Pratt Institute

October 25th, 2012

9:30 am-5:30 pm

Pratt Brooklyn Campus

Second of the design and technology workshop series will be facilitated by Liz Barry from Public Laboratory (PLOTS) and it will take place at and around Pratt Brooklyn Campus on October 25th.


Maps are often used by those in power to exert influence over territory, or control territorial narratives. "Grassroots mapping" attempts to invert this dynamic by using maps as a mode of communication and as evidence for an alternative, community-owned definition of a territory. To date, our open source tools have been used to contest official maps or rhetoric by enabling communities to map sites that are not included in official maps.

In this workshop we will join the Public Laboratory by creating our own aerial mapping rig, imaging a public area in the city, and reporting our results.
We will build a crash housing out of a cranberry juice bottle, set up a camera to take pictures on interval and point downward, wind 1000’ of line onto a reel, tie a butterfly loop and Palomar knot in the line, and fly kites or balloons to lift the cameras up into the air.

Once we have images, we will upload them into mapknitter.org and position them over existing satellite imagery. After stretching and rotating our images, we will click “export” and produce a webmap with geoTIFF for download.

As there is limited space available in order to save your spot and receive the information for your participation, please e-mail to PSPD Faculty Evren Uzer euzer@pratt.edu your interest in the subject in 2-3 sentences and brief information about your background, until October 21st. Participation is for free and workshop materials will be provided by Pratt Institute  and Green Infrastructures Project generously supported by Department of Environmental Protection.

Bios and background: 
The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (PLOTS) is a community which develops and applies open-source tools to environmental exploration and investigation. By democratizing inexpensive and accessible “Do-It-Yourself” techniques, Public Laboratory creates a collaborative network of practitioners who actively re-imagine the human relationship with the environment. Open source licenses -- Creative Commons Share Alike with Attribution and CERN OHL 1.1 – protect both end users and contributors and enable massive collaboration.
Here in New York City, the local Public Laboratory community includes a variety of partnering organizations, community groups, and individuals often investigating on pollution in urban waterways or social activity in public spaces.
Liz Barry supports the Public Laboratory community in New York City as director of urban environment. She develops geographic tools and civic science methods for collaborative cities, including co-founding a second organization, TreeKIT. Previously, she has worked at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill planning international new cities and campuses, at Durham Inner-city Gardeners (DIG) coordinating youth urban agriculture enterprise, and has travelled around the country catalyzing interaction among strangers with a “Talk To Me” sign – a project that received international press including the New York Times, AP, CNN, Oprah and NPR’s This American Life. She likes to play outside.