in absentia
in absentia is a site-specific web-based writing project which addresses issues of gentrification and its erasures in the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal, where the author lived for seventeen years. J. R. Carpenter writes, "Faced with imminent eviction, I began to write as if I was no longer there, about a Mile End that was no longer there. I manipulated the Google Maps API to populated "real" satellite images of my neighbourhood with "fictional" characters and events. in absentia is a web "site" haunted by the stories of former residents of Mile End, a slightly fantastical world, a shared memory of the neighbourhood as it never really was but as it could have been. in absentia was created with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. It was presented by DARE-DARE Centre de diffusion d'art multidisciplinaire de Montréal. It launched June 24, 2008. New stories were added over the summer, in English and French. A closing party was held in conjunction with the launch of my novel, Words the Dog Knows, (conundrum press), at Sky Blue Door, November 7, 2008"
What traces do people leave behind when they leave a place? What stories spring form their absence?
uses the Google Maps API, requires an internet connection
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