Mapping and String Figuring (2020)

By

Ailie Rutherford

Screenshot from String Figures online workshops. Using visual symbols to map a de-centralised exchange network.

This short article by artist and activist Ailie Rutherford describes her approach to mapping as a core part of her social arts practice.

The visual codes, diagrams and symbols she works with are a way to understand and process the complex interrelations that make up our worlds. While map-making is often a tool of power, drawing boundaries and marking ownership, her practice subverts that - looking for where we might strengthen alternative networks and build new alliances.

Beginning with her work on The People’s Bank of Govanhill (a feminist community currency project in Glasgow, Scotland) the article moves from Mapping an Emotional Labour Economy in to a discussion on what it means to work collaboratively through Covid-19 and “lockdown”. In a time where collective gatherings in community spaces have become near impossible, Ailie’s current work looks at how we might maintain and develop new ways of working together and acting collectively through technology. String Figures is a digital mapping work that aims to visualise and build a de-centralised open-source network founded on a principle of mutual care.

For more information: https://ailierutherford.com/projects/string-figures/

To access the app: https://string-figures-v1-0-2.glitch.me/

To read the article, scroll the PDF below:

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Ailie Rutherford

Ailie Rutherford is a visual artist working at the intersection of community activism and creative practice. Her collaborative artworks bring people together in conversations about our social and economic landscape using print, performance, sci-fi visioning, games and technology as playful means to work through difficult questions and radically re-think our shared futures. Resulting works range from proposed new models for living and working together to the building of new infrastructure.

Recent projects include:

The People’s Bank of Govanhill a long term social art project in Govanhill (Glasgow) realising feminist economic theory in a community context. String Figures collaborative software for collective working centred on a principle of mutual care and co-operation, titled after techno-feminist Donna Haraway’s metaphor for the inextricable threads that connect us all.

Her feminist economic artworks have been shown at Unbox festival, (Bengaluru, India) MoneyLab at Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Supermarkt (Berlin, Germany) and for Tracing The Tracks//Work Affair at Rum 46 (Aarhus, Denmark). Ailie is currently working as curator for NEoN digital arts Wired Women festival

https://ailierutherford.com