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Mentioned on Today’s Art Beat on WAMU
|| 9/28/2010 || 10:23 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

This morning when I left my house to go to the corner store to pick up my morning beverage, my housemate was listening to the Washington, DC NPR affiliate station, WAMU. About 10 minutes later, when I returned home, my housemate said with a big smile, “You were just mentioned on the radio.” I went up to my room, was able to find the segment on-line, and downloaded the MP3.

Click here to listen to an MP3 of the segment.

Text:

(September 28-November 13) LOCATIONAL AVOCATION
District denizen and cartographer Nikolas Schiller combines his loves for art, mapmaking, and technology to produce Geospatial Art, on display at Northwest Washington’s Old Print Gallery. Aerial photography is kaleidoscopically manipulated into abstract and familiar forms through November 13.

[Upcoming Exhibition] Geospatial Art at The Old Print Gallery
|| 9/1/2010 || 3:10 pm || 2 Comments Rendered || ||

I hope you can make it!

Adding a radical new dimension to traditional cartography, Nikolas Schiller: Geospatial Art disrupts the singular geopolitical viewpoint and in its place reveals infinite paths and perspectives of specific places at specific times in history. Experimenting with new methods of projecting geospatial information in a three-dimensional environment, Nikolas Schiller creates these unique maps out of public domain orthophotography. He has re-projected much of urban America, from downtown central business districts to state capitals to highway intersections to national monuments, and now, Georgetown.

The Old Print Gallery, a destination for map enthusiasts since 1971, invites you to view Nikolas Schiller’s postmodern cartography amidst the gallery’s collection of maps dating from the seventeenth century to the present. Nikolas Schiller: Geospatial Art is on view September 17 through November 13, 2010. All are welcome to attend the both the opening reception on September 17 from 5 to 8 pm and Nikolas Schiller’s artist talk on October 15 from 6 to 8 pm.

The Old Print Gallery is located at 1220 31st Street NW in Georgetown.
Visit: www.oldprintgallery.com
E-mail Questions: info@oldprintgallery.com or call #202-965-1818.
Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 5:20 pm.

The map used in the graphic above is Georgetown Lenz #2.

[UPCOMING EXHIBITION] Mapping: Outside/Inside in the Borowsky Gallery at the Gershman Y
|| 2/26/2010 || 2:21 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||

Exhibition at The Borowsky Gallery at the Gershman Y:
Mapping: Outside/Inside

Four artists who use maps to create new understandings of the outside world, including Leila Daw, Joyce Kozloff, Eve Andree Laramee and Nikolas Schiller.

Exhibition at The Open Lens Gallery at the Gershman Y:
Capturing Sky

Large-scale pinhole photographs by Masaki Kobayashi, guest curator: Tsuyoshi Ito

Opening reception: Thursday, April 29, 6-8 pm

Sponsored by The Gershman Y
https://www.gershmany.org/

Location:
The Gershman Y
401 S. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA

FRIEND REQUEST: MCA Invitational
|| 12/2/2009 || 2:38 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Flier for the Mid City Artist's group exhibition Friend Request

I was asked by my neighbor Chuck Baxter, who is a member of the Mid City Artists, to participate in the dynamic group exhibition. I intend on hanging a large 60″ x 40″ printing of Park La Brea Quilt #3 on display. This gorgeous map was originally printed out as a supplement to a book proposal in 2008. After the proposal was rejected and map sent back, it sat rolled up in my closet for over a year, and I’m excited to have it on display for the first time in Washington, DC.

Please attend the opening reception on Friday, December 11th, 2009 from 5pm to 8pm.
Art 17 @ Coldwell Banker is located at 1606 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC.
The exhibition will be up until January 29, 2010.

My maps on display at Artomatic 2009
|| 5/29/2009 || 3:10 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Click on the maps to view their respective blog entries

A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

This antique map mashup is over 400 years in the making. It features the Library of Congress‘ copy of Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, which was published in Amsterdam in 1606. I removed the original Mercator-inspired map from the center and kept the highly decorative border similar to my other antique map mashups. The border contains allegorical drawings of the seven known planets, the four elements, the four seasons, and the seven wonders of the ancient world (copied from Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck [1498-1574]). This border was used on hundreds of subsequent maps for the next 50+ years by Blaeu and his son on a variety of maps. Interestingly, Washington, DC has a few modern replicas of the seven ancient wonders, but I’ll let you figure out which ones they are! (Anyone want to guess which two I can see from my rooftop?!?) The name of the map is a play on words based on the 18th century naming convention “A New and Accurate Map..” The central portion of the map features modified aerial photography (an arabesque) from the USGS (taken in the spring of 2005) of the circularly-shaped Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on the National Mall in Washington, DC.

Israel / Palestine 1993

This map is derived from a scanned map of Israel & Palestine from the “Atlas of the Middle East,” which was published in January 1993 by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and obtained from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. At the time of it’s creation I was working at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab studies and my coworker’s vacation to Lebanon had to be cancelled due to an Israeli military incursion. I chose the map because of the way the occupied Palestinian territories were shaded on the map. The CIA chose to use rather ugly black diagonal lines to say “status still undetermined” and when I modified the map something interesting happened. The stripes became the points on a hexagram or Star of David, a recognized symbol of the Jewish state of Israel. To further express my feelings toward the continued occupation & military incursion, I added the iconic image of Palestinian defiance, a cartoon character by Naji Al-Ali named Handala to the lower corner of the map. Until his assassination in 1987, Ali used this character throughout his body of work as means to convey his displeasure toward the way the issue has been handled. The aim of this map is spark dialog so that peace may prevail.

Superdome Quilt – 1st Derivative #2

The day after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sent airplanes equipped with cameras to the gulf region to assess the damage. A few days later they released these high-resolution aerial photographs of New Orleans to the public and I downloaded the two tracts that contained the flooded area around the severely damaged Superdome. Shortly thereafter I made a couple maps based on this imagery and then tried out my new procedure of recursive sampling (a quasi-fractal) to make a highly detailed tessellation of the area. As you can see in the map, the blue hues are due to flooding of the streets and the little yellow blips around the map are what is left of the roof of the Superdome. A genuine question can be asked, if I were to obtain the imagery of the Superdome today, what would it look like? This map captured a moment in time that affected the lives of millions and I can only wonder what will happen when the next category 5 hurricane hits the next urban area. Sadly, the question is not if, but when….

I am located on the 8th floor of Artomatic 2009. Hope to see you!

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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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:

Related Virginia Entries:

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Tonight: Quart Bag & a selection of screen grabs featuring my bag
|| 8/8/2008 || 12:36 pm || Comments Off on Tonight: Quart Bag & a selection of screen grabs featuring my bag || ||

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.

ARTOMATIC – 2008 is here and I will be participating for the first time
|| 3/27/2008 || 12:58 pm || Comments Off on ARTOMATIC – 2008 is here and I will be participating for the first time || ||

I urge everyone reading this in the DC area to click on the link above and register for Artomatic. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be an artist, I believe you are capable of making something by yourself, or with others, that is creative. Do not worry that you’ve never touched a paintbrush, tried photoshop, or even attended wood working class in middle school; Artomatic is the place to show off something of your creation, simple as that. Yeah you can try to make some money off your art, but there is no pressure to do so. At the root of it, and why I’ve been a fan throughout the years, is that Artomatic is about the democratization of art– you have a level playing field. There are few places where you can have artwork valued at thousands of dollars next to something someone decided to make on a lazy Saturday afternoon with their toenail clippings. This unique juxtaposition is what makes some art critics cringe, but others, including myself, have a field day because of the exposure to new art. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is your participation.

In today’s Washington Jewish Weekly newspaper
|| 2/28/2008 || 4:05 pm || Comments Off on 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:

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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: