George’s Contract

Intellectual Merit

The principle aim of this primer is to demonstrate the next generation of crowd-sourced mapping and its potential not only to redefine our image of the city, but to form the basis for a new, open source, architecture and urbanism.

The secondary aim is to depict the relationship between the physical and the virtual and hint at a meeting of the two by way of augmented reality.

Beyond a purely cartographic categorisation of urban space, the recording process will not only encompass the tectonic, but the ephemeral. It will not be an exhaustive process, but a demonstration and subsequent representation, of a typical journey within the city.

Process

The mapping will involve the recording and logging of a range of information, split into two parts: the physical and the digital. The common factor will be time as I intend to produce two films, one for each, to be shown in sync.

The Physical

A real-time video sequence will be the focus. I intend to play upon the idea of an individual inhabiting the city by proposing to film the journey from the third person where the individual appears as an ‘agent’ in the urban environment. I have ordered a suitable lens but this will need careful testing as it may prove to be unsuccessful. In the event, I would instead obtain footage from a camera to imitate the perspective of the human eye. In addition I would record sound throughout the journey and make notes on ephemeral events relating to emotion and smell.

The Digital

The journey will be logged via GPS to record the route spatially. Video stills and sound will be geo-tagged within the sequence as captured ‘bytes’. The digital representation is most likely to consist of layers, mapped using KML, within Google Earth. There is an open source version of google earth relating to OpenStreetMap but unfortunately it is not particularly accessible.[1]

Methodology

I will need to conduct a number of pilots to ensure the combined success of the various elements. I have successfully logged a number tracks using the iPhone as a GPS receiver. Whilst it is not the most accurate device, I am keen to use it as an example in order to demonstrate the potential for scaleability. I have ordered a suitable wide-angle for the video footage but intend to begin recording as soon as possible.

The tricky part is the successful sequencing and synchronisation of the digital aspects to the physical footage. I am currently exploring this in greater detail.

Deliverables

A parallel film sequence with audio.

[1] http://www.osm-3d.org/

2009: 10/20
CATEGORY: George Metcalfe
Write comment

MapType

2009: 10/20
CATEGORY: George Metcalfe
TAGS: maptype
1 comment

Underground Madrid

2009: 10/20
CATEGORY: George Metcalfe
TAGS: madrid
shinichiro matsuda
underground
Write comment

b’s contract

heading

Intellectual merit

Varanasi is a city whose spirit combines real and imagined space realised in the theatricality of daily Indian life played out by the chaotic mass of people in amongst a haphazard array of buildings.

It is an architecture generated in the mind- lived space- where space is produced through people’s movements in the city informed by associations with tradition and history. It is a landscape that exists not only in physical space but in the minds of each one of the city’s inhabitants.

Process

My proposition is the development of this ‘in-the-mind’ environment, a reversal of people extracting information from the land, as I try to map the cognitive mind of this society onto the physical environment.

2009: 10/20
CATEGORY: Briony Paul
TAGS: primer contract
Write comment

DAY 2-Primer

Day 2 and half a days time lapse. Taken a pot of coriander from the kitchen window sill and placed it in a new environment; my bedroom. Photos were taken every 60 seconds with a play back rate of 30 frames a second.

2009: 10/20
CATEGORY: Andrew Morrison
TAGS: coriander
time lapse
1 comment

Andrew’s contract

1-Intellectual merit

As of 2008 half of humanity now lives in cities; a dramatic rural-urban shift in pursuit of a perceived superior standard of living and increase in resource availability. Over the next forty years it is predicted that a further 20 per cent of the population will follow suit. As a result, urban areas are rife with poverty and famine due to the heavy strains resources have been subjected to. London imports around 80% of its resources, leaving it extremely vulnerable to the knock on effects of elements such as increased fuel prices, hurricanes and/or a bird flu pandemic, all of which would have a devastating effect on the availability of food within the capital. Urban food production could help to reduce metropolitan vulnerability. By reintroducing natural into urban areas we could facilitate a more sustainable food system. Derelict, disused urban environments should feature heavily in urban food production.

2-Aims

By creating the perfect growing environment, I intend to record the effect nature can have on the ‘built’ environment. Redundant architectural models symbolise how something, which was initially conceived of as a purposeful and pristine object, can soon be of little or no purpose. By placing a disused model in the GROWING MACHINE; a perfect growing environment, I intend to record through time lapse technology the effects of nature on a particular object. By ‘seed bombing’ the model, new life will be encouraged to inhabit the disused form; thus transforming it from its original purpose to its new. A haven for wildlife is born.

3-Deliverables

3_1- A time lapse recording showing the process of transformation (possibly to include the manufacturing of the growing machine).

3.2-The growing machine

3.3- Graphical images of nature (lichens, mosses, algae, fungi,)