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The Cartographic Congress
Editorial content |
Submitted by mute on Thursday, 3 July, 2003 - 23:00
Mute editors Over a six week period in May and June coders, artists, writers, activists, economists, cartographers, tapissiers and film-makers indulged their shared passion for map-making. A re-occurring thread at the CC could be called ‘Open Data’, a sister phenomenon of the Open Source software movement. The internet dream of distributed and collaborative network systems has provided a spur to the creation of public domain data that, until now, has been appropriated by governments and corporations. The CC, aswell as giving cartography a massive ludic injection, provided a valuable forum for the on- and offline development of related Open Data initiatives OPEN UP THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE The following text was chosen by some of the Congress for its 'imaginist cartographic' approach to place and history. Certain concepts, dreams, and escapades can be found returning like a spiral - close but never identical to – what has already been. In this text, written to announce the London Psychogeographical Association's rally on May 10th, the North West Passage, both real, mythical and metaphorical, forms the quilting point. In 1566, Humfrey Gilbert initiated the campaign to open up the Northwest Passage. 400 years later the call was taken up by the Situationist International. It was during a visit to Humfrey Gilbert's home in Limehouse that he came upon Gilbert's text and arranged to have it published. He assures the reader that John Dee, founder of the British Empire, liked the text very much, commending the author in his preface to the English translation of Euclid. Gilbert cites both Plato and Ficino in support of his plan, mentions roman coins found by the Spanish in American gold mines, and refers to the discovery of Europe by some Indians in 1160, when a storm forced them onto the coast of Germany. Gilbert was driven by the search for commodities, not Utopia. Nearly 400 years later, the S.I. assembled in Limehouse searching for new passageways. This was a contentious conference, the last that Asger Jorn attended. It was only after Prem and the Nashists had left, that the S.I. declared its resolve to follow a new direction: "At this moment of history when the task is posed, in the most unfavourable conditions, of reinventing culture and the revolutionary movement on an entirely new basis the Situationist International can only be a Conspiracy of Equals, a general staff that does not want troops. It is a matter of finding, of opening up, the 'Northwest Passage' towards a new revolution that cannot tolerate masses of performers, a revolution that must surge over that central terrain which has until now been sheltered from revolutionary upheavals: the conquest of everyday life. We will only organise the detonation: the free explosion must escape us and any other control forever." ('The Counter-Situationist Operation in Various Countries', S.I. No.8, January 1963)
The London Psychogeographical Association is holding a rally near the site of the Alchemical Laboratory of the Society of the New Art, an organisation set up by Gilbert, Lord Burghley and the Earl of Leicester (its exact location has yet to be determined). It was also in Limehouse that Gilbert wrote his proposal for an Elizabethan 'Achademy', a proposal that was eventually realised by his fellow Merchant Adventurer, Sir Thomas Gresham. Gilbert claimed to have constructed remarkable navigational machines, an area of work that the Gresham College was quick to concern itself with. Outside the nearby library, there is the baleful influence of the statue of Clement Attlee, the mass murderer who signed the authorisation for dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. The town hall across the road used to be a socialist reliquary, where Prince Kropotkin's table was kept. Alongside this were other relics of the communist saint, Sylvia Pankhurst. (She was beatified by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and given the title Debre). These were removed before work began on Canary Wharf. evoL PsychogeogrAphix <evol AT c6.org> CC events >> COLLABORATIVE MAPPING Nine(9) [http://9.waag.org]
Spacenamespace [http://space.frot.org] Headmap [http://headmap.org] Grubstreet [http://grault.net/grubstreet/] (OpenGuides) Upmystreet [http://forums.upmystreet.com/] Pepysdiary [http://www.pepysdiary.com] Ordnance Survey [http://www.ordsvy.gov.uk] Songs in your head [http://undergroundlondon.com/antimega/archives/000108.html] Urban Tapestries [http://www.urbantapestries.net] GPSter/Geograffiti [http://www.gpster.net] NoCat [http://maps.nocat.net/] THE MAP ROOM
PIRATE PARTY ON HIJACKER ISLAND
NODE RUNNER
FIELD TRIP TO ORFORD NESS
IAA MAPPING MEETING
The Cartographic Congress was co-ordinated by the University of Openness in conjunction with Mute, the resident groups of Limehouse Town Hall and the Space Hijackers. Thank you to all CC volunteers and participants Further information: subject: Alt_cartography | Art | Internet | Mapping view pdf | 2700 reads
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>> Left: S.I. standing in front of the British Sailors Society, Limehouse, during the London Conference, 1960 
