Moving Lightly over the Earth

In the novel The Rings of Saturn (1995), the German writer W. G. Sebald recounts his solitary journey to the town of Suffolk (UK) at the end of his years, while he also reflects on some of the dramatic events that shaped World War II and his personal memories. In this work, he takes on a particular narrative tactic defined by the interaction between the text and images that creates a special type of montage in which he seems to draw from cinematic language. I argue that, drawing on Sebald’s work, we can imagine a form of ethnographic observation that involves the creation of a cinematic map through which to explore the memories and imagination of individuals in relation to places where they live. I explore the day-to-day lived experiences of unemployed people of Sulcis Iglesiente, through their everyday engagement with, and situated perceptions of, their territory. I describe the process that led me to build Moving Lightly over the Earth, a cinematic map of Sulcis Iglesiente through which I explored how women and men in the area who lost their jobs as a result of the process of its deindustrialization give specific meaning to the territory, relating it to memories of their past and hopes and desires for the future.

Making Explicit What has Been Implicit

How is a map different from things that are not maps? What is a map? How do you know it's a map? Such questions appear quite simple—the answers would seem to be things everyone knows almost without thinking—yet comprehensive answers have proved elusive. Hitherto, such existential questions have almost inevitably been either conflated with practical ones or deliberately ignored. Map artifacts are, by themselves, mere things. Like any text, the map artifact can be read, and, through the action of being read, the artifact comes to bear meaning. Maps, however, go beyond mere meaning-bearing to achieve a state where they actually embody meaning. Reaching a state of meaning-embodiment requires a transformation that is analogous to an apotheosis or a transfiguration of the common clay of the artifact into an abstract conceptual state of map-hood. Describing this transfiguration into a conceptual state requires a Conceptual theory of cartography—one that defines the relationship between the artifact as a thing and the map as an abstract entity, and that also defines the map entity in a manner unambiguously applicable to every, any, and all maps. Such a theory would also have to define the discipline of cartography in relation to that abstract map entity. This paper proposes the outlines for the required Conceptual theory—one based on the proven model of Conceptual Art. Practically speaking, the first step—and the effective scope of the paper—is an inquiry into the nature of the map as an abstract conceptual entity. It provides a model for an investigative methodology for interrogating the formal map, and sketches out a framework for assimilating the findings of such investigations. This paper will not settle all fundamental questions about what a map is, but it will outline an analytical course that can address them. It proposes that asking how one knows something is a map is a step on the road to discovering what a map is.

Frequently Updated Maps and their Public Display

The display of maps on computer monitors in a public setting can be used to emphasize their value in conveying spatial patterns. For thematic maps, by removing the possibility for interaction, more attention can be focused on the mapped distributions. Maps that lend themselves best for public display are those that are frequently updated, such as weather maps. Other types of frequently updated maps (FUMs) include those of earthquakes, air pollution, and health conditions, such as the spread of a virus. These types of maps are increasingly provided through the internet in an interactive format, making the resultant maps less suited for public display. Described here are available maps that could be displayed in a public setting, and a method to make maps for quick display based on available data. A series of these maps can then be assembled and shown in a continuous loop. The display of maps for the public can be implemented using the low-cost, Raspberry Pi computer. Maps that are suitable for public display, instructions for implementation and the required code are available at: maps.unomaha.community/FUMPD/About.html.

A Comparison of Feature Density for Large Scale Online Maps

Large scale maps as provided by Google, Microsoft Bing, and Mapbox among others provide users an important source of information for local environments. Comparing maps from these services helps to evaluate both the quality of the underlying spatial data and the rendering process. A comparison procedure is used that generates large scale map pairs at random locations using the Application Programmer Interface (API) for three different mapping services. The quality of each representation is then evaluated for feature and label density. The comparison is done for three different continents. For North America, it was found that maps from Google had consistently higher feature and label density than those from Microsoft Bing and Mapbox. Google Maps also held an advantage in Europe. Maps from Microsoft Bing were more detailed in Sub-Saharan Africa in comparison to both Google Maps and Mapbox. Maps from Mapbox, that relies exclusively on data from OpenStreetMap, had the lowest feature and label density for all three areas.