cool maps #3

this month’s dizziness has tested my desire to tie everything i do into a single threaded creative thesis. i’ve always been pulled by some sort of obsessive burst: beading, playing the bass, cake decorating, regular decorating, soup making, and printmaking - but alongside those crafts comes a guilt, that these artistic indulgences take away from my creative cartography practice that already lack a share in the hours of my day. i worry that if not all of my work fits under a concrete scope, then it dilutes my legitimacy as an artist.

i thought that making blockprints of maps, or beading necklaces representing commutes, would help dissolve that guilt (don’t get me wrong, i’d still love to do those things. just without feeling that pressure), but that didn’t feel like the right connective tissue either.

anyway, maybe the only continuous thread i need between those things is me.

3 inspirations

• one example i always pull up when i talk about creative cartography is radio.garden - a site where instead of a dial to scrub through radio stations, it’s a map, with endless available nodes.

• you can listen to radio stations all across the world, tuning into countless genres, and at the same time, experience a glimpse of globalization when a station in Buenos Aries and another in Seoul are both playing Olivia Rodrigo.

• this map feels like eavesdropping, a peek into other parts of the world, a feeling i love that also exists across a few other projects, like Window Swap, Oda (and One Minute Park from cool maps #1)

• mnemonix is a project my friend leslie built with her hackathon team for new builds in toronto, under the theme of enhancing urban life and community connection (aka, a breeding ground for cool maps, i wish i knew about it sooner!)

• their project came about with tiles of imagined and experienced grids of Toronto - the cutest way to drop in and create, quite literally, your corner.

• the practice of imaginative mapping, both on your own and with others, is so grounding for your identity as a member of your physical community. these practices make me so curious about what details each person expands or leave out in their mental maps.

• all text in NYC is a textual search engine of the Brooklyn (and soon other boroughs) urban landscape through Google Street View. It itches at your curiosity for even the most mundane words as they show up in a business ad, and right next to it, a spray painted counterpart.

• last week, i got to see yufeng’s demo of a newer version that isn’t out yet. one feature that particularly caught my eye were the upcoming map visualizations. they plot the distribution of a searched word across boroughs using height. for example, seeing towering bars showing how many times “Broadway” appears along the three Broadways in New York. Or, how the largest concentrations of the word “best” is not at “best bagel” nor “best pizza”, but at “best buy”s. i can’t wait to toy with it.

1 work in progress

• a few weeks ago, the Steve Jobs Archive finally announced our fellowship class. after a few months of having to keep it secret, I’m excited to get to jump into things alongside a group of multidisciplinary artists, scientists, and engineers. i have a few focuses for the next year:

  • to facilitate: this might look like more teaching! a guest lecture! or running a few more workshops with interesting collaborators.

  • to create: i’d love to explore building some sort of experiential exhibition, being a part of Suncast ignited inspiration to make something to show people a glimpse of themselves.

  • to learn: the first thing i want to do is investigate and write about public play and infrastructures for hanging out, maybe accompanied by little physical builds i got to tinker with at ITP camp.

  • but above all, my goal is to gain clarity, and build a momentum & sandbox for myself that i can carry with me onwards.

• sharing tangible goals has never been easy for me, as if the eventual disappointment of not getting something would multiply with the number of people i tell. especially as someone who’s easily distracted, my wavering aim towards those goals is often just a part of my process.

• which, speaking of, i might postpone applying to grad school, ha.

that’s it! let me know if you see a cool map in the wild (or if you make one yourself)