Proposal dates, PR, exhibition material and papers will be stored here.

Presenting theirwork: an online map, at the Takeaway Festival 10th May 2007

theirwork is a living community mapmaking project, which by its nature rejects a top-down system of classification, or taxonomy, and adopts instead a "folksonomic" approach. This talk presents the "slow" development of the project.

http://www.takeawayfestival.com/node

Accepted Book chapter - Rethinking Maps, theirwork: the development of a sustainable mapping tool


Abstract theirwork is a living mapmaking project, which by its nature rejects a top-down system of classification, or taxonomy, and adopts instead a system of labelling, or what has been dubbed folksonomy. Working from a conscious standpoint, which views authoritative and hierarchical taxonomic systems as disempowering, folksonomy enables the theirwork end-user, who works online, to collaboratively generate open-ended labels for map-based data. Forgoing other top-down systems that often produce hegemonic systems and organisations (such as copyrighted base-maps and copyrighted Geographical Information Systems data), theirwork is developing a rhizomatous model of collection, presentation and dissemination. Whilst mapmaking is the centre of the project and is used to ground this data, it is also used to ground the project in real-time space. Adopting a psycho-physical geographic and ethnographic approach to sourcing data, theirwork works with end-users, or rather co-developers, in the real-time space of the map, by walking, talking and recording in its landscape. The mapmaking it seeks to produce is grounded in multiple perspectives, and therefore multiple voices and autonomous experiences are documented via first person sensory experience and through a communities' felt experience of landscape.

Drawing on recent debates, such as the advocation of 'Open-source' and what constitutes good qualitative research, as well as current grass routes mapmaking praxis i.e. Green Mapmaking, this chapter explores the following main theorists in relation to praxis: David Abram (1996), Edward Casey (2001), Norman Denzin (2003), Douglas Ezzy (2002) (2005), Michel Foucault (1970) Ezio Manzini (http://www.sustainable-everyday.net) Open-source (http://www.opensource.org), Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org), Green Map System (http://www.greenmap.com), Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) and the Slow Food organisation (http://www.slowfood.com).

Deadline Feb. 1st 2007

Pending publication Magazine Article Fourth Door Review, theirwork: community mapmaking turns guerrilla activity


Opening Loe Pool, Cornwall's largest natural lake in the Southwest of England, has become a sacred place for a group of local residents, who have recently been busy mapping out their concept of environment. theirwork, an online experiment by designers Dominica Williamson and Emmet Connolly, demonstrates that the future of ecology is a local affair.

theirwork is a community and user-driven adaptive development of an online map. As a prototype and experimental process it is aiming to promulgate the three core areas of sustainability: social, environmental and economic well-being. Providing an empty map where people can deposit information whilst online aims to demonstrate how collaborative mapmaking is an important community activity that can drive change and can be a tool of empowerment. Based on constant communication the development is a highly agile, organic and living process characterised by inclusion and local/individual relevance – all the while endeavouring to create a sustainable online vehicle powered by sustainable communal activity. As such this online experiment investigates and hits on the cornerstones of a number of movements, such as Green Mapmaking, Sustainability, Open Source, Folksonomy, Visual Qualitative Research, User-centred Design and highlights as an overarching theme today's Ecological Crisis as the imminent state of the planet. The theirwork practice-based perspective aims to combine the potential of these movements.

Original framework theirwork: guerilla mapmaking, the story so far...
letting people go where they want (capture)
setting the stage (clarify what it is, what's the aim, what we're going to say)
building on the background 1: Green Mapmaking (building on, but deviating from concept)
building on the background 2: Digital auditing (open-source, copyleft, cost benefit analysis)
detail... (step in Emmet)
creating SUSTAINABLE SOFTWARE (slow software)
building a SOFTWARE TOOLKIT
struggling with MAPPING METHODOLOGIES
delighting in FOLKSONOMIES
qualitative research on the path (Dom, pathing the way with qualitiative research)
folksonomy in action (at ground level)
badgers in the bush and stuff in the sand! (what's going on now)

Deadline Sept. 14th 2006

Presented Online qualitative research: Can you help to represent and distribute significant data about a place in a way that affects how a community look after it?


Abstract The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the development of an online collaborative mapping tool called theirwork. The tool continues to be developed and delivered using web and open source mapmaking tools and within an evolving framework of qualitative research and critical theory. This framework seeks to ask if theirwork, which is developing a shared language about peoples’ places, can affect how a community look after their environment.

The tool is free and is for and about local communities and their place. They can use it to connect with, understand, protect, and share information about the environment in their area. Groups of people in a community can add information to a wiki-like map about their locality, creating a dynamic snapshot of how people feel about where they live. Individuals can mark places on the map, and comment on why they feel the places are important or of interest to them. Map data is created in an unfiltered, bottom up manner, and can be a mixture of hard GIS data and story-based information. Community workshops have shaped the project’s development and have involved people of a mixed age, gender and sector.

Key words: open-source locative tagging qualitative wellbeing

A proposed paper in the form of a 200 word abstract using the RGS-IBG abstract pro-forma available from http://www.rgs.org/ac2006 was submitted to Martin Dodge (m.dodge@manchester.ac.uk) on 20th January 2006.

Looking at category 3 Open-source mappings: Can groups of citizen cartographers really make workable maps from the 'bottom-up'? We seek papers that investigate the potentialities and problematics of new organisational, technological, economic and cultural structures for producing copyright-free cartographic knowledges, along with the collaborative mapmaking practices that are flowering online.

Shortlisted A proposal by EmmetConnolly and DominicaWilliamson has been sent into the PLAN exhibition that will take place in Manchester during July 2006 as a part of the Futuresonic 2006 festival.http://www.open-plan.org/index.php?fex-call


Summary submitted theirwork is a free online map about local communities. Use it to connect with, understand, protect, and share information about the environment in your area. Groups of people in a community can add information to a wiki-like map about their locality, creating a dynamic snapshot of how people feel about where they live. Individuals can mark places on the map, and comment on why they feel the places are important or of interest to them. Map data is created in an unfiltered, bottom up manner, and can be a mixture of hard GIS data and story-based information. Community workshops involve people with no history of mapmaking or 'environmental activism,' and encourage them to get involved as collaborators on the project.

Each theirwork map is developed within the community of people living locally, and is focused on a small geographic area. The focus of the project is on encouraging community members to become engaged with their local environment and get involved in raising community awareness of locative thinking.

The theirwork philosophy is one of openness, and as such is being developed as open source software.

The project is currently being piloted in the Loe Pool area of Cornwall, which is very close to the town of Helston.

For more information see http://theirwork.org/wiki/index.php?TheirWork

Presented Williamson, D The Ecological Nature of Software? Exploiting Potential Bristol: Submerge Symposium, 1 July 2005 http://www.submerge.org.uk/exploitingpotential/


Abstract This presentation will explore how using the free/open source model enables producers to work towards sustainable approaches to software development. Explorations will draw on research being gathered for a project that is building a collaborative online web tool. The web tool is re-coding an existing Wikki engine to meet the needs of a community group who want to understand how they can look after their community place sustainably.