The Quart Bag group art show that I wrote about the other day is happening tonight. If you are in the DC area, I hope you come & check it out.
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Des Moines Quilt
2/28/2008 || 4:05 pm
In today’s Washington Jewish Weekly newspaper
My piece at the JCC is mentioned in an article in today’s Washington Jewish Weekly:
The piece by D.C. resident Nikolas Schiller portrays the Palestinian refugees’ perspective and, he says, “dissent.” He is dissenting from the 1993 map of Israel and the Palestinian territories, upon which he based his kaleidoscope image, because he sees it as “biased” in showing the territories in stripes, he says.
He also has included an image of Handala, an iconic Palestinian cartoon that he found on the Internet, on the map. Handala, which means “bitterness” in Arabic, “represents the abused Palestinian refugees,” he says.
I don’t remember saying the word “abused” the entire time I spoke with the reporter, but I’ll let it slide.
Read the entire article:
(more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Denver Mandala
1/29/2008 || 4:38 am
Audio from Teresa Méndez’s article in the Christian Science Monitor
I was able to extract Teresa Méndez’s 90 second audio segment from the Christian Science Monitor’s website. I uploaded it to my website for archival purposes. You can listen to her talk about the Festival of Maps in Chicago and my Lenz Projection.
Click here to download the 90 second MP3.
Comments Off || ||
1/19/2008 || 4:35 pm
syndicated in Taiwan, San Francisco, Saint Louis, Austin, Little Rock, and Lincoln, Nebraska
Screen grab from the 90.3 KWMU
A little over a week ago I noticed that Teresa Méndez article from the Christian Science Monitor had been syndicated in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and ABC News.
Today I found that the article was syndicated again on December 30th, 2007 on quite a few NPR affiliates, including the one I used to listen to when I was young (KWMU 90.3) and, curiously, even in Taiwan.
Screen grabs below:
(more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Polar Coordinates of Charleston, West Virginia [diamond]
1/11/2008 || 9:52 pm
Curbed LA - Downtown Derricks
Screen Grab from Curbed LA
It looks like my ‘oil slick’ overlay of downtown Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Interchange Series are getting some exposure.
Some day I’d like to have the entire series printed and hung in Los Angeles and maybe include a gilded bicycle [ha!]. I wonder why there isn’t a Curbed DC yet?
Comments Off || ||
1/8/2008 || 9:33 pm
Syndicated in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution & ABC News
Screen grab from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Teresa Méndez article from the Christian Science Monitor was syndicated on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. According to wikipedia, Sunday’s circulation is a little over 500,000 papers and this article appeared right before Christmas (when there are a lot of house guests). Unlike David Montgomery’s article, Teresa’s was not edited very much upon syndication, but her’s is a shorter article in wordage.
A couple weeks ago I spotted the article syndicated on the ABC News website (screen grab below), but I still don’t know how the article was ultimately used. It was written for newspapers and ABC News is broadcast news, so did it appear on a TV segment? I doubt it. ABC News probably just paid to have the article syndicated on their website to get more advertising dollars.
For both ABC News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the editors included my URL in the story, but unlike the Christian Science Monitor article, neither hyper-linked the URL, so I don’t know how many direct visitors my website received because of the article’s syndication. This is very annoying and I wished the web editors of the respective news organizations would do a better job with their on-line articles.
Regardless, what I like best about this syndication is that while the Christian Science Monitor article contains a 90 second audio report by the author, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a robot that will read the entire article for you.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: the future past
1/2/2008 || 10:58 pm
Comparative Front Pages: Washington Post / Philadelphia Inquirer
On March 26, 2007, the Philadelphia Inquirer published David Montgomery’s Here Be Dragons article. That morning I received a phone call from one of my best friends who happened to be in Philadelphia on business. He excitedly informed me that one of my maps was on the cover of a section in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I asked him to purchase as many copies as possible and about a month later I picked up the six copies from his house. My housemate let me borrow his camera to take an overhead photograph of the two newspaper articles side by side. When the housemate moved out a few months ago he gave me all of his photographs that he had on his computer and I found this photograph that I had forgotten about. What I found to be the most interesting aspect is the size of the map that was used in Philadelphia, the change of the article’s name, the movement from “Style” to “Health & Science.” I’ve tried to track down other syndications, but so far only the Philadelphia Inquirer has been obtained. The article itself has already been deaccessioned from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website.
Related In The News Entries: (more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: new year, new direction?
12/14/2007 || 12:42 pm
The art of Map Fest by Teresa Méndez - The Christian Science Monitor
Exactly 9 months to the day after David Montgomery’s article in the Washington Post was published, Teresa Méndez writes a great piece about maps and she includes section about me:
__snippet__[with links added]
They are artists such as Ms. Contro and the 11 others featured in “The Legend Altered: Maps as Method and Medium,” the Carrie Secrist Gallery exhibition. And they are artists such as Nikolas Schiller.
Except Mr. Schiller hesitates when asked to define what he does. Is the young D.C. resident, profiled earlier this year on the cover of The Washington Post Style section, an artist? Is he a mapmaker?
“I make pretty maps or artistic maps,” he says, searching for the right description, “or boutique maps.” He finally settles on “conceptual cartographer.”
Schiller takes US Geological Survey aerial photographs and plays with them.
“The Quilt Projection” – which his website (www.nikolasschiller.com) calls “A Journey Through Geometric Geography” – is his most prolific series. It consists of 350 images that look less like maps and more like something you might see peering through a kaleidoscope.
There are the “quilted” neighborhoods of Mount Vernon in Baltimore, Md., and Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. There is George Washington University in D.C., which Schiller attended for a time, and the University of Texas at Austin. Look close enough and you can identify familiar landmarks: streets, parks, a monument. But step back and the tessellation makes for a wonderfully abstract mosaic.
Schiller’s work is a way to see the world anew, to be an explorer when nearly every corner of the earth has previously been combed.
“With the world already charted and mapped,” he says, “geospatial art allows you to discover it all over again.”
Schiller is something of a curator of maps. He can point one to websites of antique maps, industry maps, and calendars detailing map exhibits around the world. The Internet, it would seem, abounds with cartograms. Twice, he mentions the Waldseemüller Map.
Also included on the Christian Science Monitor’s website is a 90 second audio report filed by the author. She talks about my Lenz Projection and how it was developed.
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
7/22/2007 || 4:39 pm
Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy - Washington Post
Today my analysis concerning Google’s censorship of downtown Washington, DC made it into a story on the front page of the Metro section of the Washington Post.
Here are two snippets from the article by Jenna Johnson titled, “Google’s View of D.C. Melds New and Sharp, Old and Fuzzy”
The older images frustrate cartographer Nikolas Schiller, 26, who takes an artistic approach to mapmaking and is working on an atlas. Schiller, who lives in the U Street area, said that too much of the District is represented using the older photos, diminishing the amount of information — and thrill — that aerial photos can provide.
“Maps are about power,” he said. “Maps decide what gets developed, who lives where, how people get around.”
Schiller said he thinks Google should just use the 2002 map for the small spots the government has censored rather than the whole downtown area.
And he said he’s puzzled that any level of blurriness is needed by anyone — even the government — especially because he recently took a detailed tour of a nuclear reactor south of Detroit via Google Earth.
“Where is the concept of national security in this?” he asked.
By random chance, tomorrow’s map is the nuclear reactor mentioned in the article.
Read the entire article:
(more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: American University Quilt #2
5/28/2007 || 6:38 pm
TV Kultura mentions the last 4 years of my cartographic activities
Translations:
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
4/24/2007 || 2:11 pm
profiled by Iconoculture
Saturday morning when I was doing my IP analysis I discovered that people were visiting my website from a document hosted on Iconoculture’s website. I decided to contact them about what the document was. Monday I received a reply and found out that they are a consumer trends research company who took interest in my maps. Quite cool!
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Rosslyn Quilt
4/18/2007 || 11:34 am
Roll Call’s Photo of the Week features the DC Colonist
From Roll Call:
Up-Lifting Message
Nikolas Schiller of the DC Statehood Green Party helps fellow party members lift a large pro-D.C. statehood flag on the Capitol’s West Front following a voting-rights march to the Capitol on Monday. Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and other District officials led supporters from Freedom Plaza to the Capitol in a show of support for a bill that would grant D.C. a vote in the House.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Dallas Quilt
4/5/2007 || 7:42 am
Featured today in Directions Magazine’s Newsletter
When I worked at the AAG I always looked forward to receiving mail and magazines from the Geospatial Industry trade magazine called “Directions Magazine.” Last month I contacted the magazine after the story was published, and today I am featured in the “Off the beaten path” section of the newsletter. To those visiting from the listing, I welcome you. Please feel free to look around my website, and if you like what you see, the best compliment you can give me is obtaining the one that you can hang on your wall.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Montgomery Quilt
3/31/2007 || 10:54 am
The Masked Mapmaker
David Montgomery’s story about me was syndicated in Hong Kong’s The Standard, Weekend Edition.
I am quite surprised the story made it so far!
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Bloomington Quilt #2
3/26/2007 || 5:38 am
Changing the World
David Montgomery’s story about me was syndicated in the Philadelphia Inquirer today.
To those visiting from Philadelphia, I welcome you and your comments. If you are interested in obtaining a map of Philadelphia, I currently have Philly Quilt #1 and Philly Quilt #2 available for purchase. I should have the two mandalas available shortly.
My most recent cartographic activities (below) involve using a php script to randomly display details of the maps I made last year. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making these creations!
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Nashville Quilt #2
3/24/2007 || 8:31 am
On the map, off the wall
David Montgomery’s Here Be Dragons was syndicated this morning in Fort Wayne, Indiana’s The Journal Gazette as “On the map, off the wall - Shadow blogger manipulates geographic images.”
Of note is that it’s been slightly edited like the rest of syndicated stories and like the original there are hyperlinks in the on-line version. Yet, while the original contained links to all of the maps that were mentioned in the story, this syndicated version contains only two links: one to my website and the other to the Secret Service!
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Louisville Quilt #2
3/19/2007 || 3:45 pm
“Here Be Dragons” syndicated
The Washington Post story by David Montgomery “Here Be Dragons” has been syndicated.
It was on the front page of life/arts/style section in the Waterloo, Ontario’s “The Record” this morning as “When Maps meet Art” (you can download the pdf here). It was also a feature story in yesterday’s Sunday edition of Southern Oregon’s “Mail Tribune” as “Terra Incognita” and Thursday’s “Canton Repository” as the original title.
Of note is how much content is changed and/or lost as other news editors slim down the story to make it suitable for publication. I’m sad to see how the Dr. Livingstone, I presume reference has been removed. It’s also quite interesting to see how the various media outlets use the maps I supplied the Washington Post.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Augusta Quilt
3/14/2007 || 1:25 pm
Here Be Dragons by David Montgomery
Front page of today’s Washington Post Style Section:
Here Be Dragons
Through Nikolas Schiller’s Eye, Aerial Maps of Familiar Places Become Terra Incognita
By David MontgomeryHe is sly, this rebel cartographer. He makes maps that look like quilts, masks, feathers, acid trips. You can find America in these maps — you can probably find your house in these maps — if you can find the maps at all, since their creator has posted them to an online underground.
Nikolas Schiller, 26, is the god of this alternative reality. Making maps at a frenzied pace of one every two days for the past 1,000 days, he has done everything he could to keep himself off the map of the World Wide Web.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Eastern Market Quilt #2
12/12/2006 || 2:38 am
Indiana GIS Newsletter - December 2006
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Anthony & I like maps!
12/5/2006 || 11:14 am
Third of representation a start, but not enough
In today’s Washington Times:
In honor of the bill before Congress that provides a congressional vote for the District in the House of Representatives, Statehood Green Party advocate Nikolas Schiller has designed a new license plate: “Taxation with 1/3 Representation.”
Read the rest of the article:
(more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Star of Marquette High School
10/7/2006 || 5:38 pm
On Page Two of the Washington Examiner
Too bad I didn’t know about this the day it was published, I would have snagged a copy.
If you click on the image you’ll be taken to the original .pdf of the page.
View pictures from North, South, East, Westminster
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: It's Up - Check it Out!
10/5/2006 || 5:55 pm
New Directions
A cute human interest story about me. The author did not come to my event but conducted an interview with me two weeks ago. I ended the interview feeling as if I disclosed too much about myself. As it turns out, I guess I gave just enough 
I modified the scan of the original article with the color photographs I supplied the newspaper for the story. A big thank you, again, to Ted Stein for taking the photographs.
This article appears in the Foggy Bottom/Dupont/Georgetown/Northwest Current. Distribution of roughly 55,000. Click on the image for a higher resolution version of this story.
Comments Off || ||
9/27/2006 || 12:48 pm
Netscape Celebrity?
I found this last night while looking through my ip analysis… It looks like the D.C. Colonist is going places these days. But still he has no voice in Congress.
===
Link is now dead…
Comments Off || ||
9/17/2006 || 7:45 pm
Salt Lake Tribune covers the D.C. Colonist
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Much of Thursday’s hearing focused on the district’s fight for representation in the House, and several people in the audience wore stickers with the number “51,” referring to their hopes to make Washington the 51st state.
One resident even donned a Revolutionary period costume, complete with tri-corner hat, to protest the district’s lack of representation. Nikolas Schiller said he wore the purple garb to “highlight the fact that D.C. residents are still living in a colony,” because they are being taxed by the government without representation.
read the rest of the article:
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
9/16/2006 || 9:24 pm
ABC 7 Covers the D.C. Colonist…
albeit for a brief moment outside with the largest DC flag…
it’s so annoying when they have 30 minutes of footage, but cut it down to 5 seconds. I wish I could have that footage. It’s not like the footage will be used anytime soon….Sam and his camerawoman were the only news crew to cover the antics outside two hours before the hearing began.
Comments Off || ||
9/15/2006 || 12:05 am
The DC Colonist is in a Scripts Howard wire report
I wish the Washington Post would have used the picture of me shaking Fenty’s hand…
Nikolas R. Schiller, co-chair of the D.C. Statehood Green Party, dressed as a colonist - complete with purple coat, ruffled blouse and three-cornered hat - to demonstrate how “D.C. residents are essentially colonists.”
Schiller said he considered H.R. 5388 “inherently flawed” because it did not grant representation in the Senate. “It would make residents of D.C. one-third of a citizen,” he said, “and I’d rather be 100 percent.”
Read the entire article:
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
7/31/2006 || 8:55 pm
Tucson Arizona recap
Since Wednesday I’ve been in lovely Tuscon, AZ for the Green Party National Convention. I was the elected delegate from the D.C. Statehood Green Party and represented roughly 5,000 registered D.C. Statehood Greens. I didn’t have access to MySpace while there, so this posting is a condensed recap. Suffice it say, I had an absolute blast.
Here are some highlights:
— Liberated a lonely bicycle that had the same sticker as my own bicycle in DC: “Please don’t steal my bicycle. Thanks” and drove it around the town- all around town. You know how I roll. the bike is now rests in the same place i found it, waiting for a new rider
— Went to a restraurant owned by the family of one of my good friends 3 times- ate stewed cactus, spinach & pine nut tacos, and an amazing chimichanga. La Indita - Young Indian Woman…
— Walked across the border into Mexico at Nogales for the last time before a Visa is required to leave America (starting 2007 yo) and had a few beers and walked back. Customs only asked what country I reside in and in a Fruedian slip I said “Washington, DC.” - no documentation was ever made by either government of my departure and my return to the United States. And to think I walked back over with a person who has an FBI file related counter-recruitment. Well maybe I do too. I digress.
— Went to a Casino on the way back from Mexico and won $30 at Blackjack. Walked in with $30 and left with $60 but all the while knew that gambling is a tax on people who do not know math. The next day I met a Green Party mayoral candidate who for 30 years has been a slot machine repairman in Reno, NV.
— Made it to about 12 different bars on the historic 4th Ave strip of Tucson, AZ and figured out where I would have spent my Friday nights if I were to have gone to the University of Arizona. I went to Buzz instead…
— Saw MXPX, Whole Wheat Bread, Arlington View, and Transition (not my scene, but ethnographically intriquing) at the Rialto Theatre. The irony of an Arlington View in DC and Texas abounds.
— Went to the Saguaro National Park - West
— Went to Catalina State Park and saw a roadrunner — meep meep. Oh yeah, I saw a lot of cactus- but for the first time realized the beautiful biodiversity of the desert.
— Discovered how dangerous intermittent streams can be when you are in the desert’s rainy season. think desert tsunami, seriously
— Made a cameo in the Tucson, AZ Fox News affiliate’s segment on the Green Party National Meeting:
http://www.fox11az.com/sharedcontent/VideoPlayer/videoPlayer.php?vidId=78277&catId=142
(click the image to be taken to the page)
— Met a lot of great lawyers from around the country who specialize in a quite a few different legal arenas
— Came up with a few gimmicks using google maps for Green candidates around the country
— After reading thousands of e-mails from over 150 leaders scattered around the country, I finally got to make the human connection with a conversation. Made a lot of friends, mostly older in age, and considerably wiser.
Now it’s time to get back to the work that I missed out on….
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Georgetown Quilt #2
2/24/2006 || 9:16 pm
Green Jews campaign against party’s Israel divestment resolution
I am quoted in the JTA:
“I am concerned by the anti-Semitic undertones of the proposal,”Nikolas Schiller, an officer of the Washington branch, said after listening to Clement’s presentation. “I agree with the more global aspects” of an alternative that would take a range of nations to task.
It’s a rather crappy article though…”branch”….ummm….a branch grows on a tree and a party is the place to be….
read the rest of the article:
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
11/15/2005 || 10:04 am
Union Newswire
For Nikolas Schiller, it’s Wal-Mart’s attempt to open a bank in Utah a
bank that, of course, would not help local people and would run other
banks out of business.
Read the rest of the article….
(more…)
Comments Off || ||
11/13/2005 || 11:55 pm
Wal - Monster
Screen shot from NBC of me protesting Wal-Mart in suburan Virginia. Watch the video clip:
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Star of Ganges River Delta, Star of Brussels
The Daily Render: A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, & Future
Go East ----»
