Projected Mapping
As a counter to my film study, A Report of Lights in the Sky, which implies an alien and unsettling world, the installation moment serves as an invitation to partake in joyful shared creation. Presented as a map-making activity, participants are instructed to use the pieces of topographical illustration, snippets of text and coloured shapes to construct a map that might conjure a ‘better landscape’. Pieces should be placed in consideration of those around them, and in turn participants should place pieces in consideration of their fellow map-makers. The forming of a community through gentle shaping of values is a big part of the game.
As the map is constructed in the present and projected large-scale using the overhead projector, another map grows concurrently, inhabiting the same space as the first. It is a map that implies past action, both literally in that it is a video recording, and in its use of natural and non-human materials. This second (or perhaps this should be seen as the first) map shows a series of rocks appear, trailing mud and dirt and river water in their movements. The two maps form a conversation, sometimes neatly – a rock and drawn symbol overlap in a way that feels intentional – and sometimes awkwardly – a slick of mud cuts through a cluster of colours in a way that feels like a conflict.
The combined image, constantly changing through the duration of the game, speaks to the same issues as the film. Two velocities acting on the same space. Both moving into the future, but with hugely different methods, speeds, and intentions.
Below is a document of the full activity, and a snippet showing the moment of discovery when the participants realized that a second map was being created in conjuction with their own.