Again and again we’ve read articles by D.R. Fraser Taylor this semester on
the coming revolution of cybercartography (even if that rev. arrived a year ago
with Google Maps and its API). Taylor takes credit for coining "cybercartography"
in his 1997 keynote address, "Maps and Mapping in the Information Era" at the
ICC conference in Sweden. Conceptually, cybercartography relaxes
cartography from the constraints of paper; the map-maker and the map-user blend
together; their products–often dynamic and unconventional–play a range from
physical maps to imaginaries and abstraction (idio-data), often at the computer
interface. The "false objectivity" of physical maps is loosened to the
enigmas and wonder. Consequently we have a disturbance of traditional
cartography (i.e. the map-maker, his instruments, and ink).
Tag: cartography
Making a Map?
If a person uses Google Maps (or Google Local…) to mark all of the
breweries in Chicago,
let’s say, has s.he created a map?
I asked this question today in GEO781, and I learned that just as all
comprhetors don’t agree on what writing is, all geographers don’t agree
on what mapping is. I don’t want to exaggerate the gape between
physical geography and social or human geography, but as these sub-disciplinary
orientations go, so goes the willingness/reluctance to regard maps as
representational and also rhetorical rather than as empirical or somehow
data-rigid.
Addressing Addresses Addressed
Below the fold you’ll find a map-like project I’ve been working on for a
little while today. It’s a spread of the CCCC addresses since Lloyd-Jones
in 1977 with pop-ups including the details about each chair’s address (notice:
Roen’s upcoming collection). If the corresponding text of the talk has
been run through parsing and posting at CCC
Online, you’ll find a link to it from the map.
Why this? Why now? For one thing I wanted to get back in and
tinker around with Google Maps EZ.
I used it
when it first came about, but there have been a few changes, including an
expanded range of options for coloring and labeling the markers. The
markers work with single characters; I’ve color-specified the placemarkers by
decade, then used a number to show the year of the convention and talk. It
leaves something to be desired, but it’s good enough for now. Ultimately,
I’d like to see two-digit markers; probably ought to look into how to do that
myself. On the other hand, I probably should finish up grading.
And on the other other hand, I probably ought to turn off Judge Mathis
and stop playing Sudoku.
To add just a bit more rationale for this/now, I’m taking a course in
geography in the spring called Seminar in Cartography: Web Mapping and
Cybercartography. I don’t have much formal training in geography; the course
welcomes students from across the disciplines, and it will be the only course
outside of CCR that I’ll take during this program of study. I don’t
have all the details about the GEO course yet, but we’ll be looking at a book called
Mapping Hacks and
hacking and writing a few maps of our own. And because, at my geekiest, I’m keen on
mapping disciplinarity (among other stuff, imaginaries, etc., as well…might
even argue that disciplinarity is an imaginary, and that it’s too vast and
complex to know totally, so we map away). Yeah, well, that’s why this/now.
I’d say more, but I have to walk over to a chiropractic appt. (neck’s still
killing me), then catch up with D. for a ride to Ph.’s game.
Lobotomap
I went ahead and lifted the Brain Map idea from
here and created one of my own.
I’m not sure how much brain-mapping diffusion proves it as a
full-fledged meme, but I do recommend it.
Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation (1981/1994)
Baudrillard begins by suggesting the impossibility of Borges’s exhaustive
map, a precise cartography of the empire. According to Baudrillard, such a
map is no longer possible; the farcical project is rendered impossible because
of "the precession of simulacra," which we might take as an onslaught of
images without immediate reference or "copies without originals." If images
are referential, simulacra shroud the reference, resulting in what Baudrillard
calls the hyperreal as well as conditions giving rise to "the era of
simulation [which] is inaugurated by a liquidation of all referentials" (2).
Hereafter, maps precede territory (1); this applies to the medicalization of the
body and anticipations of war-action as the trainings for each are staged
through elaborate and artificial simulations. Also, Baudrillard works this
theory on Disneyland, Watergate and God.
Google Maps EZ
With
Google Maps EZ, you can embed a marked
map with ease and include links, text and images (all via HTML) in the
captions associated with each marker (via).
EXTENT
A
We
started out in right field,
but as the sun set, it was too
much to bear. Couldn’t
see into the sun. So we switched seats.
Not like it was a
packed stadium that night.
Here’s the perspective from our first
seats at around 6:30 p.m.
When I first tried it out earlier today, I was having trouble with the EXTENT
definitions. With EXTENT, you can establish the scale and map type
(hybrid, map or satellite), thereby giving the map a stable look.
The fancy dropcaps feature that I added to the blog a few weeks ago were interfering with the
"E"–grabbing it away from "XTENT" and clouding up the whole process. With
that resolved, I’ve tried to push just a bit farther to mark the photographed
spaces at a Syracuse Sky Chiefs game in late July (could be anything though).
Basically, I wanted to integrate the Flickr image sources for the thumbnail
views with links to the larger versions of the photos. Click on the each of the markers to see what I mean. You can navigate the map with the control buttons, too. In concept, it’s similar to geo-tagging in Flickr, except that it’s localized, speedier and needs
only to work with the images you involve. I haven’t had much success with
geo-tagging, actually; even after I’ve tagged photos, they only sporadically
cycle into Mappr, and the KML bit with Google Earth doesn’t notice them after a
week. Always possible that I’m doing something wrong, of course.
Mapping Contenders: A More Writable Space
Over at The Map
Room, Jonathan Crowe posted a
few
notes about MSN
Virtual Earth that tipped me on to a few ideas and the
Virtual Earth weblog
where MSN is inviting input. In light of the clamor raised over two
notable features at Virtual Earth–the
absence of Apple headquarters and the
presence of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, Crowe verifies (if there was
any doubt) that VE uses "very old imagery." As I see it, the age
of the satellite images concerns me less than their superior resolution.
Right, already
been over this.
Wanderlust
I’ve downloaded Google
Earth. It’s loaded with visual-planetary wonder: fly-overs,
angular adjustments, and surprisingly clear shots of the terrain. The
upgrade, which allows
annotations (something I might use) and .csv or GPS imports, tech support and
crisper printing (stuff I might not use), is tempting for just twenty bucks.
But for now I’m content to mess around with the free version. (via)
Here’s a look at the main interface (simple, easy to use) and, in it, a
from-above view of SU’s main campus.
The Photographemic Map
I started with a simple impulse to document the park. I walk through
Thornden Park almost every day; it’s familiar, safe-seeming despite the
well-circulated commonplaces about the park’s hazards: the "don’t-go-alone"
and especially after dark.
At the Corner of
Encompassing:
Google Maps, now in beta.
(via)