week5-collecting and story telling

This week is about critical mapping of the knowledge mile. Before going on a data walk from Waterlooplein Station to Amstel Station, each group has to pick a topic from the list and afterwards you create visual representation of the topic. It should tell a story of the data collected while walking. Each group needs to have a notetaker, photographer, collector and drawer/map maker.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS BASED ON THE RESEARCHED AREA

The next day we went through all the photographs and the map that Anna has drew. In that way we divided where all the street art/commercials appeared and also the empty spaces. One of the main conclusions were that underneath Wibaut Station towards Amstel Station there is a lot of commercial advertisements, when above Wibaut Station towards Waterlooplein Station there is majority of street art.

PROCESS OF MAKING THE MAP

Me and Moritz started with thinking about how to clearly divide visually the street art and commercial advertisements. I suggested to experiment first with vacuum machine, since I was working with it before and I thought the mould could be very interesting integration of 3D, tactile element. Moritz suggested using the transparent paper to show clearly the layers.

I was in the group with Moritz, Anna and Katharina. We decided to go on a data walk the same day we received assignment, so that saved us some time in the following days. Before going for a walk we divided the tasks. I volunteered as a photographer, since I really like to take pictures and I have never done it before with a professional camera, so now was my opportunity to learn.

making a clear map of the data walk

vacuuming the building forms

After collecting the data, the group splits in 2 and in a pair you create one map/visual representation of your data walk. Starting point for this assignment is Hema harmonica book (12x7cm), you can manipulate it in whichever way.

Since we wanted to show the density of the commercial advertisements along the path and it was the first layer, we thought about vacuuming the forms of the buildings, so it gets a 3D feel, beside that as well the bigger the building is the higher is the density on that part of the path.

Instead of only focusing on street art and commercials which appeared on the data walk, we spotted as well many empty spaces which could be used for either street art or commercials. We've spotted lots of objects which could be used for either of them, such as a toilet, a shopping cart and of course buildings which had a lot of free surfaces.

We found a lot of stickers pasted on the street signs, poles, garbage bins...

We continued with making a clear map of data walk. We wanted to have the laser cut map and then underneath another layer of paper onto which the yarn would have been attached, to emphasise the shape of the path. Unfortunately at the end we decided to skip the yarn idea, since we ran out of time. Before printing we also wrote the text, so it could be engraved at the same time, while it was laser cut.
First picture shows the try out of the laser cut path and the second shows the real size booklet, laser cut.

making a prototype booklet

After the street art has been printed, we had to laser cut the size of the booklet around it and as well the shapes of the buildings so the transparent layer could fit over the base layer. We encountered problems with laser cutting precisely on the lines even though we have made the correct measurements in the illustrator, that is why we had to cover the lines with blue tape, so it would have cover it.

placing the laser cutter forms of the buildings onto the vacuum board

we tried to warm up the mould several times but mostly it was too hot and we got wrinkles over the forms of the buildings, at the end we figured that the perfect time is 17 seconds

the mould warmed up for too long so it started to wrinkle too much, the objects stayed inside the mould and beside that we placed some of the objects mirrored so they didn't fit into the laser cutter form of the building

In order that street art layer connects to the 3D vacuumed building forms, we had to place the map in the first layer and then in the second layer the pictures of the street art as they fit.

laser cutting space for 3D vacuumed objects

TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE AREA

Advertisements appeared on several spots, window displays, walls next to the restaurant, building site, wooden walls, inside of the cafes.

commercials/advertisements, empty spaces

street art, empty spaces

While me and Anna were working on marking the street art, commercials and empty spaces on two maps, Moritz has places all the photographs of the street art and commercials, empty spaces in photoshop on the map, so we could refer to those. At the end of the day we has three maps with clear data on them, divided in three groups, street art, advertisements and empty spaces.

-idea of a graffiti map: to show empty spaces to make graffiti and to show where they are
-commercial presence with street art
-idea of having street art and commercial usage of empty spaces: show where they could add it
-street art and commercial stuff: density, how much do they have, where, area of commercials
-main focus: to compare the density of street art to commercial advertisements; for beside: empty spaces where you can put the graffiti

-conclusion: one empty spaces, one graffiti and commercial advertisements together

To see how the actual booklet is going to look like we created the prototype. To see exactly towards which side is the booklet folding out, where is the front page and the last page. Beside that as well to see how many pages do we need and the font size. At the end it came handy to see how do we need to fold it and where to place the wooden front and back page.

printing the street art layer

We didn't have a lot of time left to finalise all of the things, that is why we rushed the decision about the cover. We decided to use the laser cutter piece of map which has been a left over from laser cutting the base layer. The main material for the cover and last page, was left over cartoon which Katharina and Anna were as well using for their booklet, so we decided to have the same one and same colours, so it would connect.

At the end we have a made a booklet of 19cm x 16,5cm which included a cartoon map cover, 4 page fold outs and introduction with instructions on how to read the map on the last page.