free cooperation participants,
what: PDPal, a public art project currently for PDA's and the web, is a
storytelling mapping application that transforms your everyday activities
and urban experiences into a dynamic city that you write. PDPal Walkabout is
a workshop to collaboratively develop psychogeographic-inspired mapping
missions, conduct a walkabout, record it using a pictogrammic shorthand and
ultimately to help us determine best methods(see previous below) for making
our upcoming PDA to cellphone transition. No equipment required for
participation.
when: Sunday 11-noon, Art 144 (walk off your hangover, build an appetite for
lunch, air dry from your swim, meet peeps, break the rules...)
who: Scott Paterson, PDPal and Parsons School of Design in New York City
URL: http://www.pdpal.com
Please join in!! Look forward to meeting you.
[sgp]
______________________________________
scott paterson | somebody@sgp-7.net
interaction designer+ + +
Previous Walkabout Guide for Times Square:
A city, a neighborhood, or a building is an ecosystem– noisy, layered,
commercial, vestigial, future-minded, and invested. For instance, Times
Square is full of workers, walkers, and wayward creatures who daily navigate
this hyper-mediated space.
Map making is no easy feat. Imagine the challenges that have faced those who
mapped other worldly places, and their purposes for constructing those maps.
The Moon was mapped for practical reasons – where do we land? The “New
World” was mapped for commercial reasons – where can colonies exist? Here
are some things to consider while creating your PDPal Map.
If maps normally obtain an objective innocence, we want to look at mapping
as an opportunity for imaginative personal play in public space, for
mischievous incarnations, and even disobedience. Imagine: your city is your
playground.
Maps can speak to alternate realities – Choose your mission:
1. Make an "Official Field Guide.” What kinds of beasts are the cars,
taxis, stores, towers, vendors, performers, signs, etc? How do you divide an
ecosystem into locales and routes, habitats and trails? Where do they sleep?
What do they eat? Who is a predator and Who is prey?
2. Make a documentary. Interview people in your neighborhood. Why are they
in that location? How to make the sale? Ever thought of innovating? Where
would they rather be, doing what? Where are they from? How did they get here
(map the direction from where they came literally, figuratively,
geographically, or historically)?
3. If a group of alien anthropologists landed in your city, how would they
sort out the landscape and its denizens? Would they distinguish between the
real and the representational? Are the billboards portals to other
universes? Where do they lead? How would the aliens describe the interaction
of citizens? What would an alien– authored field guide look like? (see #1).
4. Map by Algorithm. From your start point turn left until you can proceed
unobstructed for about 20 paces. If you encounter a:
a) Sewer cover map what’s under the street.
b) Theater map the world inside.
c) Tourist map where they are going.
d) Telephone booth map who made the last call.
e) Surveillance camera map who is watching.
f) Subway entrance map where it connects.
g) Bus stop get on for at least 2 stops, map its route.
After each entry you record, turn left and repeat the remaining
instructions. Try to plot at least 7 entries.