Do printed maps still matter in our digital age? The availability of digital signal, the demand of real-time data, the omnipresence of telephone that become mobile-compasses, all are often thought to condemn paper. We now know that no map is true, perfectly precise or definitive. Like classic translations, constantly reworked, cartography is a translation amongst others, eternally incomplete and obsolete. Artists never aim to be neutral or exhaustive. Their approach toward scenery is by essence a refusal of the norm, the choice of a personal interpretation, a call to look differently at those landscapes we thought we knew well. Mappages assembles artists who approach maps as a means of expression rather than as orientation tool; questioning the pretence of maps as absolute things; a call to the “map of the day after“, that which would complete the experience of a territory never definitively documented. The French word mappe, old-fashioned and unusual, has been chosen rather than carte. Map and mappe both come from nappe (table cloth). Mappage is a mix between the map and the page: long live printed maps!
“Walking with satellites” is the result of a work carried out over three weeks, with the collaboration of 65 students equipped with GPS receivers; it is both an orientation tool and the story of a collective experiment. 475 kilometres were covered on foot over the 185 hectare campus, while avoiding all existing paths. Roads and buildings disappeared, replaced by loops and convolutions. Under Jeremy Wood’s direction, the Grenoble campus has revealed its unseen and delicate composition. It is a map made of methodical meanderings, second thoughts, day dreams and wanderlust. On the front of the map (the recto) we see the campus’ connection to the city, thanks to the crossing of the Isère, or the discreet presence of the buildings. The map printed on the back reflects a floating silhouette, almost primitive and wild, looming from prehistoric times.
Mappages : Directeur de collection : Guillaume Monsaingeon
ISBN 978-2-9516858-2-6
Prix de vente public : 5 €
