DATAMAP for Stitch And Split


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Welcome to the Stitch And Split datamap


Context


Stitch And Split is interested in selves and territories in science fiction. What interests us in this research is how the beings, objects, concepts and spaces that appear in science fiction create «displacement», deconstruct the usual categories from which we perceive the world, move the boundaries again, cut up the territories again.
The preparation and implementation of this project and the encounters arising from it have enabled us to discover a large number of resources. In order to transmit them and give the interested public an opportunity to consult them, annotate them, complete them, transform them, we thought it essential to propose a cartography of those data.

The interstices


The map model we are proposing today tries to show how the data inhabit the interstices between concepts, qualifiers. Thus a datum is always placed between a couple of concepts.
A somewhat abstract example to clarify this proposition:

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When we encode a character like Amy Hacker, we choose to situate her between a certain number of concepts. We situate her between «male» and «female», between «dead» and «alive»... In the particular case of Amy Hacker, it is interesting to be able to define this position with nuances. Indeed, in Craig Baldwin’s film Spectres of the Spectrum, she is considered dead except by her granddaughter, a telepath, who tries to understand the message she has left her on the electromagnetic spectrum.
We immediately understand that placing Amy Hacker on the datamap is not limited to considering her «dead» or «alive», but allows us to meditate on the interstice where she is situated between two concepts.
These pairs of concepts are used to create the spatial coordinates of the map.

According to whether one chooses to see the data on one axis or another, their proximity is modified and the complexity of their relations is revealed. So the Stitch And Split map tries to show a set of dynamic relations, to draw what is situated between the cultural and scientific buoys, to show how the artefacts of science fiction draw their density from this resistance to the criteria for understanding the world.

(illustrations: the same entry under two different axes)

2 axes

2 axes

A collaborative cartography


The positioning of a resource between pairs of concepts is of course a highly subjective act. Subjectivity seems to us to be an extremely positive aspect in this kind of venture, if it is considered within the perspective of a dialogue and that one point of view can be answered by another. An item on the datamap is therefore classified by the person who encodes it, but may be the object of comments and transformations by other participants. For that purpose a version system is installed. It enables all participants to propose their own spatialisation of the element on the datamap and to propose their own description of the element.

How to take part?


We, the Stitch And Split team, Laurence Rassel, Pierre De Jaeger and Nicolas Malevé, want to open this project to anyone who wants to work on it.
The possibility of adding and modifying contents requires a log-in for the moment. To obtain it please send us an e-mail describing your interest in this project in a few words and we will create a profile for you.

What you can do:

  • add and/or modify contents in the data base
  • comment on the contents which are already present and propose your own interpretation
  • make suggestions and remarks about the visualisation system and the way the data base is laid out. As the datamap is a work in progress, we are most interested in any constructive criticism.
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