Marking History
Most of the things that happen somewhere sometime don´t leave any visible traces on location. But there are many different ways people mark certain places in order to remember events that took place at them.
Working on a series of GPS-Missions locating history with virtual, geocoded marks I started looking for different types of "real" markers of past events.
(Foundation Stone, Constance University)
("Hussenstein" (Jan Hus Stone), Constance)
Some of them are installed right away, on the day of the event, like the stone remembering the foundation of Constance University. Others are put up much later, like the stone remembering the murder of Jan Hus in 1415.
While these are official memorial sites that stick out like landmarks, there is also diverse ways of marking places in more discrete manners. Like the so called stumble stones that can be found in many cities in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Hungary. They remember victims of the Nazi regime - the one I found in Constance for example marks the place where Karl Grosshans was arrested. To see the little golden stone on the ground you need to take a close look. Its rhetoric is not that of a national monument but that of a hidden detail. It does not change its surrounding, it only offers the slight irritation of a golden cobble stone. Once you found it it makes you aware that history took place in front of your own door, too.
In what way can geocoded content be used for locating history? I think it´s especially apt for the many occurrences that no stone or sign remembers. Like the stumble stones it could work as hidden, actually invisible marks making you see your surrounding with new eyes.
(Stolperstein (Stumble Stone), Constance)
(Stolperstein (Stumble Stone), Constance)