Newcomers to the Conflux Festival, Copenhagen-based collaborative duo Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Orum create and edit new narratives for whole cities (and even their own autobiographies). The two of them have been working together for ten years and I had the pleasure of meeting them during our concurrent residencies at Flux Factory!
I am especially moved by Bojen and Orum’s instinct to infuse tried-and-true topographical maps with unlikely data – histories of seemingly insignificant objects (a discarded earring, coins, band aids, etc), extensive and frequently interactive stories about potentially fictitious citizens, invented landmarks, and new urban mythologies. When one navigates the duo’s web-based interactive map Topographies of the Insignificant, one encounters a very broad overview map of the earth with only a couple of red “Google Maps” style pin points on it. However, upon zooming in one is prompted to navigate cities by way of discarded objects. Kristoffer and Anders have injected into these objects an odd combination of blatantly boring objective descriptions, touching personal narratives, and traces of their geographical footprints.
Anders Bojen and Kristoffer Orum’s piece Radiant Copenhagen will also be exhibited during Conflux 2012. Radiant Copenhagen is also an interactive web-based map in which users navigate Copenhagen through histories, moments, and locations (mythological? factual? blantantly make-believe?) explained by its residents.
