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Aye something along the lines of the things and stuff wiki would be ideal for this kind of project.
I'm surprised there isn't an online record of all the different instances of the culturerobot project- for me the temptation to map the mapping -and so on- would be too great. I suppose the website does record this to some extent but not in the form of a map.
In fact, Martin used to have a Logos wiki set up - maybe this could be re-purposed? I've just checked the address I had and the site seems to be down, which is a shame.
The Culurerobot project seems to be situating maps as a more liberated form of recording and contextualising information, an alternative to hierarchy, linear narratives etc. Here the artist is placed as kind of halfway between creative, sociologist and anthropologist.
Which is one way of looking at things, but I'm also interested in ways in which maps and mapping have been represented in a more insipid sense. Baudrillard uses the phrase “The map precedes the territory” to describe his theory of simulacra, which I take to mean that the subject is always preceded by the language, structures, culture, practices, ideologies and any other number of social, economic and political constructs which determine their experience. So the map in fact prevents any experience of the territory and the similarity between the map and territory becomes inconsequential.
In that vein, it's interesting that there is quite frequently a large wedge of critical theory backing these projects up, perhaps it is only because the projects need to stand up as academic but it strikes me that it could be a classic example of the map preceding the territory-who thought it would be so difficult to talk about the everyday?
I can probably relate to this idea for having something like this in the gallery through being a pedestrian. I'm quite interested in psychogeography and am a lifelong practitioner of the drift. To me, Edinburgh is an ideal site for this type of engagement and i'm surprised that more of this kind of thing has not been more high profile here before, its always Paris, London, Paris, London... (of course that is not to forget the eminent
12 Gates of The City.)
I've been looking into the
Edinburgh Exchange a bit- it's the collection of buildings around Lothian Road/Morrison Street that make up the bulk of Edinburgh's financial district- to me all the buildings look a bit alien to the rest of Edinburgh but have their own unifying aesthetic. Obviously the idea of Exchange means something else here, but might be interesting exploring this part of the city through an alternative perspective. (comparisons to the borg are too easy). ALso interesting that they planned to build an £80m extension but had to
cancel because of the credit crunch.
I suppose all this is a bit abstract and not necessarily that helpful if we are trying to come up with a method for making the project happen.
One thing Martin mentioned a while back was the idea of using the gallery as a sort of travelagent- this really appeals to me- could this be a good opportunity to revive the idea of a misguided tour to Little Sparta?
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