Visuo-spatial structuring of non-geographic data
"Maps, as metaphors of reality, may be seen as a natural extension of the organizing principle of human perception--albeit a facet restricted to the spatial percepts. The use of spatial metaphor to define relations between abstract objects or between real-world objects represented in an abstract, hypothetical, space, is so common in digital 'environments' or on the computer 'desktop' that it often goes unrecognized. Such metaphors are too many to be addressed by this paper, which restricts its survey to those commonly found in a cartographic context."
(John L. Old, 2002)
L. John Old (2002). "Information Cartography: Using GIS for visualizing nonspatial data", proceedings of the ESRI International Users Conference.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Island: Stephen Walter's London Series
"London is one of the great living palimpsests of our time. Its layers of history and its constant energy to re-invent itself fuels this vast grey magnet. I was spurd on by the great Map Makers of London's past - John Roque, Greenwood and Phyllis Pearsall (the originator of the A-Z). Informed by my own insights and knowledge, I combined further research on the Internet and through writers such as Peter Ackroyd and Ian Sinclair.
The resulting map, a spoof of the historical ones of old, would challenge the first impressions of its viewer; touching on the Capital's vastness, its secrets and its undercurrents. With this process in mind, I began to edit the information, keeping what I felt were historically important, interesting, relevant and amusing. These fantastical additions and epithets are purposefully innocent and acidic, trivial and serious. The Map is as much about the personality of its viewer than it is about of my own. In other words it acts as a mirror.
Britain is a collection of islands and it undoubtedly forms part of our identity. This provincialism; the centre of many industries and in particular the London Centric Art world and its rise again to a world city status add to its identity as an icon, separated from the rest of the country. I wanted to perceive London as another one of these 'islands', and so when mapping the coastline around its Borough edges I was happy to discover Carshalton Beaches coinciding with this border."
(Stephen Walter)
Fig.1&2 Stephen Walter, "The Island"
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
ISOTYPE: International System of TYpographic Picture Education
"Pictures had been used for the purpose of conveying information long before the development of Isotype. Picture language preceded the evolution of writing and a number of societies developed their own sets of rules in order to aid communication through pictures. Since the evolution of alphabetic writing in the western world pictures have, generally speaking, played a subordinate role to writing as far as communicating information is concerned. It is true that until the middle of the nineteenth century paintings usually told a story of some kind and relied on conventions of symbolism, composition, gesture and facial expression to convey their meaning; but there were few attempts to build up comprehensive picture languages before the present century. Comenius was not concerned with the structure of pictorial language, and even William Playfair, who developed a visual approach to the representation of quantities in the late eighteenth century which he called 'lineal arithmetic', does not appear to have adopted any firm conventions of treatment. Similarly, the numerous nineteenth- and early twentieth-century designers who presented statistics and other information through pictures appear not to have considered the need to work out overall approaches. By the end of the nineteenth century many novel approaches had been adopted in the field of picture language but, in general, it was as chaotic as written language was in pre-classical times when early Greek and Latin characters assumed a variety of orientations and the direction of reading and writing were not fixed.
The real significance of Otto Neurath's contribution in the field of picture language is that he saw the need to establish a set of conventions in order to make communication easier and more effective. These conventions were developed over a number of years and were only settled upon after being tested thoroughly through use. However, two basic rules were formulated almost from the beginning of the Isotype Movement. The first of these related to the presentation of statistics by means of pictures and held that a sign should be used to represent a certain amount of things and a greater number of such signs a greater amount of things. The second was a general rule that perspective should not be used. Perspective involves making objects of the same size smaller or larger according to their distance from the viewer, which means that they cannot easily be quantified; when something needed to be shown in three dimensions the Isotype team used models or isometric drawings. In accepting these two basic rules Otto Neurath was returning to the conventions of some of the earliest formalised systems of communication, and particularly to Egyptian wall painting and hieroglyphs which had influenced him profoundly. Thereafter a number of other rules and conventions were established by Otto Neurath and his team. They are described briefly in the section of the catalogue called 'Principles of Isotype', and in more detail by Otto Neurath in his book International picture language."
(Michael Twyman, 1975)
Fig.1 Chart of motor vehicles in the United States and abroad. From Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft, 1930 (courtesy MAK Center).
2). Michael Twyman (1975). 'The significance of Isotype'
3). Otto Neurath (1930). 'Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft - Bildatlas'
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The preservation of Net Art in museums. The strategies at work
"The preservation of net art is a complex topic which requires the construction of a specific approach to look at internet artwork, one that takes into account the material dimension of the artwork. Preservation does not deal only with aesthetics, not only about the way the audience experiences artworks, but needs to have access to these types of information so the preservation process can take place.
This research presents an overview of works created by and for the Internet. The artworks which are described in this work are chosen specifically as examples for preservation purposes, and not according to a typology created for different purposes. This research also presents an overview of the institutions (based in Europe and in North America) that have developped specific preservation strategies. It takes the form of case analyses, which stem from observations, readings, and interviews.
This thesis also looks into the interaction between preservation and the other functions of the museum (collection, exhibition, research). Preservation cannot be tackled independantly, because it deals with the artwork's life cycle within the museum. Every art work has to be treated in a way which is specific to itself. The issue of notation also arises then, as it's necessary to find ways to describe artworks, especially as their technological environments will eventually be obsolete. This research explores the ways to compensate obsolescence : emulation, migration, score, re-interpretation, self-archiving, automatic archiving, etc (which can be also combined).
The attention to net art work as material socio-technical object means to find a way to look at those works : the code which composes the artwork, the files, its different files and the way they are organized, what happens on the screen, the interactions between the artward and the audience that experience it. The notions of code performativity and activation are useful in this approach.
Preservation happens only when value is attributed to what is preserved. Two categories of actors outside of the museum take part into this process : the art market on the one hand and art critics and art historians on the other. Both influence and get influenced by the museum.
All these elements allow the composition of a pluridisciplinar cartography on the topic of net art preservation."
(Anne Laforet)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Here & There: a horizonless projection in Manhattan
"Here & There is a project by S&W exploring speculative projections of dense cities. These maps of Manhattan look uptown from 3rd and 7th, and downtown from 3rd and 35th. They're intended to be seen at those same places, putting the viewer simultaneously above the city and in it where she stands, both looking down and looking forward."
CONTRIBUTOR
David RogersonSHARE
