Imagine Your IdeaMAKE YOUR TOOLTell Your Story
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It’s all about access
• Design around inclusion
• Consider that everyone has an expertise
• Design to address full data lifecycle
• Prioritise price points that are accessible to individuals and community groups
• Provide access for storytelling and entry into decision making process
• Redefine the term “user”
mapknitter.orgWeb-tool for creating maps from DIY aerial imagery
Google Earth
Outreach
earth.google.com
/outreach
People like you and me seeing things more clearly
COMPOSTING FESTIVAL IN
GOWANUS, BROOKLYN
21 October 2012
JUAKALI WOMENS CRAFT
MARKET, UGANDA
5 October 2012
aerial mapping
balloon
mapping
camera
Helium-filled
weather balloon
simple noise monitor
kite mapping
kite-making workshop
camera
Kite
when to use balloons, when to use kites
Creative Commons Share Back with Attribution for the collaborative production of knowledge
DIY camera rig: made from plastic bottle and cardboard stabilisers. Cameras set to continuous shooting, button held down by a rubber band
Why kites/balloons? Building openness & accountability
revealed operatorconcealed operator
…stories of the
Gowanus Canal, NY
Helping to set up a cleanup process – but where ?
Gowanus Canal Sewage: gets a million gallons a day …
‘Gowanus Low Altitude Mapping Program’ formed to take pictures of the canal’s water quality and opportunities for improving it
15 DECEMBER 2012 BALLOON AERIAL
Gowanus Canal mapping of sewage plumes from hurricane Sandy damage
15 DECEMBER 2012
BALLOON AERIAL Unmapped
spring
discovered
Gowanus Canal mapping of fresh water inflows from historic spring into sewage contaminated waters
Fresh water spring outlet as seen from the canoe
Can we map all the old ghost streams and creeks? These can help divert rainwater out of sewers and reduce sewer overflow pollution.
Looking for Solutions to the Problem…
1766 Freeke’s Mill
Building
Potential
SpringThis is a public
Right of Way:
Could this stream
be restored for
the new park ?
Why are plants in concrete cracks
growing so well ?
Is the spring still running ?
July 2011 Balloon PhotoCIVIC DATA THAT ASKS QUESTIONS
FIRST
STREET
BASIN
1766
Can historic maps help us understand our grassroots aerial photos?
EXISTING
SPRING
1766
streamFIRST
STREET
BASIN
GOWANUS
CANAL
(SALTY
WATER)
COLONIAL MILL
NEEDING FRESH
WATER
Historic map from 1766 overlaid on “Do-It-Yourself” balloon aerial image shows us what is going on
Surviving stream is now argument for official 5th Street Basin Greenway &Park Restoration
Grassroots Community Data Collection helped focus attention on this site
…stories from
Jerusalem, Israel
Ala Salman created an aerial map of a contested road that splits his Jerusalem neighborhood in two and damages its environmental and communal infrastructures. He presents his DIY aerial image to MPs in the Israeli “Kneset”
“ Our story – the story of communities, is portrayed on an aerial image that seeks to reveal social and environmental context through collaborative mapping.
It is not only about an objective reality to be visualized and decoded, but about seeing the subjective story that is embedded in it and which is inseparable from the concrete features of the landscape. ”
- Hagit Keysar, 2013
“ The people I was working with had a story to tell on top of that aerial photograph they created. They re-appropriated “the master’s tool”, the same tool that is being used to erase their presence and identity off the map or to rationalize plans for destruction and regeneration in the city that ignores their local perspectives. ”
- Hagit Keysar, 2013
Once the map is left by itself in the offline and online streams of information, the makers of the map ask - who will it reach? what story will it tell? “where do our maps go? ”
“…aerial photographs do not speak for themselves. And in particular those made by communities. Exactly like any other form of photography, aerial images are ground for interpretation and re-imagining.”
- Hagit Keysar, 2013
…other stories
Mapping demonstration efforts
mapping use of a park
mapping forest
damage
mapping a demonstration
Nat Fein, 1947, Central Park
SMALL DATA vs BIG DATAReconnecting the State with it’s
Citizen KnowledgeTELLING THE LOCAL STORY
Grassroots
Mappers
YOU
youth engagement
Kite-mapping with youth from Hyperion Lyceum school, Amsterdam
Youngsters teach others DIY aerial mapping techniques
Youngsters analyse their Near Infrared pictures taken with cameras ‘hacked’ by them
Public Lab platform for NIR image analysis:infragram.org
Youth create their own DIY Near Infrared cameras &teach the public of Amsterdam about NIR & plant health
Family Kite mapping at
Bletchley Park for the Electro-magnetic field festival, 2014
Thank you to PublicLab.org community for their work and open source materials, many of them included in this presentation
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