This is a term I created in 2008 to encompass the ideas of mapping and beholding. In Italian mappare means “to map” and m’appare “something appears to me”.
As far as I know, the term m(‘)appare was proposed for the first time by myself in March 2008, during the launch of the M(‘)appare Milano, mapping campaign, when I was collaborating with GFOSS.it (the Italian chapter of the Open Soruce Geospatial Consortium).
This term was created to have a localized version of the “mapping parties” held by the OpenStreetMap community and which in Italy had previously taken place in Alto Adige, Pavia and Arezzo.
The Italian free/open mapping community liked the term and the concept of m(‘)appare, and re-used this with GFOSS.it on m(‘)appare, Ferrara, Portofino, Verona, and Mounte Antola, near to Genova.
I also had several opportunities to present and debate the ideas related to m(‘)appare in various events (Creative Commons Festival Parma, Politecnico ed Ecomuseo Urbano Milano Nord a Milano, IUAV Venezia, GRASS meeting Lugano, GFOSS Day Bolzano). As a sidebar action, videos and rhymes related to m(‘)appare appeared (Riflessioni sul tema(tismo) , Allora vi faccio vedere come ho fatto, Pressioni di Settembre e Renato lo Scienziato).
Not just geomatics processes and points of interest
After a first phase of m(‘)appare, mostly focused on geomatics and digital land maps, the topic became broader, and we started talking about mapping the upper half of the landscape (i.e. the night sky), leading to the BuioMetria Partecipativa. project on participatory monitoring of light pollution.
Eventually we started to use the term m(‘)appare non just with reference to things and places, but also to people (e.g. the m(‘)appare Maurizio Bacci event during the Farma Valley Winter Fest in December 2016).
In a nutshell
As we can see it after ten years, the scope of m(‘)appare is on engaging people to see things or places with a bottom-up approach, focusing mostly in things and places which are not very known.
The two main m(‘)appare initiatives to date are:
- BuioMetria Partecipativa (Participatory night sky quality monitoring)
- The Farma Valley Community Map
More info: info@pibinko.org.
26-12-2015