The Lowlands project attempts to locate and assess the presence of “low lying” areas, ones that are unexplored and underexposed, in the suburb that I live in. The lowlands are micro-territories and micro-activities that complement the order of the urban within which they exist. They embody characteristics and relationships that reflect the affective, cultural, economical and political states of the people who live in them. As an investigation into alternative mapping practices, the maps and data sets presented here attempt to extend and exploit the customary Cartesian order of the “base map” and the resulting static grid.
I began the “Lowlands” as a graduation project. In retrospect, I now think that the “Lowlands” are more than just static territories that exist as part of our cities. Instead, these territories can be seen as continuous displacements constantly affixed to livelihoods, land usage and its politics, private and the public, urban planning, the environment and to the macro condition of the city as a whole. It has been exciting to map the ways in which these displacements often disregard or reconstruct the urban grid. I have attempted to elicit such territories and relationships in my immediate neighborhood of Yelahanka using a GPS device.
To browse the maps please use the flash application below. You can zoom and pan the maps.
PHOTOS
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These are some photographs of the Lowlands exhibit at Ars Electronica in September 2005.
Related Links:
Documents the project's preliminary stage (pdf)
The Lowlands Document
A manifesto that I wrote during this project.
The Recombined Manifesto
Credits:
Geetha Narayanan, Ashok Sukumaran, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, citizens of Yelahanka, Sanjit Sethi, A V Varghese, Shuchi Grover, Timeland, GPS and GIS open-source community.
