Title: En Cours : VERSION (0.4) 'MAP OF THE WORLD'EN COURS, espace d’art contemporain, 56 rue de la Réunion 75020 Paris 01 43 72 09 48 julie.heintz@online.fr
Invited for the Prague Biennale 2003, in the frame of the exhibition 'Differentia specifica' curated by Judit Angel,
VERSION magazine is pleased to launch the website:
coordinated by Gabriela Vanga, Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan.
The website includes online projects, an overview on our activities as well as full download of the previous numbers of VERSION magazine, plus an interactive game with 'The map of the world' enriched by an open forum.
First bilingual magazine in Romania of this gender, VERSION was founded in 2001 in Cluj Napoca, by Gabriela Vanga, Nicolae Baciu, Mircea Cantor and Ciprian Muresan. The magazine proffers an open field for specialists coming from different disciplines, cutting in as a strategical creative tool in the midst of ideas.
The next number of VERSION (0.4) takes off from the project 'MAP OF THE WORLD', enjoying contributions from: Ole Bouman, Amy Cheung, Anna Daneri, Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain, Andreas Fagarasi, Yona Friedman, Ioan Godeanu, Amiel Grumberg, Dominic Hislop & Mikos Erhardt, Augustin Ioan, Nikola Jankovic, Martin Koepl, Adriana Lara, Laura Maritano, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Dan Perjovschi, Jean Yves Petiteau, Federico Rahola, Federica Rossi, Guy Rottier, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, Roman Vasseur.
MAP OF THE WORLD is a world map, printed and plastified, fixed on metal boards. In contrast with an ordinary map, we erased the names of the countries and capitals and we left only the administrative borders. The capitals are stuck on magnetic support and they can be moved on the map's surface. The idea took shape in 1999, when one of us lived in France and the others still in Romania, and in the middle of a chat we came up with this idea...what if Bucharest would be in France? The main idea of this project was the desire of moving, of changing spaces, re-designing contexts, "areas of contact" as Deleuze said. We tried to create a tool for dialogue, an “auxiliary” for debates, interventions or workshops linked to different issues such as globalisation, cultural emigration, nomadism, tourist standardization, trajectory and different kinds of transgressions.
We presented THE MAP OF THE WORLD for the first time at FRAC ALSACE, Séléstat, within the frame of a conference. The public came and played with it. The playful part of the project has an important meaning for us, because it shows up of some relevant critical attitudes, underlining obvious opinions and reactions to the "clichés" of the media. People moving Jerusalem as alternative to Washignton -this type of reaction is permitted to appear more easily in the frame of a game, but can be(come) a problematic matter in the media. By moving the capitals, people expressed their opinion, everyone could make his own map of influences and overturn the order of the world.
_______________________________________________________________________ EN COURS, espace d’art contemporain, 56 rue de la Réunion 75020 Paris 01 43 72 09 48 julie.heintz@online.fr