Inquiry, content and goals
Within the larger investigation of the EU funded research project “Unlock the City”, Norwegian Theatre Academy/Østfold University College is organising the first student workshop with the aim to understand, question and reimagine the concept of maps through means of sensory experience, sharing and discussing findings, debating maps as tools for orientation, facilitation, control and oppression, and eventually developing new maps in the form of two- or three-dimensional sketches.
In relation to the ongoing performing arts project by Marta Cuscunà for the Piccolo Teatro Milan, participants will engage the distinct neighborhood of Corvetto Chiaravalle Nosedo in South-East Milan which is characterized by its abrupt proximity to the natural landscape, its cultural and political diversity as a housing area, and its unique technical/town planning and social/anthropological history. The workshop will foremost investigate uncommon criteria, features and qualities in mapping to gain insight into the underpinnings of maps as systemic representations of distinct properties; we will focus on individual acoustic and olfactory sensations in smaller groups which will be woven together to give shape to overarching networks. We will discuss fabrics of objectified patterns which originate from personal experiences that grow into a larger scope, attempting to question and dissect fundamental ideas of maps.
In a third phase the participants will exemplify their map drafts in the Milanese area of Corvetto Chiaravalle Nosedo. A core theme of the workshop will consist in the fields of tension between personal, individual, sensory experience, often foundational for artistic creation, and the engineered, technical, universal properties of maps; whereas the core of all maps lies in abstracting and simplifying vast amounts of constituting factors to the bare aspects at stake within a given system.
Topics for the workshop: exploring a topography of social identities through mapping of sound in urban and peri-urban contexts, their thresholds and overlapping. The students will hereby inquire, manifest and question maps as rational tools in terms of relations and tensions between scientific and emotional criteria. According triggers encompass all sensory observations, especially beyond common visual ones, focusing on sound and smell. The uncommonly clear border separating the urban area Corvetto Chiaravalle Nosedo from the natural landscape is of additional importance in analyzing the surroundings towards various forms and concepts of mapping.
The local students from the Politecnico di Milano will prepare according journeys in the area of investigation which they will invite the guests from Norway and Czech Republic to. The students’ different acquaintances with the urban context will hereby enhance diversity in reading of, relating to and processing the investigated territory.
Guest artist Marta Cuscunà (who currently is developing her own work for the Piccolo Teatro with whistlers from the Canary Islands) is planned to join the first three days of the workshop. Guest artist Davide Carnevali, also working within the scope of Unlock the City with the Piccolo Teatro, will join the last three days of the workshop. Both are planned to stay in symbiotic relationship to the student workshop with shared themes and the identical area of investigation. We will clarify during the workshop how to best interweave the longer-term guest artists’ projects with the one week long academic laboratory.
It remains to be clarified whether, who and in what way students will continue the inquiry and possibly further develop the initiated projects.
Participants:
- 6 MA students in landscape architecture and town planning, Politecnico di Milano
- 4 MA students in scenography, Norwegian Theatre Academy/HiØ, Fredrikstad
- 2 dramaturges from DAMU, Prague
Workshop led by:
- Antonio Longo, Politecnico di Milano
- Teresa di Muccio, Politecnico di Milano
- Serge von Arx, Norwegian Theatre Academy/Østfold University College - Francesca Serrazanetti, Politecnico di Milano
Artists involved through Piccolo Teatro with productions in area within “Unlock the City”:
- Marta Cuscunà
- Davide Carnevali
Location:
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- Hub: Milan Off Campus Nosedo (Politecnico di Milano location, a convenient place (old cascina) with facilities, tables, a very large and comfortable outdoor space in the center of the area
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- involved by the project. (http://www.polisocial.polimi.it/en/off-campus-3/) Area of investigation: Southern Milan, Corvetto Chiaravalle Nosedo area