly be no reason why I cannot create a link to a dedicated Flickr group. Unfortunately many very interesting placs fall out of the range of this this map, just to the North. I would love to include new development in Southwark between Blackfriars’ Rd and Southwark Bridge Rd,the many galleries and attractions on the South Bank, a major terminus like Waterloo and venues such as the Young Vic. However to extend into this area would both stretch my ability to cope with the workload and result in a map more about Waterloo and the South Bank and less about Elephant and Castle. So here is the ‘rough cut.’
‘I have been looking at different maps on the internet and with the exception the big map providers on the web (multimap and Google maps) I cannot find many that are both innovative and easy to use. Many website have maps of London but few are interactive, most are very basic.
I have been to the Imperial War Museum website researching the history of that place. It is the original Bedlam, a hospital for the insane that was open to the public. It was a popular source of amusement in the 1800s for Londoners to go and watch the mad men and women ranting, chained to the wall in their cells. After the hospital closed it was decided it should be a museum to commemorate the dead in World War 1. Its mandate was later widened to include WW2 and than the dead in all conflicts involving the Commonwealth, in recent times it has opened up new premises across the country including a state of the art building in Salford.
An image of the Bethlem Hospital for the insane (Bedlam) in 1843.I’m off to take take some pictures now…
October 29, 2006
Gettin back on track
(This post was handwritten a couple of weeks ago and then copied into WordPress.)
Its a new start. New blog. New direction and motivation for my Photocultures project.
I’ve been unhappy with my project/intervention. I felt it was meaningless and pointless and I’ve been dragging my feet with it. This evening, probably to put off proper work a little longer I bagan tracing a map of Elephant and Castle (E&C). The map was originally to be used to work out the busy throughfares around E&C in order to try and manipulate and change peoples habits, to see different parts of the area and to see them in a different way. Quite A Level geography I think! But the process of drawing did help me relax and think about the project in a new light. I must remember the drawing trick…
I felt that to suggest alternative ways of travelling through E&C to the residents was a little patronising. ITS WHERE THEY LIVE! Furthermore I was not impreessed with the London Docklands Project, helping these people to think about their neighbourhood before it got razed seemed trite and crap.
So as I drew I began to think of myself and other students in E&C and thought I might shift my focus from resident to student. I now propose to produce a map of the area with points of interest for student users of the space. It won’t be exactly to help them find their way around physically but will hopefully stimulate and entertain.
One thing I was reluctant to do before was use the internet, I felt it wasn’t inclusive enough, but my new target demographic all have access to the internet. I will ask the student online service if I can post the map as a pdf on the stadent gateway. I would like the map to be quite interactive so people can leave thei comment on it but I’m not sure yet how to achieve this, something to look into… I will hand out some paper copies to student of both universities at E&C to promote the maps.
So next is to make the map – something new to me so it should be exciting, gather as much interesting information and pictures of E&C. I must also think how I can publish this map online, to produce both an interesting interface and (hopefully) some interactive content)
35 Million Blogs
‘35 Million Blogs, doubling every six months, the average blog has just one reader, the blogger.’ Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google speaking at this weeks Tory Party Conference.
First off, in this blog I am going to be thinking of what type of artistic ‘intervention’ I shall be planning for my Photographic Cultures assignment. I will however not be referrring to ‘it’ as an ‘intervention hereafter. Primarily because I disagree that it will intervene or making any difference anyone apart from me. That is not to say that I do not think it a worthwhile exercise. You may hear me referring to ‘guerrilla art’ or some other terms. I am convinced of the exercise’ worth (at least to me and not least because of the marks that I shall recieve for it after reading this inspiring blog/website…
Going completely against the notion of drifting I think I will create a trail around Elephant and Castle (E&C from now on). If anyone else reads this blog apart from me and has any ideas do let me know.
I would like to print stickers with photographs and clues on for people to follow. The photographs would be of a landmark people could see in the (not so far) distance, they would then know to head towards that. Text would be included to suggest alternative ways of thinking about the space they are in. A local library will have to be visited for this.
I envisage my audience to be a small number of local kids with nothing better to do but would love anyone to follow the trail – at least part of it. I would like people to take different routes to their usual ones and to learn one new thing about E&C. Perhaps I will sit and see which the most used routes between places and suggest alternative routes. One other idea I have is to show photographs at various points of the view the
y are seeing in the past (from library archives) and the future (from the internet and artist’s sketches of the forthcoming development like this one. For more artist impressions like this one click here.
So while I need to think a little more about exactly guerilla activities I will be carrying out I know that my purpose is to help people to reanalyse the E&C space. What a noble purpose!
Heres some links, theres more at my del.icio.us
http://www.altterrain.com/article_medialife_Guerilla_Media.htm
http://www.elephantandcastle.org.uk/home/
Drifting Around Elephant and Castle
Monday, October 02, 2006
This week I followed in the footsteps (not literally) of the situationists. I walked aimlessly around the Elephant and Castle area of South London. It was an experience I found quite enjoyable, not surprising as walking and exploring tends to be how I like to spend much of my spare time and holidays. The absence of an agenda or the necessity to get ‘the shot’ was extremely liberating. When you are not concentrating on where you are going you become free to really think about where you are.
I decided to use my K800i SonyEricsson mobile phone instead of my SLR because I thought I would draw less attention to myself and the light was adequate for using a camera phone. This was the only plan I made before going for my walk.
The first thing that struck me was how many signs there were. Here, in a space used by many, the most effective way of communicating the approved modes of behaviour is by leaving messages for others. These included council notices of planned demolition works to ‘No Parking’ painted on to gates. I began to realise that common spaces such as this it be very difficult for so many people to live and work in this close proximity to eachother without these signs to mediate everyone’s needs. There are a few examples below…
I suppose as I wandered I was looking for signs of human uses for and influences on the space I was travelling through. I was struck (as I often am in London) how an area can change so dramatically even from one end of a street to the other. This can be seen in the slide show below where we see bricked up squats next to family houses with a collection of bicycles outside.
I would have really liked to present this blog as a map with points on it that you could click on and photographs would then appear. As it is I have posted I slideshow of the images of my drift around the Elephant as well as a montage of scenes around the Elephant roundabout.
Please click below for a closer look at the slide show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnhRHlBOLvo
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Hi,
My name is Peter. This is my new blog. Here is a picture from my holiday from Italy. You can see some more at my Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/peterdarch
Hopefully this blog will be something that not just i enjoy. I’m going to go now and think of some interesting things to say.
Ciao
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it Confucius
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