About J-walk

J-Walk is a multi-level interactive tour of Johannesburg, which incorporates a walking tour, mobile phone tour and online tour of the city. J-Walk bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds, with the objective of making locally relevant information accessible from a single repository.

Multi-level refers to the fact that the tour will be available through multiple channels and platforms:

• Walking tour,
• Interactive mobile phone based tour using 3G technologies,
• Interactive online tour using state of the art mapping tools.

The tour will provide participants with an eclectic mix of information on physical locations in the downtown Johannesburg area. These will include:

• Gentrification areas,
• Architectural sites,
• Art and cultural landmarks,
• Historical venues,
• Local communities resources.

The importance of walking in Johannesburg cannot be overstated. Walking in downtown Johannesburg is strongly linked to class, race, crime, fear and paranoia. This interactive tour attempts to address these challenges, whilst getting people thinking and contributing to a conversation related to the politics of public space in the city.

J-walk will be on show at the Johannesburg Art Fair Special Project - Art for Online Spaces. Said event, which will run from 3 to 5 April 2009 at the Sandton convention center in Johannesburg.

J-walk was dreamt up by Babak Fakhamzadeh, a traveling web guru, and Ismail Farouk, an urban geographer and artist.
Previously, Ismail and Babak worked together on Soweto uprisings . com, for which they won the prestigious Highway Africa new media award in 2007.