A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in Partial Fulfillment Of
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THE SUBJECTS OF SUBJECTIVE MAPPING: LOCATIVE ART, CRITICAL THEORY, AND CREATIVE SYSTEMS A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master’s of Arts in Communication, Culture & Technology. By Edward S. Prutzer III, B.A. Washington, DC April 18, 2013 Copyright 2013 by Edward S. Prutzer III All Rights Reserved ii THE SUBJECTS OF SUBJECTIVE MAPPING: LOCATIVE ART, CRITICAL THEORY, AND CREATIVE SYSTEMS Edward S. Prutzer III, B.A. Thesis Advisor: Matthew Tinkcom, Ph.D. ABSTRACT What ideologies are constituted in the practices of locative art? What effect do the creative systems supporting locative art projects have on the circulation of these ideologies? How do developers and academics frame locative art projects, and how do their remarks concur or differ with the ideologies apparent in locative art projects? What does it mean to artistically represent contemporary social relations as data, and how do developers and academics address this? To address these questions, this thesis performs an ideological critique of four locative art projects – Iain Mott’s Sound Mapping, Christian Nold’s San Francisco Emotion Map, Mushon Zer-Aviv’s You Are Not Here: A Dislocative Tourism Agency, and Paolo Cirio’s Street Ghosts – and supplements these findings by investigating each project’s creative system. This thesis analyzes the sign systems of each project, applies relevant critical theory, traces the effect of competing discourses within each project, and contextualizes these findings by presenting each project’s creative system. In doing so, the thesis emphasizes two key findings. The first is that each project reflects the market ideologies of capitalism and the commodification of place through interpellative activities that reveal the importance of technological infrastructure in mediating one’s sense of place. The second is that the dislocative tension becomes a telling site of contradiction within the pieces, one that reveals more about the commodity and technological fetishes of each project than their purported content. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without my advisor, Professor Matthew Tinkcom. His insights helped me develop a proper theoretical apparatus for my research, a perspective for investigating representations of data through critical theory, and, more importantly, a roadmap for pursuing such large research endeavors in the future. This project is also indebted to my reader, Professor Linda Garcia, for reminding me through one of her courses that my interests will always lie in investigating creative expression. Finally, I thank all my professors and friends at CCT for their advice and support throughout the research process. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter II: Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 9 Chapter III: Sound Mapping, Iain Mott ..................................................................................... 31 Chapter IV: Bio-Mapping, Christian Nold ................................................................................. 49 Chapter V: You Are Not Here, Zer-Aviv et al .......................................................................... 67 Chapter VI: Street Ghosts, Paolo Cirio ...................................................................................... 86 Chapter VII: Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 104 Works Cited ................................................................................................................................... 109 v CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION I. Cartography, Locative Art, Locality, and Power In both their physical and digital forms, maps fulfill a guiding function, but the meticulous designs of maps can easily go unnoticed in everyday use, without any recognition of their cultural implications. Each year, for instance, the Cartography and Geographical Information Society holds a competition featuring the finest maps produced, ranging from pieces from the CIA’s Cartography Center to National Geographic (Stevenson, 2013). In writing about the 2013 winner for Best in Show at its annual Cartography and Geography Competition, Seth Stevenson (2013) remarks: These days, almost all the data cartographers use is provided by the government and is freely available in the public domain. Anybody can download databases of highways, airports, and cities, and then slap a crude map together with the aid of a plotter. What separates a great map from a terrible one is choosing which data to use and how best to present it. This shows that the translation of data into a particular mode of representation through maps is a significant process. Stevenson (2013) proceeds to discuss how the labeling, color assignments, and tinting affect maps’ representations greatly, using the Best in Show winner as an example. All narrative spaces, whether one looks at literature, photography, or video games, dictate certain subjective experiences for viewers in accordance with a given artist’s message. Stevenson details this through the arrangements of a map’s subtle elements that create meaning. Subjective mapping is no different. As opposed to prototypical forms of mapping, subjective mapping, entailing “maps that are tailored to the context of the observer,” can be more experimental (Chen, 2011). When applying this definition to locative art, subjective mapping can be extended to include an artist’s incorporation of urban dwellers’ subjective experiences in navigating a given city. In 1 locative art projects, designers use geospatial technologies to capture many of these additional elements. They include said elements in their unique depictions of locality. This thesis shows that a body of critical theory incorporating semiotics and ideology is useful in analyzing locative art beyond its resonance with theories of place-making. Such a framework allows a critic to focus not only on the content of the piece, but also on the artistic decisions behind a given work’s presentation. This is necessary to research what is being represented, rather than to merely examine the relation of pieces to theories of place-making in a broad sense, while analyzing the range of subjectivities that inhabit the piece. By applying ideological critique and the systems approach to creativity, this thesis presents two key findings. First, each project reflects the market ideologies of capitalism and the commodification of place through interpellative activities that reveal the importance of technological infrastructure in mediating one’s sense of place. The second finding relates to a conflict that I refer to as the dislocative tension. Locality describes a place as a scene of specific patterns of actions amongst those who inhabit it. Accordingly, locative projects represent place in this manner. In contrast, if a work is described as dislocative, this implies a reverse effect – the expression of a particular place and the patterns of behavior in it amongst those who do not actually inhabit it. In this, the dislocative experience both asserts and dismisses the uniqueness of localities simultaneously. The dislocative mode reinforces how places host unique activities amongst its subjects, but implies at the same time that these actions could still be performed not only by others who do not inhabit that place, but also performed in a different place altogether. This is a tension with which several locative art projects struggle. Furthermore, the mobility of such pieces exacerbates this tension, as they often rely on geospatial technologies that annihilate space and time. Thus, as its second key finding, this thesis 2 argues that the dislocative tension becomes a telling site of contradiction within the pieces, one that reveals more about the commodity and technological fetishes of each project than their purported content. As reflected in the locative projects in this thesis, this means that one’s sense of place is being guided by global, rather than local, technological infrastructure. This guidance mirrors the power dynamics inherent in the projects, as they are in all cultural productions. To borrow from John Fiske’s perspective, a careful analysis of power in these productions will investigate both how the individuals behind the projects seek to impart a message onto their subjects and how subjects use the text’s parameters as a mode of expression (Cormack, 1992, p. 22). Accordingly, this thesis will perform an ideological critique of four different locative art projects, from one of the earliest projects considered as locative art to the present day, in order to historicize the different subjective experiences locative art has created for its subjects over time. The broader question that frames this research is implied in the title of this thesis through its double meaning. The title calls attention to ‘subjects’ as the users of locative art and ‘subjects’ as the topics that locative art projects address. Both of these facets to the projects are critical to the indirect appeals and messages that they attempt to convey to their audiences. II. Research Questions Relevant literature has seldom analyzed how locative art projects are situated in a larger body