COMMON GROUND

Klaus Fruchtnis & Pau Garcia

Common ground is a crossroads, two routes that have been working in thesame space from dierent perspectives. When we narrate something we are stretching time, lling it with facts; common ground is the synthesis of thetime that GPSme and Exitium have shared; it is the form in which the joint experience of both projects has materialised.

Common ground is a place of mutual exchange; a place to rethink, renegotiate, collaborate and nd new sources of inspiration, particularly out in the eld. It is also a place where new directions and ideas become possible.

EXITIUM MILANO

Any structure or construction is eventually destroyed, and eventually is, because something better should precede it.
Samuel Gonzalez

M I L A N M A P

CUPOLA GALLERIA VITTORIO EMANUELE II

EXITIUM MILANO

Scienti c knowledge aims at being wholly impersonal and tries to state what has been discovered by the collective intellect of mankind. It is important for cartographers to understand this distinction between individual and collective intellect and dont mix it.
Bertrand Rusell

C R E A T E Y O U R O W N M A P

M I X W I T H C O L L E C T I V E D A T A

G P S m e

I came to Milan with a preconceived idea of the city; its architecture, the weather, the people, etc. but have discovered a city that, I am sure, not even many locals know. I have had the great opportunity to discover a city through its inhabitants perception - probably one of the best ways to discover a place. We often forget how wonderful the city we live in is and, to quote Marco Polo this is a city that just has to be discovered.

Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. Chinese proverb

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COMMON GROUND
common ground / k-mn grau nd / noun a basis of mutual interest of or agreement

Having explored and experienced diverse aspects of the city during the residency program, both artists agreed to collaborate on a perception: forms that appropriate both time and space in order to create a new physical yet perceptual way to rediscover the city. Common ground: GPSme / Exitum, proposes exible, simple volumes and continuous surfaces that translate their three month experience on the territory.

e urban landscape, among its many roles, is also something to be seen, to be remembered, and to delight in. e Image of the City, Kevin Lynch

Shape #1, is a six-audio-sculpture that recomposes the shape of the city of Milan. As a topographic map, each sculpture, with its di!erent shapes and features, determines the group of people who designed it (architects, designers, children, inhabitants, artists, etc.) The voices behind each sculpture share a memory or a personal experience about the city. As Italo Calvino wrote in Invisible Cities: it is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear. This installation goes beyond a simple form, allowing the observer to discover a collective spatial perception through storytelling.

Shape #2, is a video & audio installation that, as a proper environment, suggests to the observer distinctions and relations. The observer, too, has an active role in both perceiving it and in creatively developing the story of what he sees. Common ground: GPSme / Exitium is a place where perception allows the observer to organize, select and understand the information in the space. The observer is confronted with a large piece composed of city patterns, questioning him or her about the visual identity of the city.

Shape #3, is a short lm that questions abandoned places and their particular characteristics of time and space. It also highlights the relationship between and the importance to the development of unexplored, uncharted and unused territories, leaving complete freedom to the observer to imagine what he wants.

Shape #4, is a holographic projection of digital drawings. During the residency, artist Klaus Fruchtnis has been tracing his journey, drawing what he sees. The drawings construct and deconstruct the journey as well as give a space-time frame to what he discovered during his urban walks. He considers his walks as a shifting limit that denes a border, which is visible in every line of his digital drawings.

MAKING OFF