The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

Welcome Robots and Strangers
|| 3/14/2008 || 1:48 pm || Comments Off on Welcome Robots and Strangers || ||

Below is the text of an e-mail I sent out today:

One year ago today my ugly mug was on the front page of the Washington Post’s style section in David Montgomery’s article “Here Be Dragons.” To celebrate the one year anniversary of this 15 minutes of fame I did something I’ve been waiting a VERY long time to do– I removed the Robots Exclusion Protocols from my website. This means that in a few weeks you will be able to find the contents of my website with a simple search string from your favorite search engine.

Before 12:01am today, you could only search the contents of my website on my website. By preventing my website from being crawled by spiders (or robots as they are technically called) I also prevented anyone [strangers] from freely accessing the hundreds of maps that I’ve made over the last 4 years. Thus the paradox of making maps without being able to be found is now over, and in that respect I am liberating myself from the self-censorship experiment that I’ve been conducting these last few years.

Frankly, dear reader, its a very nice feeling. I am unaware of any website that has opened itself up to the robots with over a 1,000 different pages to index at once. I sincerely wonder what search words will bring people to my website from this day forward. Currently postmodern art is my number one search string (I am currently listed at #5)– and that was only possible because of the article that was published one year ago today. So with that said, today marks the beginning of a new phase in my life, and maybe yours– if you search for the right words.

White House Peace
|| 3/13/2008 || 2:56 pm || Comments Off on White House Peace || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 : White House Peace by Nikolas Schiller .

Similar to the Shanghai Map, this map uses Chinese characters as a decorative element. The source aerial photography of the White House was censored by the government before it was released to the public. I documented this about a year ago with my Lost Series project “The White House is off-limits to the public.” Unlike the Shanghai Map, I made a tessellation using the words for PEACE instead of placing the glyphs at the bottom. I was, however, thinking of revisiting this map in the near future and adding more text. As it is now, I think it’s somewhat plain, and deserves something else. I’m not sure what that ‘else’ is yet.

View the Google Map (which shows older imagery) of the White House.

View the rest of the details:

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Union Station Quilt #3
|| 3/12/2008 || 2:44 pm || Comments Off on Union Station Quilt #3 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 : Union Station Quilt #3 .

I find it quite interesting being able to see the difference between spatial scales when comparing the two previous Union Station maps. Since this map uses .16 meters per pixel aerial photography and the previous two maps use imagery that was .3 meters per pixel, you can quite easily see how much less I am now showing of the area around Union Station. Specifically, this map only shows the U.S. Postal Museum, Union Station, the Thurgood Marshal Federal Building, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.View the Google Map of Union Station in downtown Washington, DC.

View the rest of the details:

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Globe Graffiti
|| 3/11/2008 || 9:19 am || Comments Off on Globe Graffiti || ||

Back in September of 2006, my friend Alex let me borrow his antique globe to use as a prop in my outdoor exhibition “North, South, East, Westminster.” I felt it made an excellent addition to the installation and was very thankful for being allowed to use the globe. I returned it unscratched and without any new additions.

Fast forward a year and half. Alex lets a street artist and good friend of mine named DECOY borrow the globe. While she was out of her apartment one day, her friend and fellow street artist, DEBT decided to “appreciate” the globe with some his artistic stylings. Click on the pictures below to be taken to her blog entry.

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ordered last week: New Blaeu
|| 3/10/2008 || 9:25 pm || Comments Off on ordered last week: New Blaeu || ||

Originally created last summer as “NOVA ET ACCVRATISSIMA TOTIVS TERRARVM ORBIS TABVLA [2007 Remix],” when this map was published in the December 14th issue of the Christian Science Monitor, the editors truncated the name and simply called it “New Blaeu.”

Last week I decided to update the map slightly by trimming the edges and doing some color correction. It’s being printed at 20″x16″ and preserved behind glass in in an ornate gold frame. I am also planning on framing some of the other antique maps I purchased recently to compliment this map. I think they’ll look really cool all hung together; the real old with the fake new.

View the other detail:

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Scott Circle Quilt #2
|| 3/9/2008 || 9:10 pm || Comments Off on Scott Circle Quilt #2 || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Scott Circle Quilt #2 by Nikolas Schiller

View the Google Map of Scott Circle in downtown Washington, DC.

View the rest of the details:

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Scott Circle Quilt
|| 3/8/2008 || 1:32 pm || Comments Off on Scott Circle Quilt || ||

: rendered at 18,000 X 12,000 :
Scott Circle Quilt by Nikolas Schiller

I am in the process of making hexagon quilt projection maps of all the major traffic circles in Washington, DC. I have most of the circles covered and intend on continuing this project as I acquire new imagery of Washington, DC. Of important note is that Dupont, Logan, Washington, and Scott circles all lie with the area that is censored in Google Maps. Also, this is one of the first maps that I’ve made in a few years that features National Geographic‘s headquarters. I will probably make a derivative map dedicated to National Geographic.

View the Google Map of Scott Circle in downtown Washington, DC.

View the rest of the details:

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Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks
|| 3/7/2008 || 1:12 pm || Comments Off on Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks || ||

Today on one of my favorite DC blogs there was a posting about the new pedestrian safety ads (above) that are now being featured on Metro buses and trains. Before I began reading the comments, I was thinking that this graphic would be fun to photoshop. Specifically, I was interested in making fun of the fact that person being hit had been drinking what looks to be a Starbucks coffee. Using the old PSA message “friends don’t let friends drive drunk,” combined with an unfortunate crash scene and a phrase on old pen of mine from an independent coffeeshop in Saint Louis, Missouri, I was able to subvert the message.

If I wanted to spend more time on this graphic, I would have downloaded the exact same font that was used in the original flyer, but I am happy with the ironic result of 25 minutes of image editing.

Click the above graphic to be taken to www.delocator.net which is a website dedicated to helping you find independent coffeeshops around the world.

Related Design Entries:

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Federal Triangle Refraction
|| 3/6/2008 || 12:16 pm || Comments Off on Federal Triangle Refraction || ||

: rendered at 12,000 X 8,000 :
$Federal Triangle Refraction by Nikolas Schiller$

Lately I’ve been revisiting some of the elements from the Lenz Projection— specifically in the Charlotte Spheres, Pentagon Spheres, Grand Design Lenz Quilt, and Rochester Quilt #2. Today I decided to experiment a little more with aerial refraction. Using the 3rd derivative tessellation, originally used in Federal Triangle Quilt #4, I this created a visually engaging map. I like how the bars look very similar to my polar coordinate experiments. Specifically, I like the way that they imagery is curved and refracted. What I don’t like, however, is the way the shadows present themselves within the refraction. Since like bars are angled toward the viewer, they create a darker hue due to their internal shadows. The way around this is to decrease the angle of the bars, but in response to this, the imagery bends less. I will probably revisit this type of map in the future.

View the Google Map of Federal Triangle in downtown Washington, DC.

View the rest of the details:

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Digital Globe: Where did DC’s roads go?
|| 3/5/2008 || 12:27 pm || Comments Off on Digital Globe: Where did DC’s roads go? || ||

Screen grab featuring DC with very few roads

I was looking at Digital Globe’s website the other day and I decided to zoom into Washington, DC. The result was a map that only shows the major highways around the area. What is missing, however, are all the roads in DC, even the ones that connect to the “major highways” outside of the District. While the roads are not really needed to find locations of imagery, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a good example of how an on-line mapping environments can leave out a lot more content than what should be included. Since this map environment was designed to seek Digital Globe’s imagery, not highways, it would make more sense that the base layer shows archive satellite imagery and not ugly vector graphics that incompletely show the major transportation routes in DC.

Notice:
– Two different city centers: Washington + Washington, DC
– In the margin map, the star next to Columbia is not District of Columbia, but South Carolina
– In the margin map, all cities are capitals as well
– Gallaudet University is the only university shown

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Hello! Thanks for stopping by! My name is Nikolas Schiller. I am an American citizen currently living in New York City and working remotely to support structural change in Washington, DC.

This blog is my online repository of what I have created or found online since May of 2004. I've been on hiatus since 2018 but plan on contributing more content in the not so distant future.

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