One Block Radius, Screen Shot 3, 2004

Their multi-media map starts with a standard, official-looking one-dimensional map of that block with no detail other than four street names and one alley. From that base, Ray and Mandl have layered nearly 500 artifacts (or, "entries" as they are called here, evoking the notion of a sort of psychogeographic diary) that can be explored by mouse clicks. The pervasive force of development and the inevitable departure of low-income residents prove the inevitable value of One Block Radius as an archive of the social history of the Bowery. The rich content harvested from this tiny segment of the city is composed of a large collection of digital photo documents, some audio recordings, videos, blogs and interviews that reflect and explore everything from the personal perspectives of the local community to the learned opinions of architectural historians-a mix of semi-official thoughts with purely anecdotal ones that many of the projects discussed here contain. The material is coded and accessed through various sub-categories such as architecture, garbage, religion and weather.

One Block Radius (2004 - present), is a project by Brooklyn based artists Christina Ray and Dave Mandl [known collaboratively as Glowlab]. Glowlab is an artist-run production and publishing lab engaging urban public space as the medium for contemporary art and technology projects.

Copyright © 2006 Gallery TPW
All Rights Reserved