Flowing Cartographies

!! Archive, analysis and visualization of situationist and pedaludic practices in urban and non-urban territories
Research Director: Fabián Wagmister
REMAP Development: Jeff Burke
Visiting Scholar Residency UCLA/REMAP: Juan Pablo Margenat
This research was supported by a grant from Fundación Williams.

Abstract

This document presents the development of the SALI project, a dialogic research based on the creation of spontaneous, local and telematic exchanges during physical journeys through urban and rural territories, planned for September 2026.
Through the "pedaludic" practice, a group of cyclists travels southward through the province of Buenos Aires with the premise of always turning left, seeking connection with the shore and the ocean on the way to Bahía Blanca.
The group is equipped with a system that integrates spherical captures, environmental data and a continuous messaging flow (text, audio, images) with remote participants. The system's interpretive intelligence assembles these fragments over a continuous time interval, generating "Moments of Synchronicity" and re-navigable multimodal cartographies.
Keywords: Psychogeography, PedaLúdica, Telematic Dialogue, Spherical Capture, REMAP, Synchronicity, Contextual Data.

1. Introduction and Conceptual Framework

SALI is a psychogeographic exploration searching for the "edge of the map". Inspired by situationist drifts, the project aims to break with the static functional cartography perspective. The constant left turn operates as a performative gesture that forces an encounter with the water and the shoreline, translating context into data and emerging atmospheres — and forcing thought tied to the tradition and prejudices of the word "left".
The extended experience of approximately 22 days departs from the PedaLúdic base in Buenos Aires and ends in Bahía Blanca, host of the upcoming Argentine Bicycle Forum. Sharing these experiences and fostering reflection on the potential of the bicycle as a cultural transformer is part of the group's tradition.

2. Methodology: Dialogue in Motion

S.A.L.I. is grounded in staying on the road, attentive to spontaneous situations that may arise, and opening dialogues along the route to Bahía Blanca. It also creates an open channel of synchronous communication between the cyclists and the "remote activators". Using messaging protocols, a multimedia information flow is generated — videos, photos, stickers and audio — that interweaves with the journey. This exchange is the constitutive material of the final audiovisual representation.

3. Interpretation System Architecture

The technological core consists of transmission nodes that process spherical captures and site data. Each cycling interval is interpreted by the system, which translates the environmental impact and collective participation into a navigable piece called "Drift Fragment". This automated montage process seeks the superposition of planes and the breaking of static images, referencing practices such as Gordon Matta-Clark's continuous montages or VanDerBeek's juxtapositions.

4. System Inputs and Outputs

The system is organized around three input flows and one expressive output module.

4.1. Context data inputs (cloud)

• Wind
• Tides
• Temperature
• Local news and information

4.2. Presence data inputs (cyclists)

• Location (latitude, longitude)
• Slopes and speed
• Heart rate and perspiration
• Spherical camera footage (360°)
• Multimedia dialogues, tags and commands via messaging channel
• Interpretive pre-loads

4.3. Dialogue inputs (remote participants)

• Messages sent via messaging app (texts, audio, images, videos)
• Execution of predefined commands

4.4. Outputs — expressive modular system

• Spherical video with sound (Drift Fragment)
• Interpretive dynamic cartography
• Feedback information to the messaging channel

5. Interface and Remote Participation

The cartographic platform offers remote participants the ability to interact through predefined tags, control commands and the navigation of spherical videos. The interface is divided into sections for dialogues, spherical representation and dynamic cartography. The result is a "navigable logbook" where the participants' perspectives are collected in an album of shared viewpoints, allowing a constant redefinition of the journey.

6. FiveCrops — Generative Prototype

FiveCrops is the first functional prototype of S.A.L.I.'s generative interpretation system, applied to the urban territory of Los Angeles. Developed during the UCLA/REMAP residency (April 2026), it demonstrates the technical viability of the project's core approach.
The system takes GPS data from real cycling routes in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, and translates them in real time into animated visualizations of overlapping routes — where each pass through a street accumulates visual density — and generative sound compositions in which elevation becomes frequency, slope becomes amplitude, and wind modulates the oscillator.
In its current state the system runs two simultaneous routes with differentiated color palettes, each at its real cycling speed. As the project evolves toward S.A.L.I., this will scale to more than ten simultaneous routes across rural territory.
The application is publicly available at five-crops.lovable.app with its source code on GitHub. It constitutes the first node of the interpretive cartographic platform that S.A.L.I. will carry to the Buenos Aires province in October 2026.

7. Considerations

The visual development of SALI draws on the rupture of the single perspective and the assemblage of spatial fragments. The collaboration with the REMAP team at UCLA allows exploration of how the automation of montage and the flow of contextual or environmental data can expand the notion of cartography toward an immersive and collective experience.

8. References

• Debord, G. Theory of the Derive.
• Reas, C. & Fry, B. Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. MIT Press.
• Matta-Clark, G. Continuous montages and loss of horizontality.
• Ramis, M. Considerations on the automation of video montage through AI.
• Archigram. Inclusion of typographies and megastructures.
• Burke, J. Production Practice in Theater with Emerging Technologies I. UCLA/REMAP, 2026.
• Anadol, R. Generative Art. Design Media Arts, UCLA, 2026.