EMBODIED MAP TOOLS - RESEARCH
Project, research, development and design | Alessandro Carboni
Production | Formati Sensibili 2013-2017
Support and collaboration | EM Tools is the result of an individual and collaborative investigation of theory and practice between Alessandro Carboni and people such as performers, theorists, artists, researchers, cartographers, curators and mapmakers. EM is designed and developed through iterative research conducted independently and in collaboration with universities as School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong; Adaptive Environments Research Group/IT University of Copenhagen; Living Archives Project, University of Malmö; Kunsthal, with the support of Participatory IT/Department of Aesthetic of Communication at the University of Aarhus.
Preliminary findings, research and applications | Media Architecture Biennale in Aarhus; Bi-city/Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture; Transmediale Festival in Berlin, Santarcangelo Festival; From Soil to Structure Festival (Malmö); Crisalide festival, Forlì; Atelier Sì spazio tempo 2015/16 Artists in ResidenSì Programme, Bologna.
Embodied Map Tools is a research project that redefines how we understand and map urban space through the body. Rooted in performance art, it proposes a set of tools and methods that enable performers to use their bodies as instruments of cartographic inquiry. The research challenges traditional, disembodied representations of the city by introducing embodied mapping as a dynamic process where space and body interact, observe, and transform each other.
Developed through fieldwork in Aarhus, Hong Kong, and Malmö/Copenhagen, the EM Tools is structured around four phases — observe, capture, extract, and transmit — linking corporeal experience to choreographic composition. Drawing from action research and critical cartography, the project offers a hybrid methodology that merges artistic practice and spatial analysis. Embodied Map Tools expands the field of performance studies and urban research, proposing the body as a living map — a sensor and archive of spatial knowledge.