At the end of last year, we had the first working sessions with the two groups of students from the
Institut Bellvitge
with whom we have been developing an artistic research process over the last few months that we have called
Cartografies en moviment
(we presented the initiative here).
These first working sessions were conceived as a first contact with the idea of graphically representing specific information: At the end of the project presentation – which took place a few weeks before – we asked the students to bring an object with which they identified to the following session.
During the first part of this session, we collectively analyzed the objects they had brought, based on four proposed questions: 1. What is it? (A nominal description: a necklace, a blanket, boxing gloves, a stuffed animal, a skimmer, etc., etc. 2. What is it for or what function does it serve? (What is it used for and how does it work?). 3. With what other objects is it assembled, to what other objects is it added, coupled, with what other objects does it work, relate or combine? (in a strictly mechanical -physical- or symbolic way) and 4. What does the object say about you? (What image does the object give of you, what does it tell others about you or how is it perceived by others in relation to you).
Once each student had individually answered these questions, we shared the answers and discussed them. During the dialogue, very interesting questions arose about our relationship with objects, and especially those of a symbolic or affective nature (among others those that include us or associate us with a specific group).
In fact, during the analysis of all the data presented on the objects provided by the groups, two axes appeared with respect to which the objects would be located (integrating the physical objects into the graphic representation itself): on the one hand, an axis that measured the intensity of the affective, individual, autobiographical relationship with the objects, and on the other hand, an axis that measured the intensity with which the objects were associated with certain human groups or collectives.
This was with the first group, since the second reached different conclusions: in this second group, the convenience of graphically representing the degree to which the objects gathered were used in accordance with the function for which they had been designed or not was assessed; for example, a shoe that was no longer used as such but as a decorative object, souvenir and as a support for artistic expression. On the other hand, they focused their analysis on the individual or collective nature of the objects (from a perspective similar to that of the other group) and on their affective connotations: to what type of emotions were they associated.
Both groups began to sketch a possible graphic representation of the data that had appeared during the conversation, and of the categories, criteria and scales that they themselves had established to analyze them.
For the second working session, we asked the students to bring an object or an image of something that they associated with the Bellvitge neighborhood.