SOCKS

An online magazine of Art, Architecture, Media, Culture, Sounds, Territories, Technology)

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Cartographies of Reality and Fiction

Maps connect information to space, depicting real and imagined territories on a flat surface. Over time, maps became increasingly more detailed and precise: the scale was adjusted, symbols became conventions, standards were set. However, this evolution didn’t stop the map to become a complex representational tool or an artistic medium.

For some artists, the cartographic representation became a means to spatialize a mental realm, a metaphorical instrument to simulate an unexisting territory.

Linear Analogies: a Selection of Paul Klee’s Black and White Lithographies

March 14, 2021 by Mariabruna Fabrizi Leave a Comment

In the multiple explorations of form and composition by German-Swiss artist Paul Klee, a special place is occupied by works where the line is the main … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: Black and White, lines, lithography

Patterns from the World Underneath: The Ecological Relations of Roots by John Ernest Weaver (1919)

June 21, 2020 by Mariabruna Fabrizi 2 Comments

The ecological relations of roots (1919) is a book by John Ernest Weaver (1884 – 1966),  an American biologist and prairie ecologist. During his life, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Fields, Territories Tagged With: botany, plants, roots, scientific drawings

Mapping Fictional Realms: “Terram in Aspectu” by Liliana Farber (2019)

January 26, 2020 by Mariabruna Fabrizi 1 Comment

New Media artist Liliana Farber investigates the ways in which the virtual redefines the physical world. Using custom-made software and collected … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Media, Technology, Territories, When Photography Catches Time Tagged With: ai, algorithm, maps, new media

Gareth Damian Martin, Postcards from The Continuous City, 2018

October 13, 2019 by Mariabruna Fabrizi Leave a Comment

The Continuous City is an in-progress photographic series by Gareth Damian Martin. The British artist, game designer and writer explores video game … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Interior Landscapes, Media, Technology, Territories, Topics Tagged With: photography, videogame

Abstract Layers of Territory: Maps by David Lemm

February 3, 2019 by Mariabruna Fabrizi Leave a Comment

David Lemm is a visual artist and designer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His production ranges widely from illustrations to collages, multi-media … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction Tagged With: Cartography, illustration, maps

Visualizing Land: Works by Matthew Rangel

December 18, 2016 by Mariabruna Fabrizi 1 Comment

Matthew Rangel is an artist from the San Joaquin Valley in California beneath the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His digital and analogical prints … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: carthography, maps, mountains

Apollo Missions 15-17’s Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps (1973)

August 26, 2016 by Fosco Lucarelli 1 Comment

The Lunar and Planetary Institute (a self describing "research institute that provides support services to NASA and the planetary science community, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Technology, Territories Tagged With: charts, lunar, mapping, maps, moon, topography

Gianfranco Baruchello’s Infinite Small Systems

June 30, 2015 by Mariabruna Fabrizi 5 Comments

Gianfranco Baruchello was born in Livorno in 1924. Throughout his artistic career he explored several media, from painting to drawing, photography, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: baruchello, Collage, drawings, maps, Paintings

Gábor Attalai: Map Works For Klaus Groh (1971)

March 19, 2015 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

Attalai Gábor (Budapest, 1934-2011) was a leading representative of Hungarian conceptual art, performance, and graphic design. His works, with a large … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: conceptual art, maps

MAP Office: Hong Kong Is Land (2014)

February 4, 2015 by Fosco Lucarelli 3 Comments

MAP Office, a duo of artists and architects formed in 1996 by Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix (already on Socks with their "Unreal Estates of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: Cartography, exhibition, hong kong, maps

Moving Boundaries in the Alps: Italian Limes (Venice Architecture Biennale 2014), by Folder and collaborators

August 28, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

After actually visiting the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, during the last week, we finally had the pleasure to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Media, Technology, Territories Tagged With: Biennale, border, Cartography, gps

Ascii-Art Mapping: SyMAP (or Early Computer Generated Cartography)

March 11, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

  William Caraher, assistant professor at the University of North Dakota and writer of the site "The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World" … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Technology, Territories Tagged With: archaeology, Cartography, computer, form of form, mapping

Magwandui maps

The Three Mawangdui Maps: Early Chinese Cartography

March 2, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

  Between 1972 to 1974 three tombs in the archaeological site of Mawangdui, China, were excavated. In one of them, the archaeologists … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Territories Tagged With: Cartography, China, early map, form of form, map

City Maps by Jazzberry Blue

January 30, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

  Jazzberry Blue is an an artist and illustrator based in Toronto. Among his rich production, stands out a set of city maps rendered in an … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: Cartography, cities, city, maps, pattern, texture

Mapping the ‘Bloody Week’: The Last Days of the Paris Commune in a Cartographic Narrative

January 29, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli 1 Comment

  The events that occurred in the last month of La Commune, - the socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Territories Tagged With: army, Art, Cartography, commune, military, socialism, strategy, war

The Walled City of Shibam, a ‘Manhattan of the desert’

August 12, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli 16 Comments

Sometimes ago we wrote about the walled city of Kowloon, a spontaneous, unregulated urban development near Hong Kong. Whereas that one was a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Housing the Multitude, Territories Tagged With: Architecture, form of form, information graphics, maps, past futures, psychogeographies, Technology, urban chronicles, visions, world weird web

Description of Egypt

July 16, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

Flavius Menu of N-D-L-R just wrote a very interesting post about the "Description de l'Egypte", a series of 23 volumes published after the failed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: Architecture, Art-2, illustrations, information graphics, literature, maps

Exploring the interiors of London Underground/DLR stations

July 12, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

Andrew Godwin, a British programmer, is working on a set of navigable 3d maps of London's tube stations. This is arguably an early version of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Architecture, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: Architecture, information graphics, maps, world weird web

Atlas for the Blind, 1837

July 5, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

From the spectacular David Rumsey Map Collection, the 1837 "Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind", embossed heavy paper … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture Tagged With: illustrations, maps, paperworks, psychogeographies, world weird web

MinJeong Ahn, An Autobiography in Diagrams

July 3, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli 3 Comments

Ahn Min Jeong writes: "My work appears to be emotionless and analytic, but when you take a close look at it, the majority of my work employs motifs … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Technology Tagged With: illustrations, maps, psychogeographies, Technology, world weird web

Comparing Urbanization

June 24, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli 2 Comments

Berkeley's  Global Metropolitan Observatory is a site focusing on large trasformation of cities. Using aerial imagery mainly coming from the Landsat 7 … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Technology, Territories Tagged With: information graphics, maps, past futures, politics, psychogeographies, Technology, urban chronicles

Johann Leonhard Rost’s “Astronomisches Handbuch” (1718)

June 15, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

This is one the first (if not the very first) practical astronomy books published in Germany. "Astronomisches Handbuch" appeared in 1718, edited and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Technology, Territories Tagged With: form of form, illustrations, information graphics, maps, past futures, Technology, world weird web

How the World was Imagined: Early Maps and Atlases

June 10, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli 8 Comments

Depictions of the world from the Iron Age to the Age of Discovery and the emergence of modern geography during the early modern … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Art, Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Culture, Technology, Territories Tagged With: illustrations, information graphics, literature, maps, past futures, politics, Technology, visions, world weird web

How Big Really?

May 25, 2012 by Fosco Lucarelli 1 Comment

BBC has just released "How Big Really?", a site that allows for the overlay of the dimension of an event onto another geographical territory. That … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Cartographies of Reality and Fiction, Territories Tagged With: information graphics, maps, politics, psychogeographies, urban chronicles

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Socks is a non-linear journey through distant territories of human imagination.

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We are Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli from Microcities. Ask us anything

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SOCKS is a project by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi of MICROCITIES, Architecture Cityscape, Landscape.
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