Jürgen Rendl's Page

I have a website

http://urbanflow.col-me.info

Artistic Field or Interest

urban flow

Profession

cultural worker/interventionist and radio journalist

Artistic and professional experiences

recent:
05/2008 - "Nový Život v Ottakringu", vienna: attempt to implant a small panelak (communist concrete block) into a public art festival in vienna, infiltrating facets of contemporary slovak life in the nearby austrian capital.

04/2008 - "Placetellers", bratislava: sound mapping project with the aim to collect and share stories and places, which are appropriated by people with their practises, experiences and emotions.

I like...

humanized places

Statement

Mapping the difference - The difference in mapping between there and here

Trying to map Damascus, one would have to integrate all those layers of stories and social relations and interactions. Abstract mapping, leaving a ground plot just meaningless.
Over here places increasingly get to be defined by numeric code like 48.22467264956519, 13.359375.
Whereas in Damascus I imagine places to be defined by the distinctive use of codes of a language.

So, how to start?

Imagining a city as a kind of collective mind map and ask the following questions (and more):

How do people navigate in their city?
What does the mental map of a respective city dweller look like? (Ask people to draw part of it)
What is the influence of mass media and mobile communication on public life, social interactions and thereby storytelling?
What would people borrow/get from their neighbours?

And then take a ride into the unknown. Don't be afraid, the destination isn't what really matters. Lean back and observe the driver navigating through the urgan grid...

Regarding my activity as a cultural worker, I see myself in a rather experimental phase at the moment, putting a life concept into practise, which can be roughly described as putting ideas into practice, without having anything to sell, but to earn rich experiences of various kinds.

I see the project Reloading Images Damascus as a great opportunity to expand my horizon professionally, working towards an "open source urbanism" and personally, now, just at the right time of my life. With its collective approach I don't expect the project to be kind of an "ego booster" for young artists and therefore exactly the right platform for an internationally coined team player like me.

Research interests

mapping the neighbouring city jaramanah, which is nowadys referred to as "little fallujah" due to a high influx of refugees from fallujah/iraq.
(plus mapping as an artistic practice in general)

i´d like to give it a try, to find out

- how is "little fallujah" socially, economically and politically connected to everyday damascus, to the local, syrian community?

- what do mental maps of little fallujahs inhabitants look like?

- what does "temporary" mean in this case?

to be continued.

all that put on a map in progress.

therefore i would be glad about your support/collaboration/ideas/feedback/interaction!

How did you end up with Reloading Images?

by the web search query "damascus art urban space"