#29: Map it Out
Going from Point A to Point See
Instructions
Notice how the space around you is translated into maps—both online and offline.
Reflect on how—and what—you’d like to map out.
Draw, sketch, or otherwise create a map or directions of places—real or imagined.
“Robots are Not Your Friend”
I love a good map, whether it’s a functional one like the London Underground, or an artsy one like the watercolor layer of Open Street Maps created by Stamen, or a totally imagined map. Heck, I even like a totally useless one.
I somehow used this to get from Sweden to Denmark late at night—it’s probably very useful to people who live there.
One of the shifts in reality that has happened over my lifetime has been the change from needing to have an internal sense of the external world for basic survival, to a full outsourcing of directional awareness to Google Maps.
I was visiting family in L.A. and using Waze to get from the San Fernando Valley to the South Bay. My uncle, a lifelong Angeleno, took umbrage at the route suggested by the algorithm. My response to him was “I just do what the robot tells me to do,” to which he replied “ROBOTS ARE NOT YOUR FRIEND.”
I get it. Growing up in pre-internet L.A. we lived by the Thomas Guide maps. My Dad still treats that resource with biblical devotion.
There was a sense of making sense of the vast expenses of the external world, and overlaying a sense of understanding (and even mild control?) on a chaotic world. But in lower stakes, I also just enjoy graphically displaying time and space, whether it’s the frame-worth art of Barely Maps or the ridiculous Family Circus “adventures of Jeffy” maps.
Making Maps
One of my favorite ways to create maps is with running trackers on smartphones like MapMyRun or Strava. In training for the New York City marathon a few years ago, I had to squeeze in a long run while I tagged along on a cruise trip my wife was doing for work. The oval on the top of the ship was a small length—about a sixth of a mile—and I turned on the runtracker with the ship pulled into port early in the morning, making a wonderful swirly line.
I’ve been playing around with creating text using these apps. Here’s a recent attempt in my neighborhood.
It’s the Brooklyn Way.
I’m also a long-time fan of hand-drawn maps for places both real and imagined. It’s fun to decide what is included and excluded, and how dimensions are shifted to fit the paper. Here’s a sample from an artist project at the Haystack School in Maine. I have very context left over after almost 20 years for the beads or the project, but the map might come in handy at some point. :)
And Finally, The Music
Ted Leo is a good musician, and especially good at powerful covers of songs. Here’s him doing a combo of Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” followed by The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps”.
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