The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

“You Are Probably Not Here” featured today on the front page of We Make Money Not Art
|| 8/13/2009 || 1:40 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Screen grab of the front page of We Make Money Not Art --- links to the actual review, not front page

This morning I woke up to find that Régine Debatty used a screen grab from my “You Are Probably Not Here” project for her book review of “Experimental Geography.” Take a moment to read the review and/or purchase the book.

As you may or may not know, my map Pentagon Quilt #3 is featured on page 149 of the book and is also on display in the traveling exhibition that is touring North America for the next year or so. The exhibit is currently on display at The Albuquerque Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico until September, 20, 2009.

Postmodern Cartography: You Are Probably Not Here
|| 8/8/2009 || 2:56 pm || 3 Comments Rendered || ||

Just click!

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)

Just click click click to cycle through the images

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On page 149 of Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism by Nato Thompson and Independent Curators International
|| 12/3/2008 || 12:20 pm || Comments Off on On page 149 of Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism by Nato Thompson and Independent Curators International || ||

Today I received my copy of Experimental Geography: Radical Approaches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism by Nato Thompson and Independent Curators International. As I mentioned before, my Pentagon Quilt #3 was included in Daniel Tucker’s WE ARE HERE Map Archive that is featured in Independent Curators International traveling exhibition. The catalog for the exhibition and goes on sale next month when the exhibit starts its two year international tour. My map is on page 149 next to Lize Mogel & Dario Azzellini’s The Privatization of War: Colombia as Laboratory and Iraq as Large-Scale Application.

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The microphone flag I designed makes an appearance
|| 10/29/2008 || 8:55 pm || Comments Off on The microphone flag I designed makes an appearance || ||

Back in August before I went to Denver to help cover the Democratic National Convention, Liz Glover asked me to design microphone flags for the Huffington Post, Radar Magazine, and Blackbook Magazine. The idea behind making these microphone flags was that she’d be able to change the flags on her microphone before interviewing people for the different news organizations. It adds an extra sense of legitimacy to any reporter in the field and it genuinely looks more professional.

On Monday she went up to New York City to cover the opening of Steve Lewis’ new club Aspen Social for Blackbook Magazine. In the video above I spotted the Blackbook microphone flag that I designed for the first time. Judging by the success of the interview, I hope to see that flag more often.

By the way, did you see what happened to that same microphone in Minnesota? I’m still laughing at that dog named Sarah.

Hallway view of the first edition of the New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
|| 10/14/2008 || 7:43 pm || Comments Off on 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:

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The Precessional Pentagram of Venus
|| 9/7/2008 || 11:20 pm || Comments Off on The Precessional Pentagram of Venus || ||

The planetary cycles of Venus create a star shape design

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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A New & Somewhat Accurate Map of the Tropic of Gemini and the Tropic of Sagittarius
|| 9/4/2008 || 7:11 pm || Comments Off on A New & Somewhat Accurate Map of the Tropic of Gemini and the Tropic of Sagittarius || ||

For the last month I’ve been working on a slightly strange map above. It’s based on Johannes van Loon’s “Scenographia systematis mvndani Ptolemaici” (1660), which includes an “Axis Zodiaci” that shows the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius being slightly more illuminated than Cancer & Capricorn (see below). This shading possibly indicates that the author was aware of natural movement of the earth since the time of Ptolemy (~125 A.D.).

A new & somewhat accurate map of the Tropic of Sagittarius and the Tropic of Gemini was created using two maps of the Tropics from Wikipedia. I added the glyphs of the Zodiac over the meridians, but unlike the antique map below, I moved the signs backwards. The word “tropic” itself comes from the Greek tropos, meaning turn, referring to the fact that the sun appears to “turn back” at the solstices. I have read that in 1989 the Tropic of Gemini moved into the constellation of Taurus, which technically means it should be the “Tropic of Taurus,” but to keep the circle of animals in exact opposition, I kept the tropic in Gemini, hence “somewhat accurate.”

Close-up detail of A New & Somewhat Accurate Map of the Tropic of Gemini and the Tropic of Sagittarius

For hundreds of years cartographers have included the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer on nearly all globes and world maps. Yet with the natural movement of the earth through space & time, the solstices are not located in the constellations of Capricorn or Cancer anymore. So why do cartographers continue to label the maps & globes using this incorrect information? Does cartographic tradition trump astronomical observation? Should contemporary maps be changed to reflect the passage of time? Are there any antique maps that place the Tropics in any other constellations? Leave your comments below.

Johannes van Loon’s “Scenographia systematis mvndani Ptolemaici” (1660)

Postscript: I believe I was incorrect in my analysis above. I failed to take into account the sideral.

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My map of the Pentagon to be featured in the “We Are Here” Map Archive in the touring exhibition “Experimental Geography” [2008-2010]
|| 8/15/2008 || 1:39 pm || Comments Off on My map of the Pentagon to be featured in the “We Are Here” Map Archive in the touring exhibition “Experimental Geography” [2008-2010] || ||

I was contacted by Daniel Tucker in January of this year to participate in his map archive. I thought it was a great idea so I offered my Pentagon Quilt #3 map. I received notification this week that the map archive starts its tour for the next two years with the exhibit called Experimental Geography. Here’s the blurb from the website:

EXPERIMENTAL GEOGRAPHY
Geography benefits from the study of specific histories, sites, and memories. Every estuary, land fill, and cul-de-sac has a story to tell. The task of the geographer is to alert us to what is directly in front of us, while the task of the experimental geographer, an amalgam of scientist, artist, and explorer, is to do so in a manner that deploys aesthetics, ambiguity, poetry, and a dash of empiricism. This exhibition explores the distinctions between geographical study and artistic experience of the earth, as well as the juncture where the two realms collide (and possibly make a new field altogether).

The manifestations of “experimental geography” (a term coined by geographer Trevor Paglen in 2002) run the gamut of contemporary art practice today: sewn cloth cities that spill out of suitcases, bus tours through water-treatment centers, performers climbing up the sides of buildings, and sound works capturing the buzz of electric waves on the power grid. In the hands of contemporary artists, the study of humanity’s engagement with the earth’s surface becomes a riddle best solved in experimental fashion. The exhibition presents a panoptic view of this new practice, through a wide range of mediums including interactive computer kiosks, sound and video installations, photography, sculpture, and experimental cartography.

The approaches used by the artists featured in Experimental Geography range from a poetic conflation of humanity and the earth to more empirical studies of our planet. For example, Ilana Halperin explores the intersection of personal, historic, and geologic time, as may be seen in the photograph of her stooping at the edge of natural hot springs to boil a small cup of milk. Creating projects that are more empirically minded, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), a research organization, examines the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth’s surface, embracing a multidisciplinary approach to fulfilling its mission. Using pragmatic skill sets culled from the toolbox of geography, CLUI forces a reading of the American landscape (which includes traffic in Los Angeles, submerged cities, and the broadcast towers in the San Gabriel Mountains) that refamiliarizes the viewer with the overlooked details of their everyday experience.

Experimental Geography is curated by Nato Thompson, curator and producer at Creative Time in New York, and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

Featuring:
Francis Al
AREA Chicago
The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI)
the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)
kanarinka (Catherine D’lgnazio)
e-Xplo
Ilana Halperin
Lize Mogel
Multiplicity
Trevor Paglen
Raqs Media Collective
Ellen Rothenberg
Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
Spurse
Deborah Stratman
Daniel Tucker, Organizer, The We are Here Map Archive < --- Hi! Alex Villar
Yin Xiuzhen

Featured in Daniel Tucker’s We are Here Map Archive:

1. Bill Rankin “My cities” 1978-2004
2. Bill Rankin “The United States” 2003-2007
3. Counter Cartography Collective “Disorientation Guide” 2006
4. Nikolas R. Schiller “Pentagon Quilt #3” 2007
5. Ashley Hunt “Prison Map” 2003
6. Friends of William Blake “The People’s Guide to the RNC” 2004
7. Subrosa “Biopower Unlimited” 2002
8. Ecotrust Canada “Statement of Intent Boundaries” 2008
9. NYC Indypendent “Threat to Peace”
10. Repohistory “Circulation” 2000
11. Lize Mogel and Dario Azzellini “The Privatization of War: Colombia as Laboratory and Iraq as Large-Scale Application” 2007/2008
12. Beehive Design Collective “FTAA” 2003
13. Jeffrey Warren “Armsflow” 2006
14. Center for Urban Pedagogy “Cargo Chain” 2008
15. Temporary Travel Office “Contaminating the Preserve” 2008
16. Hackitectura (Pablo de Soto, Jose Perez de Lama osfa, Marta Paz sweena), Indymedia Estrecho and collaborators “Tactical Cartography of the Straits” 2004
17. Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri “Fear is Somehow Our For Whom? For What? and Proximity to Everything Far Away” 2006
18. The Los Angeles Urban Rangers “Malibu Public Beaches” 2007
19. The Los Angeles Urban Rangers “Los Angeles Urban Rangers Official Map and Guide” 2004
20. The Los Angeles Urban Rangers “LA County Fair” 2006
21. The Institute for Infinitely Small Things “City Formerly Known As Cambridge”
22. Amy Franceschini “Silicon Valley Superfund Sites” 2006
23. Amy Franceschini “Intentional Communities in Silicon Valley” 2008
24. Adriane Colburn “Whose On Top (race to the pole, part two)” 2008
25. Bureau d’Ã©tudes “World Government” 2005
26. Grupo de Arte Callejero “Aqui Viven Genocidas”

There will be a catalog for the exhibition that will be published by Melville House Books. I look forward to getting a copy when it comes out.

The tour starts next month and has dates that are still available. I would like for it to come to Washington, DC! :-)

Exhibition Itinerary

Richard E. Peeler Art Center , DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana
September 19 – December 2, 2008

Rochester Art Center, Rochester, Minnesota
February 7 – April 18, 2009

The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico
June 28 – September 20, 2009

AVAILABLE
October 2009 – January 2010

Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine
February 21 – May 30, 2010

AVAILABLE
June – August 2010

Click on the detail of Pentagon Quilt #3 below to view the rest of the map:

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Meridian Hill Park Hexagon Tessellation
|| 8/2/2008 || 1:59 pm || Comments Off on Meridian Hill Park Hexagon Tessellation || ||

: saved at 15,000 X 10,000 :
Meridian Hill Park Hexagon Tessellation by Nikolas R. Schiller

This is the first time I’ve made a tessellation using hexagon as the basis for the pattern. Normally, I simply use a square because its the easiest to tessellate. The last map I made using Photoshop was Clayton Quilt #3, which was constructed using one square tile six times and did not exhibit radial symmetry like most of my other Qulit projection maps.

This time around I used center portion of the source tile that I used for Meridian Hill Park Quilt #4 and to switch things up a bit, I cut out a perfect hexagon from the the tile instead of using the tile’s square shape as basis for the tessellation. With one hexagon cut out, I merely duplicated it and moved it around to create the irregular tiling above. The difficulty was that I had to adjust the hexagon tiles so that they were not overlapping. It wasn’t that difficult per se, but it took awhile to get them all lined up perfectly. I am quite pleased with the result and figure that I will use this process again sometime in the not-so-distance future.

View the Google Map of Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC.

: detail :
Detail of Meridian Hill Park Hexagon Tessellation by Nikolas R. Schiller

View the rest of the map’s close-up details:

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Quart Bag: A Community Art Show at the Civilian Art Projects
|| 7/30/2008 || 10:42 pm || Comments Off on Quart Bag: A Community Art Show at the Civilian Art Projects || ||

Screen grab of the front page of Civilian Art Projects website
Features a piece I created called “Without You I am Lost”

On July 21st, 2008 I received an invitation e-mail from the owner of Civilian Art Projects, a Washington, DC-based fine art gallery. The e-mail outlined the concept behind their upcoming group show called “Quart Bag,” which invited local artists to submit a ZiplocÂ® that has been decorated, converted, or redesigned. The uniqueness behind the concept, one that I’ve always enjoyed since I was a kid, is everyone is essentially given a prop and its up to the artist to get creative with it and transform it into something new & unique.

After reading the e-mail a few times over I immediately thought of using some of the maps that I had saved from my Artomatic exhibit. The map scraps were originally a bunch of cut up maps that I used for my Base Map Installation (see below). These maps were originally purchased using DC government grant money that was given to me in conjunction with the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities 2008 Young Emerging Artist Award and I realized that I wasn’t about to throw all those maps away when Artomatic finished. So when I was dismantling the exhibit I saved as many of the maps as I could so that I could recycle them (like last night’s leftovers!) in a to-be-identified project.

With the recycling theme running through my head, I went downstairs to my kitchen, found an unused ZiplocÂ® bag in my pantry (gallon-sized not quart!), and proceeded to my basement to create this unique piece of art. The original idea was to fill the bag up with scraps of maps but after filling it up, I realized that there was something missing. Essentially, there was no message being conveyed and frankly I wouldn’t say a bag filled with scraps of maps means much to anyone, or worth $50/$100 unless of course, you were a collector of discarded maps and/or the maps were really old.

Upon further contemplation, I decided to empty out the bag and add a bit of text to the inside of the bag to give it some depth of meaning through an abstract message. I chose a phrase that combines the unique nature of maps with a subtle, but concise, message of longing: Without You I am Lost. This simple message speaks volumes (about a gallon) about who I am, where I am going, and how I’ve been feeling as of late. There were a few other phrases that I bounced around in my head like show me the way, you are not here, and get lost, but I felt that Without You I am Lost really captured the essence of how I was feeling at the time of it’s creation.

I went back upstairs to my room and printed out the text using the same font that I used in the bloody self-portrait taken after my recent mugging and had the text printed archival matte photographic paper. I then cut the paper down to size and found some clear packing tape to affix the printed text to. To give the clear tape some subtle flair, I used my lighter to burn the edges of the tape and then affixed it to the inside of the bag and filled it back up again with the maps.

This time around I was more precise in how I arranged the maps and placed on one side of the text a detail of the National Mall explicitly featuring the United States Capitol. I chose this location to add a secondary depth of meaning because as a resident of Washington, DC I’m denied representation in Congress. Thus the You could be implied to mean congressional representation and the I implied to mean the residents of Washington, DC and so it could then indirectly be read as “Without congressional representation the people of Washington, DC are Lost.”

Adding to this inferential geographic juxtaposition motif, the other side of the text features an upside-down portion of the Middle East and Africa to imply concept of being lost in the global context. Or more specifically, I am implying that American democracy has lost its way and the world has become lost. After all, the opposite of progress is congress, right? By placing the two locations on opposing sides of the central text, my message expands from a sincere message of longing to a subtle critique on American foreign policy and the disenfranchisement of Americans living in the capital city of the world’s most powerful nation.

A couple days ago I e-mailed the gallery director back indicating that I was interested in participating in the exhibition and attached the photograph of the bag. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to participate because I was using a gallon-sized bag instead of a quart bag. Her response was that she thought it was perfect :-) Earlier this afternoon, about 30 minutes before I was going to leave my house and drop off the bag at the gallery, I received an e-mail notifying me that the photograph I had sent was currently on the front page of the gallery’s website. Grinning, I checked it out and took the screen grab above. I’m really looking forward to seeing the variety of submissions that will be on display. If you are in the Washington, DC area, you should come & check out the exhibition:

The Quart Bag Exhibition opens on Friday, August 6th from 7pm to 9pm @ the Civilian Art Projects, which is located on the 3rd floor of 406 7th Street NW, Washington, DC

In case you are interested in seeing what the maps were used for before they ended up in the bag in the photo above, in April of this year I produced the YouTube video below for promotion of my Artomatic 2008 exhibit:

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: