On April 1st, 2009 I received an e-mail the author Jorn Seemann, a graduate student at Lousiana State University, requesting to use my piece “The Modern Geographer” in an upcoming peer-reviewed article for the 10-year-anniversary issue of the Brazilian journal Pre-Posicoes (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, UNICAMP). I was expecting to have to send him a larger version of the work, but to my chagrin the on-line version was able to work for publication.
O quadro O geógrafo não é apenas um objeto perfeito para uma leitura geográfica de imagens, mas também uma fonte quase inesgotável de inspiração para discutir o passado, o presente e o futuro da geografia. A composição de cores, objetos e sombras abre espaço para interpretações múltiplas. Provavelmente nenhuma delas corresponderia ao que Vermeer tinha pensado quando pintava o quadro. O significado original pode perder-se no decorrer do tempo, mas isso não invalida as nossas ponderações. De forma semelhante às iniciativas dos geógrafos de desconstruir os mapas, as obras de arte também podem ser re-significadas como “meios de encontrar [finding] e depois criar [founding] novos projetos, efetivamente re-formando o que já existe.” (Corner, 1999, p. 224). Um exemplo do presente é o Geógrafo moderno, de Nikolas Schiller (Figura 8), que mostra clones do geógrafo cercando uma mulher cujo corpo é uma estampa de fotos aéreas de Washington, DC.
I will have an English translation on-line shortly…..
This unique wall calendar contains 12 maps of the Washington originally published in the newspapers of the District of Columbia between 1887 and 1909. There are two editions of the calendar available: one with the original black & white scans and the other with colorized maps (below). Each calendar is on sale for $25 + shipping until January 31st, 2009.
Below are the pages from each month of the Color Edition of the 2010 Cartographic Calendar:
This unique wall calendar contains 12 maps of the Washington originally published in the newspapers of the District of Columbia between 1887 and 1909. There are two editions of the calendar available: one with the original black & white scans (below) and the other with colorized maps. Each calendar is on sale for $25 + shipping until January 31st, 2009.
Below are the pages from each month of the Black & White Edition of the 2010 Cartographic Calendar:
Upside down detail of the terrestrial globe in The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein, The Younger
The Ambassadors (1533) is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery in London. I remember first learning about it in my AP Art History class in High School. I was drawn to both the intricate nature of the painting’s near-photorealism and the anamorphicskull that obstructs the foreground. Today I was attempting to warp the skull to see it properly rendered and I realized that there was a nicely painted globe in the background. Well, actually, there is a lot more than just a globe in the background of this painting– there is also a beautiful celestial globe and numerous scientific instruments, but I will let you explore the painting on your own. Suffice it to say, this painting remains one of my favorites.
You’ve probably seen a map sometime in your lifetime that proclaims YOU ARE HERE. Well what if you are looking at a random location? You could actually be there, but you are probably not. I first came up with this postmodern cartographic concept back in December of 2007 when I made the first graphic. Yesterday I decided to expand the concept by adding new graphics and making a webpage dedicated to the concept. It currently features only 8 different foreground graphics that are randomly displayed over two folders of map ‘zoom-ins’ (146 close up & 136 far away) originally used in “American Stereography #3.” I hope to add more foreground graphics over time and I would also like to update the background image folders with newer imagery because the page currently shows only maps that I made in 2006.
Total number of visual combinations: 2256 = (146 X 8) + (136 X 8)
I know this a bit late, but I was looking over the coverage of the DC Metro train collision last month on the websites of the Washington Post (below) and the New York Times (above) and noticed one glaring error in the New York Times map. The Red Line does not start and end at the borders of the District of Columbia, rather it extends far into the state of Maryland. Maybe the New York Times can issue a cartographic correction?
I guess you could say this is a good example of when the local newspaper gets it right…
The Craig retroazimuthal map projection was created by James Ireland Craig in 1909. It is a cylindrical projection preserving the direction from any place to another predetermined place, while avoiding some of the bizarre distortion of the Hammer retroazimuthal projection. It is sometimes known as the Mecca projection because Craig, who had worked in Egypt as a cartographer, created it to help Muslims find their Qibla. Check out the mathematical calculation used to create the map on Wikipedia.
I think it would be neat to use this cartographic projection technique to create a map that uses Washington, DC as the center.
NBC’s The West Wing – Why are we changing maps?? – From season 2 – Episode 16 A fictional group called the “Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality,” pitches President Bartlet’s staff to “aggressively support” legislation mandating every public school in America teach geography using the Peters Projection map.
Would you believe that this is my first map of the Garden State? It is. After hundreds of maps, I have finally gotten around to making a map of New Jersey. Originally the delay was based on the availability of color imagery due to the fact that I could only obtain false-color composite imagery of New Jersey. While it looks nice, it is not within the color parameters I’ve chosen to work with. If you look around this website you won’t see any quilt projection maps using this type of coloring. While I have modified the colors of the source aerial photography before, I have not started with false-color imagery and then made a map.
The imagery I was able to obtain and use for this Dodecagon Quilt Projection map is, ummm, to say it nicely, pretty much crap. According to the metadata, this .5 meter aerial photography was taken in March of 2006, processed in June of 2006, and released to the public on June 26th, 2007. Instead of using a digital camera, this imagery was taken with an analog film camera, printed out, scanned, and finally digitally altered for correctness. The result is a very grainy resolution when looked at up close and is comparable to the poor-quality Los Angeles imagery I worked with last year.
The imagery also suffers from the fact that it wasn’t taken completely at nadir. This means that you can see a mishmash of perspectives, where buildings literally run into each other because the angle at which the photograph was taken wasn’t completely overhead (nadir). For example, in the detail below you can actually read the lettering of the Prudential building due to the obliqueness of the original aerial photograph.
Anyways, now I only have to complete a map of somewhere in Vermont and I’ll have a made a map of a city in every state in the United States! I think its time to remove the dust from my last book proposal….
Nikolas Schiller is a 29-year-old cartographer, consultant, digital artist, researcher, photographer, civil rights activist, and blogger living in America's last continental colony, Washington, DC. If you have any questions or comments, please contact:
