0degrees

Are we talking about the same place?

Dimitra Tzanos — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:55:52 +0000

I understand that different people have different views and opinions about a city based on their experiences but what I often wondered was weather or not these people were even referring to the same place anyway. By taking maps of London (Zones 1&2), participants outlined the physical places they often experienced. The outcome revealed very different forms of a place that is always referred to by a single name – London…

Profile
Area code: SE9 3QT
Nationality: British
Age: 27

Profile
Area code: SE1 6HD
Nationality: British
Age: 22

Profile
Area code: N8 0PN
Nationality: Italian
Age: 31

Profile
Area code: SW16
Nationality: German
Age: 24

Profile
Area code: SE17 1JL
Nationality: Catalan
Age: 24

Profile
Area code: WC2H 9SP
Nationality: Turkish
Age: 22

Contributors: Núria Sierra Taulé, Sila Nur Isik, Annalisa Premoli, Lubna Ghayur, Hayley Kingston & Anja Boruta

Aloooong the remains of the Wall

Dimitra Tzanos — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:51:12 +0000

Aloooong the remains of the Wall, originally uploaded by DimitraTzanos.

Even though the part of the Berlin Wall that remains acts only as a memorial, it’s still so big, long and intimidating. I took this video while walking a couple of meters along the wall earlier this year. It felt like it was neverending.

20 years after the fall : Franz Strasser’s Germany

Dimitra Tzanos — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:42:20 +0000

Franz Strasser is travelling and video blogging through his former home of Eastern Germany, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Follow Franz Strasser’s Germany in his blog and on the interactive map.

The BBC covered a couple more interesting personal stories about the fall of the wall:

I was seven when the Berlin Wall came down. I remember watching it late at night on the telly and I remember my father being very happy and crying. The next day we drove all the way to Berlin, and helped bring down the Wall. I still have my peace of it as a book stand. Soon after that I remember us visiting relatives and friends in East Germany – people I had never seen before. I also remember my first ride in a Trabi, going 80km/h felt like doing 180km/h in my dad’s VW Passat. Everything was old and falling apart. Many places in Eastern Germany still are. But at least the overwhelming omnipresent smell of brown coal has faded.
Markus K., Hamburg, Germany

Documenting events and the memory of events in this way display so many more ‘objective’ perspectives and allow us to see one story from so many more different viewpoints. To read more stories click here.

Also some other nice mappings of personal and general stories on the topic include:

Mapping the fall of Communism

Pieces of the Berlin Wall around the world is a collection of images and videos mapped according to their current location.

Walls around the world that are still standing including the divided island of Cyprus.

It’s not down in any map; true places never are

Dimitra Tzanos — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:49:24 +0000

Quote by Heman Melville

Memory maps depict the personal relationship between a person and a place. This study briefly explores this area.

Here the same journey in the same city has been mapped out by three different people.

Becoming Extinct!

Dimitra Tzanos — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:50:41 +0000

UNESCO have created an interactive map locating all the extinct and endangered languages around the world. Some places have as little as only three people around who still speak the language today. It’s interesting to see the effects that migration has on language and the way new languages or dialects are created and others completely eliminated over time.

The Geography of Design

Dimitra Tzanos — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:07:16 +0000

Paula Scher discusses how New York City and especially its noise (the yelling!) influences her design and typography.

My spaces are fragile: time is going to wear them away, to destroy them. Nothing will any longer resemble what was, my memories will betray me, oblivion will infiltrate my memory.

Dimitra Tzanos — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:06:37 +0000

Species of Spaces and Other Places is an incredibly interesting reference by Georges Perec. He writes about spaces like The Street, The Neighbourhood, The Town, and Foreign Towns and the way we perceive these areas.

Psychogeography is the study of the precise effects of geographical setting, consciously managed or not, acting directly on the mood and behaviour of the individual.

Dimitra Tzanos — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:51:53 +0000

This is the definition by the Situationist internationale… I like to refer to psychogeography simply as the effec an environment has on a person.

The Tale of A Smarter City

Dimitra Tzanos — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:03:37 +0000

To view more videos about the planet we live on click here.

Space is motion, place is rest

Dimitra Tzanos — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:06:30 +0000

The artisit Richard Long refers to human life as a dialogue between circles and lines. I think this is a brilliant description of our lives in relation to our environment.

He makes the following observation:

space: expansion = journeying
place: constraint = dwelling

A line is an expression of motion and hence of space.
A circle is an expression of shelter, and hence of place.
Space is motion, place is rest.
Human life takes place in a dialogue between circles and lines.