NomadicMILK (Cameroon version)

Submitted by Benoit Bordeleau on Wed, 06/25/2008 - 09:50

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Ce site documente l'expérience NomadicMILK, au Cameroun, vécue par Esther Polak et son équipe composée d'un écologiste, d'un anthropologue, de deux experts en robotique et d'un chercheur s'intéressant aux technologies mobiles. Le but du projet, qui devrait être terminé en 2009, est de mettre en lumière le réseau de fabrication du lait au Cameroun. L'expérience de l'équipe est principalement basée sur les problématiques entournant l'élevage du bétail qui se déplace de pâturages en pâturages. Munis de capteurs GPS, les éleveurs fulanis pourront prendre conscience des chemins qu'ils auront emprunté dans les étendues de sable du Cameroun. L'installation finale sera constituée de vidéos, d'extraits sonores et vocaux, d'un tracé de sable créé par un robot employant les coordonnées GPS relevées par les nomades à plus petite échelle.

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NomadicMILK Kameroen version 2008Esther Polak and team‘NomadicMILK’ is an art project on the experience of space. This version of the project focuses on the mobility of dairy by the Nomadic herdsmen in North Cameroon. The project portrays the migration from the dry season to the wet season camp in search of the best grazing grounds. Video recordings are realized in the floodplain, the wet season location. During the wet season this area is totally covered by water.In 2006 two Zebu cows were equipped with a GPS-collecting collar. The intention of Esther Polak and team was to visualise the thus obtained routes, and subsequently confront the herdsmen with them. To realize this a small robot was developed, that could redraw the routes as sand drawings, scaled both in space and time, and based on the original GPS data. In this case the route from the dry to the wet season area was drawn: a trip that in reality took about four month and covered about 85 kilometres.The installation consists of a beamer projection that shows imagery of the daily life of the Fulani families. The monitor on the ground shows the herders commenting on their own track, of which an exact copy is present in the exhibition. Based on a highly technological visualisation, the sand track shown is a simple drawing that now by the comments of the Fulani people again turns into to a complex experience of space and time. The radios hanging from the ceiling make audible the voice of Esther Polak who translates and retells the comments of the Fulani herdsmen. (Entrée du 21 avril 2008 à l'adresse http://www.nomadicmilk.net/)

Notes

« The project NomadicMILK is about the experience of space, place, and mobility. Place can be defined as “experienced space”: that is, the abstract term ‘space’ is personalized, made tangible. Place is perceived as “being somewhere in space”. Landscape is a term that has its roots in western art history. It can be seen as increased awareness of the properties of environment. Landscape often has connotations of idealized place and having certain aesthetic qualities. The term landscape has extended its meaning. It has come to refer to several more abstract “scapes”: ethnoscape, technoscape, financescape, mediascape and ideoscape (Appadurai - Modernity at large 1996). Issues of space, place and landscape (partly based on Low & Lawrence-Zuniga 2001) » («Old theory page» à l'adresse http://www.nomadicmilk.net/)

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NomadicMILK (Cameroon version)

Beelddiktee, Stichting

Hopman, Aske

Mathuis, Floris

Dertien, Edwin

Drent, Ab

Lange, Michiel de

Polak, Esther