proposition 3

PROPOSITION 3
Cartopology implements, reinvents, and
stretches the role drawings and making
maps (as research instruments) are given
by spatial and social disciplines.
areas:
Foundation Run on Companion Path
Foundations runs are inevitable in training for longer distances and
will come most frequently in any training program. They are low
impact runs that serve to develop durability. They are also known as
‘talk-runs’ as you have to run at a speed that allows you to talk. These
foundation runs on companion path are therefore the way to get to
know the cartopological field in an informal manner.
Hill Repititions
Hill repeats are a specific training running up a hill multiple times at
a hard pace and go down slowly so that your heartrate slows down
to push it back up once you are down hill. Hill repetitions make you
know a hill very well. Each step you take, you have repeated it plenty
of times, up -and downhill. The hill repeats between the ‘field’ and the
‘drawing’ and ‘mapping’ on the extreme sides of the panoramic view
have the same effect; exhausting but satisfying.
Gran Paradiso
This area is called after the mountain Gran Paradiso in the Graian
Alps. It is the highest mountain in Italy with an elevation of 4061m.
It is a beginners climb where experience in alpinism is not a must. It
is a perfect first climb in preparation for the indomitable Mont-Blanc
Summit. Gran Paradiso on this panoramic view is a place to train, test
gear, exercise and do new things for a first time.
Geomagnetic Field
Magnetic fields provide the basis for navigation with a compass and,
at the same time, gets disturbed by it. For example, over the past 200
years, the magnetic field has weakened about 9 percent. its position
has drifted north-northwest by 1.100 kilometers. In this geomagnetic
field here, it is impossible to trust your navigation skills. Navigation
here will be messy, chaotic and an unreliable process allowing you,
finally to understand other ways of finding your way.
routes:
local loop
point to point

A MAP’S SPEECH
At the Chamonix Tourist Office at Place de
l’église lots of maps are displayed. And also online
on their website maps are to be found all doing their
very best to express what the cartographer had to
say. Some of them are in perspective containing the
valley of the town Chamonix till the highest summit
of the Mont-Blanc-Massif. Other contain routes to
cycle, to ski or to take a cable elevator. Some of the
maps are in perspective, other ones are from top
view. Some of them focus on the towns other on
the mountains. Nevertheless, they all have a tone of
voice.
As a cartopological mapmaker, I hear every
whisper from my own cartopological maps loudly.
So, what if I give my voice and right to speak to
them?
Sometimes I lie on the table, sometimes I
stand on the little edge at the bottom of the drawing
table. Depending on my size and on the drawing
itself. Pieces with lots of detail are mostly drawn
on me horizontally, but not always. Sometimes I
consist out of one large piece of paper, sometimes
I am stitched together with tape. It depends on
how well she knows already what to draw and my
composition. Sometimes she makes little sketches in

the top left corner before she actually starts making
me. I come to live on site. So, the place I carry the
place where I am made. I rarely leave the site. This is
how I prefer to be made but sometimes depending
on how much time there is for actual fieldwork I am
also made remotely. However, I stay always close
to her and travel with her, all the time. It gives me
wrinkles and cracks. Only to be scanned and printed
for presentations she leaves me. But I don’t like
that. I feel the most comfortable and the strongest
when she is looking at me, often disagreeing. Then
she goes outside again, trying to have a better
understanding of what is actually taking place. She
starts off in pencil, but often also in pen. It depends.
The choice for my paper and pen are important, it
impacts how parts of a place are drawn, and it forces
to be bold or just soft with me. To be able to doubt
and erase, or to think twice before adding a line on
me.
I am built up in layers and the first layer is often
a geographical one. She takes copies from other
maps, or built it up based on walks and fieldtrips.
Experiences, places, notes, thoughts, insights and
conversations are localised and materialised on me
by drawing them out in a geographical logic. It takes
all her patience to finish me off. Up to three months.
As the first weeks pass and I have been used as a

geographical and spatial notebook the more I start
to give back as well. In the beginning I collected a
hybridity of bits and pieces taken from the field. Now,
I start to speak back. Where I once was a collection
of random parts, I become a collection with a say and
a direction. I force this direction onto her. It makes
her do her fieldwork with more focus and direction
too. Instead of being a carrier of her thoughts and
experiences we start to collaborate, and I get the role
of a research instrument that localizes and makes
space for insights and knowledge. A triangular
relationship is created between her, the environment
and myself.
Tomorrow, she will take me down and scan
me. The end is near. But before she leaves me on
my own she tries to make me approachable and
readable for a broader audience. People living on
the site I represent, people taking decisions about
the site, other cartopologists and mapmakers, they
should also be able to read me, and navigate on
me. I transform again from an instrument that only
she uses to a map that others can use. The triangle
shifts, from her, the environment and myself towards
the mapreader, the environment and myself.