LANDSCAPE & IDENTITY; LANGUAGE & TERRITORY

Project Team: Alice Angus, Giles Lane & Kat Jungnickel

Liquid Geography questions and explores contemporary perceptions of geography, territory and landscape, at a point in time when understandings of place and space are being redefined:

• How do we map and make sense of the shifting boundaries between the local and the global?
• How are our visions and understandings of landscape created and how do they affect the way we then alter the landscape to fit that vision?
• How do communication technologies affect our perceptions of territory?
• How are our concepts of identity constructed and defined through our relationships to landscape and territory?
• In what ways are languages tied to experiences of the landscapes their speakers inhabit and what does this mean for strategies of translation and communication?

Liquid Geography is being developed through different themed strands resulting in a series of related projects and experiments. The initial strands will be: Landscape & Identity; Language & Territory (LILT).

LILT CREATIVE LABS
Two Creative Labs, hosted in partnership with inIVA and MEDIA@LSE, will be held on March 22nd and June 14th 2002. The Labs will explore how new technologies can be used in innovative ways to transform our knowledge of other societies and cultures and act as enabling tools providing a catalyst for the development of new ideas. The Labs will create a forum for voices not normally heard outside of a particular physical, philosophical or political boundary. They will also examine how new technologies can be used to bring together ideas from across a range of disciplines to make thinking and knowledge available to many different people in different areas.

The Labs are an opportunity to create new and deepen existing relationships between artists, academia (researchers), cultural organisations, civil society organisations and industry partners. They are designed to foster a culture of innovation that develops relationships between creative producers, academics (social scientists, geographers and economists) and civil society organisations. The Labs will be a key opportunity to formulate questions of shared concern between these sectors, and to initiate creative partnerships across them.

Encouraging international cultural organisations, regional arts boards, cultural consortia, local government and regional development agencies to promote opportunities for cross-sector collaborations that include artists is an important aim and we will be inviting representatives from such organisations to take part as well as act as observers.

4 new writing/artists' book commissions (published on June 14th 2002) using the DIFFUSION eBook format will pilot future experiments in devising creative solutions for knowledge creation and dissemination:

Mohini Chandra – Voiceover [A4 | US Letter] + sound file [QT | mp3]
Gair Dunlop – Keep Focus [A4 | US Letter]
Roshini Kempadoo – Sole Rights[A4 | US Letter]
Dr Andy Pratt – It's space Jim, but not as we know [A4 | US Letter]

A Cultural Snapshot by Alice Angus – Near Real Time [A4] (published March 2003) explores language and communication on a journey across Canada.

LILT is a collaboration between Proboscis, MEDIA@LSE and inIVA as part of SoMa's LIQUID GEOGRAPHY Research Theme.