The other day I noticed a new incoming link from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I thoroughly enjoyed going through their list of links and I hope the students & educators find my Geospatial Art useful in the studies.
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11/3/2008 || 4:39 pm
New videos are up on the Huffington Post - Foreign Correspondents Edition
As I noted before, Jason Linkins, Liz Glover, and I recorded some man-on-the-street interviews on Friday. I had suggested going to the White House to interview tourists and it turns out that we found quite a few foreigners to interview when we arrived. Of the five or so interviews that I recorded, I had the most fun recording with the dual interview (above) between Liz Glover & Polish television correspondent Paulina Drapala. I am told that Paulina’s interview aired last night on Polish television. If I’m able to get a copy of that version, I’ll post it here 
Marginally related: After the Washington Post article was published last year, I found that a Polish website started linking to my website. To this day, I still get about a visitor a month through that link.
Polish text from the website:
Poniżej prezentujemy linki do różnorodnych map. Znajdziecie tu mapy polskie i z całego świata. Większość map jest w języku angielskim, ale są również mapy w języku polskim.
…
Nikolas Schiller - strona artysty, który ze zdjęć satelitarnych tworzy dzieła - strona w języku angielskim
Translated text:
Here we present links to a variety of maps. Here you will find maps of Poland and all over the world. Most are maps are in English, but some are in Polish.
…
Nikolas Schiller - an artist who creates the work of satellite photos - page in English
[note: I rarely use satellite imagery due to copyright restrictions. Most of the imagery on this website is derived from aerial photographs that were placed into the public domain.]
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11/2/2008 || 4:38 pm
Bird’s Eye View of Little Diomede, Alaska
The other day I found this photograph above on a friend’s Facebook page. The photograph was taken from an airplane while the friend was traveling Alaska on behalf of their job in the American government. Around the time Republican vice-presidential candidate made a gaff about being able to see Russia from Alaska, I remembered how there was only one spot in America where this was the case and it just so happened that my friend had recently been there.
Known as the Diomede Islands in America or the Gvozdev Islands in Russia, the two islands are only split by about 4 kilometers. What I’ve always thought was interesting is that the houses on Little Diomede (above) face tomorrow. Due to the placement of the International Date Line, the Russian side is one of the first territories to start the day. This means folks on Big Diomede can also see yesterday.
NASA satellite image of the Diomede Islands
Related 2008 Election Entries: (more…)
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10/31/2008 || 11:51 am
She’s got the sole of the city with SWIMS galoshes
Map of Paris featured on SWIMS City Slipper high heel
I read about these stylish galoshes a little while ago, and saw the map on sole of the shoe, but I couldn’t find a high resolution version that showed the actual map. Yesterday I found it. SWIMS, a Scandinavian company known for making stylish galoshes, incorporates lots of great details both for practical and aesthetic reasons such as:
• Extra traction for slippery surfaces.
• The sole of each CitySlipper has the map of either New York, Paris, or Tokyo.
• Pull on/off grip and the soft siliconpad on the sides makes it very convenient.
• Flexible design to fit almost any heel height and thickness due to flexible material and construction.
• Protection for the delicate leather/suede sole of your shoe and the tip of the shoe against the elements.
• Low-Cut style is for shoes with bows and buckles.
The maps themselves definitely fall into the realm of aesthetics not cartographics, but ya know, I am a big fan of those kind of maps.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Mount Vernon Quilt #4
10/30/2008 || 12:30 pm
In the classroom #4 - The University of Auckland, Aotearoa
I still find one of the most interesting things about opening my website up has been watching the slow diffusion of my body of work and how educators have included some of my creations in their lesson plans. Earlier today I found that my Geospatial Art is being used as a case study for the class “Visualising Research and Communicating Places“, an elective course (ARCHDRC773) in the Architecture program at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. If you have a few minutes, check out some of the student’s work. Their course blogs are listed on the sidebar below the case study links.
Related Entries:
- In the classroom #4 - The University of Auckland, Aotearoa
- In the classroom #3 - University of California, Santa Barbara & the FBI's public website in 2001
- In the classroom #2 - La Salle University
- In the classroom #1 - Valparaiso University
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Mount Vernon Quilt #3
10/24/2008 || 1:38 pm
The National Archives Cross
So far I’ve made two other crosses: Mount Pleasant Cross and Memphis Cross. I am pretty sure how to make these now and future maps of this type will be added to it’s own special category on the sidebar. The cross above was chosen out of about 8 different tessellations and within this map is the National Archives at the center of the cross (hence the name), the Federal Trade Commission, the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Navy Memorial- which features a map of the western hemisphere (below), the Winfield Scott Hancock statue, the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, and portions of the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden and the west building of the National Gallery of Art, which make the vertical and horizontal stripe.
For reference, click here to view the outdated Google Map of downtown Washington, DC.
View the rest of the details: (more…)
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Silver Spring Quilt #2
10/18/2008 || 7:33 pm
View of a House Party Censored By Colored Dots
Friday night I went to a house party in Columbia Heights. During the party teenagers four houses down were throwing ice and eggs over the fence into the party. A couple of my friends went up to the back deck to escape the carnage. I took this picture and decided to add randomly colored circles over people heads as a way to remember the urban warfare. After all, they were all targets down there….
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: In the classroom #2 - La Salle University
10/15/2008 || 6:16 pm
Newest Commission: Shirlington Quilt
I’ve been working on this commissioned map for a few months now. It was originally going to be Paris, but we decided to it would be easier to make a map of their house. I spent some extra time transforming the nearby highway into a heart (below) to signify the love between the husband and wife. I think it looks beautiful It will be placed in the client’s home, which is featured within the map.
View the Google Map of the Shirlington neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia.
View the rest of the details:
(more…)
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10/14/2008 || 7:43 pm
Hallway view of the first edition of the New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
The other day I realized that posting maps here in digital format doesn’t show perspective well. For the image above I decided to switch it up and show the newly framed map from the perspective of looking down my hallway. Click here to read the original entry on New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
Below is the original photograph of the new map: (more…)
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10/12/2008 || 1:10 pm
New York City Photo Series #6 - Looking at the southeastern skyline
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above features some high rise buildings (which I don’t know the name of) and was taken from the rooftop of my friend’s apartment in Midtown Manhattan using a 15 second timelapse.
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10/11/2008 || 12:53 pm
New York City Photo Series #5 - One Worldwide Plaza
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above features One Worldwide Plaza and was taken from the rooftop of my friend’s apartment in Midtown Manhattan using a 15 second timelapse.
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10/9/2008 || 11:52 am
New York City Photo Series #4 - Ludlow & Rivington
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above was taken from the 6th floor window of Hotel Rivington in the Lower East Side looking down Rivington street.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: A New Map of the Pentagon
10/8/2008 || 1:45 pm
New York City Photo Series #3 - Corner of Rivington & Essex - Timelapse
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above was taken from the 6th floor window of Hotel Rivington in the Lower East Side using a 15 second timelapse.
Related New York City Entries: (more…)
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Tycho Brahe's Armillary Spheres
10/7/2008 || 1:35 pm
New York City Photo Series #2 - Corner of Rivington & Essex
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above was taken from the 6th floor window of Hotel Rivington in the Lower East Side.
For temporal comparison here are the advertisements as seen from Google’s Streetview:
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Holy See an Armillary Sphere?
10/6/2008 || 4:28 pm
New York City Photo Series #1 - Economy Candy
This week I am posting photos from New York City that took last weekend.
The photograph above was taken from the 6th floor window of Hotel Rivington in the Lower East Side.
Related Manhattan Entries: (more…)
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10/5/2008 || 1:04 pm
Photo of my presentation at the New York Public Library
Photograph by TaxiGang
The photograph above was taken yesterday by one of my friends in the audience.
The map on the projector screen is St. Paul Quilt.
A big thank you goes out to my friends who came to see the presentation!
You know who you are 
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: Defining Space Conference : Dublin, Ireland : 10/11-10/13
10/4/2008 || 7:03 pm
My New York Map Society Presentation at the New York Public Library
Below are the “slides” used in my presentation for the New York Map Society. Culled from the last four years of entries on this website, the selected maps show the range of my cartographic endeavors. What is missing, however, is my explanation of why I chose each slide.
The presentation was was supposed to go for about 45 minutes and have about 15 minutes of Q&A, instead it went for about 75 minutes and had about 15 minutes of Q&A. In all, I felt it was a very successful presentation and I deeply grateful for the New York Map Society for inviting me and the wonderful staff at the New York Public Library for their assistance.
View the entire presentation: (more…)
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9/29/2008 || 11:42 am
Saint Paul Quilt
It’s been quite a long time since I’ve made one of my signature quilt projection maps. On one hand I haven’t been inspired lately to make any new maps based on this technique. On the other hand, there are only a few American cities that I have yet to map, and Saint Paul, Minnesota was one of them. I was originally going to make this map during the Republican National Convention, but was sidetracked due to other work. Unlike the previous quilt projection maps that I have made most recently, which involved at least one recursive tessellation, this map employs the original style of my hexagon quilts.
This coming Saturday I will be in New York City for the New York Map Society’s monthly meeting. In preparation for my talk, I don’t expect to be blogging much this week because I intend on spending much of my spare time preparing my notes for the talk. If you are in New York, I hope you can make it!
View the Google Map of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota.
View the rest of the details:
(more…)
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9/26/2008 || 4:05 pm
Kiss My Art, Just Kiss It
A couple weeks ago one of my housemates had some of her friends over for dinner. Near the end of the evening one of guests got out their camera and started taking some random photos. I found the photograph above on their photobucket page and decided to repost it here because it made me smile. On the left is gnome mooning everyone, in the back center is a gallery wrapped 32″x48″ print of Superdome Quilt First Derivative #2, and on the right is musician Sean McArdle. I don’t know why the gnome was making an appearance at the dinner party, but at least he decided to show his sincere disdain for proper decorum by mooning the guests. I’m told not many gnomes are not that nice.
As for the title of this entry, its a play on words of a slogan from a Washington, DC-based car insurance company’s television commercial series. And marginally related, there is an event taking place in San Francisco this weekend called Arse Electronica, which is a play on words for Ars Electronica. Consider this photograph decided to all three
Related Humor: (more…)
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9/16/2008 || 11:04 pm
Harvest Moon in Washington, DC Timelapse Video
Harvest Moon in Washington, DC Timelapse Video from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo.
Click here to view the video on YouTube
This video was recorded this morning using a tripod and a Canon SD750 on 2 second shutter speed. The Harvest moon’s apparent size & luminosity change as the clouds drift by her slow transit through the night sky of Washington, DC. The music is “The Transit of Venus” by John Phillip Sousa (1893) performed by the Virginia Grand Military Band (2003).
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9/15/2008 || 11:11 pm
Ordered Today: New York Public Library Quilt
In conjunction with my upcoming presentation at next month’s meeting of the New York Map Society, I decided to order a copy of the map and will be donating it to the Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division at the New York Public Library. It will printed out quite large at 60″ x 40″ on Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl 285gsm paper and should be a splendid addition to their permanent collection.
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Los Alamitos Circle Quilt #3
9/11/2008 || 11:13 pm
Interviews with Alex Jones at the DNC in Denver and other videos
My friend just put up the interviews on YouTube that I filmed while in Denver, I figured today was the best day to post these.
My interest in Alex Jones was first piqued in January of 2001 (pre-9/11) when I saw his cameo in Richard Linklater’s innovative film Waking Life:
Continue reading: (more…)
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Los Alamitos Circle Quilt
9/7/2008 || 11:20 pm
The Precessional Pentagram of Venus
Successive inferior conjunctions of Venus occur about 1.6 Earth years apart and
create a pattern of precessing pentagrams, due to a near 13:8 orbital resonance
(the Earth orbits nearly 8 times for every 13 orbits of Venus).
Was reading about Transits of Venus and came across this graphic on Wikipedia. What a beautiful celestial design.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Dupont Circle Quilt 2005 #2
9/5/2008 || 11:51 pm
QR Code on display at the Ralph Lauren store in Georgetown
Tonight I went to the Adidas store in Georgetown because my friend DECOY was celebrating her birthday and another friend was DJing. After parking my bicycle down the street (Georgetown doesn’t have many bicycle locks), I noticed the sign outside of the Ralph Lauren store. This sighting marks the first time I’ve seen a QR Code in Washington, DC. I decided to snap a picture of it to see if I could decode on my computer and below the fold you can see the results: (more…)
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Logan Circle Quilt
9/4/2008 || 8:34 pm
Wasilla, Alaska is literally off the map, the Google Map that is
The Republican Party’s vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Tonight this website had a visitor from Wasilla, Alaska who looked at this statehood-related map. Upon looking at the city on Google Maps, I found out that Wasilla is a border city where the imagery of the geography shows only a portion of the city using new high-resolution imagery. In some ways, this map proves that Republican Party’s vice-presidential choice was literally off the map.
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Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: 10 & 710 Quilt
9/2/2008 || 3:25 pm
Protest videos from the first day of the RNC in St. Paul, Minnesota
Below are a selection of videos from yesterday:
View the rest: (more…)
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9/1/2008 || 2:50 pm
Iraq Veterans Against the War Concert & March at the 2008 DNC
Iraq Veterans Against the War Concert & March in Denver from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo.
Click here to watch on YouTube
The Iraq Veterans Against the War hosted a free concert at the Denver Coliseum with The Coup, Flobots, and Rage Against the Machine. After the sold out show, about 4,000 people took part in a 4 mile march to downtown Denver to give the presidential candidate Barack Obama Campaign a list of demands regarding the war the in Iraq and the treatment of veterans.
This sequential video starts at the Denver Coliseum with clips of the Flobots and Rage Against The Machine, then follows the demonstrators to downtown Denver, and finishes on the Denver police marching like soldiers & a polar bear at Ralph Nader’s “Open The Debates” rally at the University of Denver Magness Arena.
Click here for photographs from the day’s march.
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8/31/2008 || 11:35 pm
Two Huffington Post Interviews are up - Tim Daly, Rufus Wainwright, and Margaret Cho
Jason Linkins who writes for the Huffington Post has put on-line two videos I that filmed for Liz Glover at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Above is the interview with actor Tim Daly of the Creative Coalition. Below is an interview with Margaret Cho and Rufus Wainwright in their dressing room at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver. Click the images to watch the video on the Huffington Post website.
Related 2008 Election Entries: (more…)
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: Dia Labore
8/30/2008 || 10:14 pm
A Polar Bear In Denver
A Polar Bear In Denver from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo,
On Wednesday, August 27th, 2008, after the Iraq Veterans Against the War concert & march, I attended Ralph Nader’s “Open the Debates” rally at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena. At the end of rally I saw a polar bear inside the arena and decided to film this rare sighting.
Related Vimeo: (more…)
Render A Comment || || Posted One Year Ago: 5 & 605 Quilt
8/29/2008 || 10:41 pm
A Black Bear in Rocky Mountain National Park
When I told my mom about going to Denver she mentioned that she & my step-father had been hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park earlier the week before and had spotted a black bear for the first time. When they were hiking down the trail they came across this black bear chowing down on termites in the trunk of the tree. They waited for awhile before the bear walked off. She send me these two photographs for proof.
Last month I was in Rocky Mountain National Park for 24 Hours and didn’t see any large wildlife.
Comments Off || || Posted One Year Ago: 60 & 710 Quilt
