During Dutch Design Week 2015 (17th – 25th October), research associate Naomi Bueno de Mesquita at Design Academy Eindhoven (TRADERS researcher in Multiple Performative Mapping), invites you to participate in the cartographic exploration What Moves You? A collective realtime mapping of the transformation of the city during Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week. DDW’s visitors – YOU! – collectively become the authors/ creators of a map that shows the feelings that circulate during DDW.

HOW IT WORKS

1. Visitors of DDW are asked to use a web-application on their mobile phone (ddw.performativemapping.net) and designate a feeling to a DDW location.

2. A picture is taken of the ‘thing (object, place, person,…) that triggered this emotion.

3. The data is uploaded and directly visible. The realtime map demonstrates the areas of Eindhoven (comparing the different venues of DDW) that are more or less emotionally laden, what emotions are felt where, and why. For example, many pictures of the same object tell us that the work in question triggers an emotion that is felt collectively, but in case a work has many different adjectives linked to it, it tells us that people experience different emotions that are all triggered by the same work.

HOW IT IS PRESENTED

During Dutch Design Week Naomi walked in Eindhoven between the different venues with a measuring wheel on which a projector is mounted, this way; doubling as presentation device. The measuring wheel is to be seen as a metaphor for the way in which Naomi measured and (asked visitors to) map(ped) feelings that circulate during Dutch Design Week. The object is designed by Karianne Rygh and Rinze Borm. It makes the digital component of this research tangible and part of a performance in which visitors of DDW are triggered to participate. Throughout the week, the realtime map was projected on the urban fabric in different places in the city. Naomi carried a device which tracked her movement so that people could find her anytime of the week if they wanted to ask her for an update of the map or to discuss the research.

Naomi carries a tracking device with her with which the walked tracks can be followed via a website. Visitors can visit her anywhere to get an update on the map or to discuss the research (such as here under the bridge).

CONCLUSION

The conference ‘Play Perform Participate’ of the International Society of Intermedial Studies was hosted by the University of Utrecht from 16th – 18th of April 2015. In the panel Performative Cartography (which was chaired by Anne Karin ten Bosch), Naomi Bueno de Mesquita (researcher at Design Academy Eindhoven) together with Sigrid Merx and Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink (both teachers at the Universityy of Utrecht) presented performative mapping as social, educational and aesthetic strategy. In the first part of the lecture they theoretically introduced the notion of performative cartography, addressing the participatory potential of maps and mapping tools as cartographic media. In the second part they discussed the possible meaning and implications of ‘erasing the city’ with the app Wegwandelen.

Performative cartography alludes to the performative turn in cartographic theory, where maps are studied as (interactive) performances and as products of co-creative relationships between maps and users. In this panel Sigrid, Naomi and Liesbeth focused on different uses of maps and practices of mapping: cartography as aesthetic, educational, and social strategy. The panel built on a workshop on collective digital mapping that conference participants could participate in during the conference. Both the output of the workshop and the experiences of the participants would form the material and collective point of reference from which the panelists and their audience started talking about performative cartography.

“All the world is a stage” is no longer a metaphor, but a reality itself. Today we witness a multiplication of staged realities. We are between realities. How do we cope with this complex reality? What strategies do we use? And how do these play out in urban public space? Within​ ​the context of the theatricalisation of every day life, public space can be observed and studied as scenography. The multiplication of staged and imagined realities can be most intensely felt in urban public space where layers of tourism, entertainment, consumption,​ ​art, work, leisure, history, policies, and politics come together. It is precisely here where we can see how people live between realities and how they cope with its complexity.

The Dutch project (Between Realities) for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2015, distinguishes​ ​between five different coping strategies: sheltering, fleeing, fighting, negotiating, surrendering. Each of these strategies/practices entails a particular attitude towards reality. Either a movement away from reality (hide or shelter), an engagement with​ ​reality (fight or negotiate) or a plunge in reality (surrender). For this Quadrennial, Naomi Bueno de Mesquita (research associate at Design Academy Eindhoven) explored different mapping approaches, with which she represented the Dutch entry for the Spaces exhibition. The approaches were covered by two projects: Collective Mapping of Public Space and Audio Story Mapping. The exploration took place in Prague from 18th until 26th of June 2015 and was presented to the public on the 27th of June at the Clam Gallas Palace lecture hall, both by Naomi Bueno de Mesquita and Sigrid Merx (curator). The Netherlands received the gold medal for best curatorial concept of this quadrennial.

The third TRADERS TRSW (Training through Research Synergy Week) was meant to familiarise the TRADERS ESR’s with Naomi Bueno de Mesquita’s research in Multiple Performative Mapping. With the research being based at Design Academy Eindhoven, people from DAE with expertise in mapping were invited to contribute to this training week in the form of lectures and workshops. David Hamers (lector City and Countryside and supervisor of Naomi’s research within TRADERS) participated and assisted in the training week and he gave a lecture on the first day, Karianne Rygh (research associate of the former CRISP programme at DAE) participated and assisted in the training week and gave a workshop on the last day, Danielle Arets (lector and research associate of the former CRISP programme at DAE) gave a workshop, Ester van de Wiel (tutor at Public Private department) gave a workshop and Mikaela Steby Stenfalk (student) gave a small presentation of map-use and navigation in the Swedish phenomenon orienteering. External partners were also invited with the aim to extend and strengthen the TRADERS network. Nanna Verhoeff and Michiel de Lange from the Urban Interfaces group of the University of Utrecht and Sybille Lammes and Chris Perkins from the Charting the Digital research programme were invited to give lectures and Jana Wendler (from the university of Manchester and working with Chris Perkins) gave a workshop. The training week took place during the first week of July 2015 at Design Academy Eindhoven and in Eindhoven city and at University of Utrecht and in Utrecht city, with an intermezzo/ barbecue in Hollandsche Rading.

The keywords
The training week commenced on Wednesday 1st of July at Design Academy Eindhoven. While each ESR received a pouch bag with a programme of the week, a logbook and a mobile phone, Naomi explained the overall programme of the week, the content of the pouch bags and how to use the different mapping-apps that were installed on the mobile phones. After this introduction David Hamers gave a lecture “Every map is an argument; Mapping strategies to engage with public space and public issues”, where he explained different traditions to talk about place, space and realm and he specified what a map entails (consisting of a frame, a scale and a legend) by giving different examples of maps and mapping practices at Design Academy Eindhoven. In his lecture David furthermore introduced words (performativity, virtual/ analogue, power relations, temporality and failure) to work with for the continuation of the week via a logbook. Each day of the week a different keyword was to be addressed (in the lectures and workshops) and the ESR’s were asked to elaborate on this word in their logbooks. The aim of this task was to come to a better understanding of the researchers perspective on the same word. 

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