Project

2005. Simon Greenan + Christopher Sperandio. SOY MADRID (theoretical data)

 
Everyone has strong feelings about the place they live but what seems exotic to the tourist can be commonplace or even dull to a local. However, tourism can invigorate the local economy. New interest at home for the same old landmarks can be sparked when viewed through the eyes of a visitor. World events and political differences can pale when compared to an important local issue such as “Which restaurant in the Paseo del Prado is the best?”

From tips for tourists to diatribes on world politics, SOY MADRID, will be a formal platform for a collaboration between Madrid residents and tourist artists Grennan and Sperandio.

Through newspaper advertisements, word of mouth and a dedicated web site, soymadrid.com, artists Grennan and Sperandio will invite residents of to Madrid to tell their stories about Madrid. The artists will then present selected stories as bright and colorful comic strips written in Spanish and English.

Political or lighthearted, serious or frivolous, fun or just weird, these interventions, when encountered, will give natives and visitors alike the opportunity to reconsider the conflicting issues surrounding notions of local identity, nationalism, politics and tourism.

The resultant comics will be reproduced in a variety of media, including posters, comic strips in local papers and on-line. A main feature of SOY MADRID is a collaboration with a local paper. Stories for the project will be solicited via this
paper, and selections from the finalized comic strips will be printed in this paper as well.

 

TECHNICAL NARRATIVE

Grennan and Sperandio will establish an attractive and fast loading SoyMadrid.com web site, complete with a message board. Following the production of the web side, and with minimal assistance from the organizers, Sperandio will visit Madrid and solicit stories from people from all walks of life. Prior to, or during this visit, the support of a local newspaper will be secured. This paper will run solicitations, directing interested parties to the SoyMadrid.com site. From personal interviews and responses to the web site, Grennan and Sperandio will make twenty-one different comic strips. During the project launch, Grennan and Sperandio will oversee that seven of the strips produced as posters are legally fly-posted on the streets. Seven of the strips will be published serially over several weeks in the collaborating Madrid newspaper and the remaining seven strips will be viewable online at the SOY MADRID web site, along with an archive of the project as well as a public message board where visitors to the project may interact in an open forum.

 

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