Author: DemelzaB

More mapping research

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Mapping can be (re)conceptualized ‘as a suite of cultural practices involving action and affects. This kind of approach reflects a philosophical shift towards performance and mobility and away from essence and material stability’

Kitchen, Perkins and Dodge, Rethinking Maps

In Atlas of Emotion, Bruno discusses how the medium of film can be used to map the self. She also talks about how moving image could prompt understanding of the ways we might map spaces in film and an understanding of our engagement with landscapes.

Sohei Nishino

At the Tokyo exhibition in the Ashmolean museum last summer, I remember seeing artwork by this artist.

His collages are made in the photomontage style of David Hockney, but are laid out to be accurate and readable as a map. These maps, that he calls diorama maps, are made up of thousands of photos taken around a chosen city.

Jerusalem The JOURNAL by Sohei Nishino
Place: a short introduction by Tim Cresswell
Mapping Cultures: place, practice, performance Edited by Les Roberts
Iain Sinclair
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as seen from 1850 and overlaid on a Google map of the present building site
Memoryscapes
Mental maps

Hauntology- the past being present around us

Hauntology (a portmanteau of haunting and ontology) is a concept referring to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost.

Hauntology – Wikipedia
What is hauntology? And why is it all around us? – BBC Ideas

Richard Long

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Richard Long is an artist from Bristol, UK. He creates work out in nature. His first artwork of this kind was made when he was still a student in the 1960’s. He was rolling a snowball down a hill in winter. Looking back up the hill, he saw the dark path of visible earth the snowball had created over the ground. The track left on the white landscape inspired him to continue making art in this way, to show the mark he has left across a landscape for example.

The geometric lines in this piece, signify stopping and moving. The viewer can make a comparison between the two as the two canvases are displayed side by side.

from Richard Long: Heaven and Earth
from Walking in circles by Richard Long

In 3 lines of text, the artist illustrates his walk. We are told where, what and when. The simplicity of the design makes the piece easy to read. He uses arrows to draw the wind direction. Although there are no natural colours in this piece, I can picture the green of nature because I know that Dartmoor is green, open and hilly because I have driven through there.

In this map, Long has used a photo of a landmark, words and lines. The combination of these elements helps us to build up a picture of the journey being mapped. He tells us about walking times and this tells us that the action was walking.

Here he has mapped the rivers across England and Wales following 1 route. The choice of blue for the text helps to signify water:

The circular formation of the words suggests the artist may have been walking in a circular route. He focuses on the things he has seen , what he has experienced and the days that have passed on the journey:

The word ‘splash’ is used to signify each time the artist has thrown a stone into the sea or river:

Here, Long has mapped his early morning island walk. Although the words are displayed in lists, each list gets shorter, which forms a kind of diagonal path across the page:

Collage experimentation

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Isabel Reitemeyer

Collage artist based in Berlin. What I find interesting about her work is the variety of techniques she uses in her collages. Each collage is different and surprising. She experiments with the physical quality of the paper. Sometimes folding it like a fabric and other times cutting the paper with a scalpel.

Images from isabel reitemeyer (@isabelreitemeyer) • Instagram photos and videos

In this image, she has cut the paper carefully into a smooth curved line. The area of the face stands alone on the page. Cutting an area out is an other way of concealing an area, this adds mystery.

I like the choppy style of cutting within this collage. It reminds me of a smashed window. Some lines are parallel but the piece is asymmetrical.

The white area hides the image behind. Because of its shape, we see glimpses of the figure between the branch-like shapes. The flat quality of the white area balances out the depth and blackness of the photograph.

Cutting out sections of an image means you can re-arrange them on the page to your liking. The medium of collage means you can be selective with what to include. In this image, I am drawn to the shape of the negative/white space.

I like the way Reitemeyer plays with layers in this piece. The shape she has cut from the yellow paper acts as a frame for the image behind. The choice of plain yellow draws the focus to the figure. If she had used another image for this top layer, it might look confusing or flat.

I like the way she has broken the image into sections. To me, this symbolises something broken or unsettled about the character or narrative.

When starting the project of making my final zine, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. I needed to generate more ideas about the context, layout and visual elements. Having experimented with format, I was happy I had 3 possible formats to work with.

I began to take photos with my phone camera. I focused loosely on the themes of water, home, fragments and seasons. I took the following photos:

I converted some of the images into black and white before printing them. I used these photos as collage pieces to incorporate into my sketchbook along with the image of my chosen object, the raincoat girl.

Before & after photoshop/ camera RAW

I softened the image and turned down the saturation.
Softening this image make the photo look smokey and dream-like.
Collage experimentation

Within my sketchbook, I began experimenting with collage as a way to play with ideas for the zine.

I printed the photo of the raincoat girl figure in black and white. I photocopied the photo while moving it around on the scanner. I liked the effect because it gave a wavy underwater feeling.

I placed the photo back into the paper compartment of the printer. I then printed the image of the puddle on top. I found that the combination of the dark areas and lighter image underneath worked well.

This experiment wasn’t as effective because the background is darker than the photo I printed on top of the background.

I printed this page from the book The Unofficial Countryside by Richard Mabey. I chose this text because of its reference to seasons and the idea of rebirth. I like the combination of colour with black and white.