Walking and mapping. Artists as Cartographers

Sobre el llibre Walking and mapping. Artists as Cartographers de publicat per MIT al 2013:

Contemporary artists beginning with Guy Debord and Richard Long have returned again and again to the walking motif. Debord and his friends tracked the urban flows of Paris; Long trampled a path in the grass and snapped a picture of the result ( A Line Made by Walking). Mapping is a way for us to locate ourselves in the world physically, culturally, or psychologically; Debord produced maps like collages that traced the psychogeography of Paris. Today, the convergence of global networks, online databases, and new tools for location-based mapping coincides with a resurgence of interest in walking as an art form. In Walking and Mapping, Karen O´Rourke explores a series of walking/mapping projects by contemporary artists. Some chart emotional GPS ; some use GPS for creating datascapes while others use their legs to do speculative mapping. Many work with scientists, designers, and engineers. O´Rourke offers close readings of these works -- many of which she was able to experience firsthand -- and situates them in relation to landmark works from the past half-century. She shows that the infinitesimal details of each of these projects take on more significance in conjunction with others. Together, they form a new entity, a dynamic whole greater than the sum of its parts. By alternating close study of selected projects with a broader view of their place in a bigger picture, Walking and Mapping itself maps a complex phenomena.