at home map making

Second phase of the Personal Form of the City, how to continue a project without institutional support.

I'm looking for people willing to take part in some map-making experiments. It can be fun and can be easy, here are the instructions:


map 1
draw a map of a neighborhood that you have lived in for a significant amount of time (usually your current one).
think about the paths you travel through the neighborhood and why you use those routes.
think about how you leave and enter the neighborhood and what makes the perimeter.
imagine all the interior spaces that you've been in in this neighborhood and other buildings that you've wondered about.
think about destinations, places you've spent the most time and why you spent that time (waiting for a bus, at a park, shopping, etc.)
feel free to add information if it's important.

map 2

Think of it like a map of your linear path through space, but drawn according to a time-based scale
One useful idea for doing it might be like this:
1. mark the beginning and end of your commute
2. think about how long it takes to get there and find the half-way point.
3. fill in the details. Include everything that you find significant/use to navigate or time yourself along the way and all time markers that occur to you (when you know you're almost there or running late or areas that are always slow or fast to move through or whatever.

email me for details on how to send it to me, you can either mail it (best way) or email it (no problem).

Imperialisms at RIver Gods

It's become a monthly thing at River Gods. Usually the last Tuesday, I join forces with Angela Sawyer of Weirdo Records to present 4 hours of weird foreign music. Much of it comes from the psychedelic 60s/70s but we do stray into genres as disparate as cumbia, new wave, disco, luk thung, garage rock, electro and the like. You can find playlists and past fliers (beautifully designed by Angela) here

the Boston globe just gave us a mention:

Cereal in the Looper Supergroup at Rought Night II at Outpost 186

I'm playing with Cereal as a subsection of the Looper Supergroup, which debuts on Thursday, May 6th as a part of Rough Night II at the Outpost 186 in Cambridge. Does that make any sense? No?:
-Cereal is an improvising horn trio collective.
-The Looper Supergroup is a group that is bigger than cereal but not less improvising. It features horns, guitars and a theremin.
-Rough Night is a monthly series of sound and visual art curated by French Clements. It takes place at the Outpost 186.
Watch for it.

I need you

Wanted: you and your housemates.
or
you and your co-workers.

Are you interested in taking part in the Personal Form of the City project but can't make the workshops or don't live in Boston? Maybe you did it already but still have more patience for my projects. I'm looking for participants in a related project who are willing to work with their house mates or co-workers to draw a map of their commute. It's simple: you can do it on your own time, you don't have to work with the other people, and you don't have to know how to draw.
If you think you're interested, email me at jskaminsky [at] gmail and we can work out the details.

Maps of maps of the south end

We've now had 3 mapping workshops to date, the most recent taking place at Northeastern University. Thanks to Sophia Ainslie and her experimental drawing class I now have a pile of great maps to sort through, those images are coming soon. In the meantime, here are some portions of maps that were made by participants in MyTown, a fantastic organization located in Boston's south end that trains Boston-area teenagers to give historical walking tours of the south end. They took part in the first workshop in which I asked them to make maps of their tour route. One theme that emerged was the "map within a map":







There are still 3 workshops upcoming in April and as always, registration to each workshop is always open. Groups and individuals both welcome.

Photos from the First Workshop

On Thursday Jesse held his first workshop with a group of local teens, drawing maps of the South End and their pathways throughout the city. Photos are coming soon! In the mean time, don't forget to register for the upcoming workshops on Tuesday March 16th, Tuesday April 13th, and Wednesday April 28th! Contact Cynthia Woo at cwoo@bcaonline.org for registration and inquiries.

Registration Open for Workshops!

You can still rsvp for the first workshop, it's easy. Sign up now!