 | | Karen Gaskill taking part in Mapchester |
"As a media artist/researcher living in Manchester, I am continually on the look out for events or creative ventures that offer something different. Mapchester certainly did that. "The weekend was split up into four morning and afternoon sessions; each started with a brief introduction and overview of the project, followed by instructions on how to use the devices, signal strength and marking waypoints, and some general advice regarding blind rambling across main roads whilst searching for that perfect signal! | "Manchester had been divided up into something resembling a large pie chart: Munchchester." | | Karen on the process of dividing up the city |
"My previous experience of using a GPS was very limited - another incentive to take part - but the actual process involved in operating the unit and plotting waypoints was pretty simple. Most people had come in small groups of between two and six, and intended to map on foot, but those with bikes and cars proved invaluable for the outer regions of the city. "Manchester had been divided up into something resembling a large pie chart: Munchchester. Each group or individual took a section, noting the bordering roads, so as not to double up unnecessarily.
 | | The volunteers getting ready to map |
"I took the Northern Quarter, and spent two enjoyable days purposefully walking down every street, marking waypoints on my GPS unit at key points. As the GPS unit automatically logs your tracks, the waypoints are important to link the additional information regarding junction and road types, street names and postcodes to annotate the map. "A sense of pride was detectable late on Sunday afternoon, when everyone came back to the base camp at MDDA (Manchester Digital Development Agency) to hand in all their final tracks and information. As a team, we had surprisingly managed to map most of Manchester! "It was difficult to hold any prior expectations of the weekend, as much of the process was so unfamiliar. But in knowing that all the steps you took, and data you collected, was contributing to a freely available map of the city, hopefully triggering a plethora of creative projects, was enough to keep me mapping for longer than a weekend."
 | | The result: Manchester mapped by GPS |
A number of spin off projects will now take place using the data that was collected during the Futuresonic festival in July under the Mapchester banner, and the new map will be used in a test-case festival guide. | 
