In the multiple explorations of form and composition by German-Swiss artist Paul Klee, a special place is occupied by works where the line is the main … [Read more...]
Cartographies of Reality and Fiction
Maps connect information to space, depicting real and imagined territories on a flat surface. Over time, maps became increasingly more detailed and precise: the scale was adjusted, symbols became conventions, standards were set. However, this evolution didn’t stop the map to become a complex representational tool or an artistic medium.
For some artists, the cartographic representation became a means to spatialize a mental realm, a metaphorical instrument to simulate an unexisting territory.
Patterns from the World Underneath: The Ecological Relations of Roots by John Ernest Weaver (1919)
The ecological relations of roots (1919) is a book by John Ernest Weaver (1884 – 1966), an American biologist and prairie ecologist. During his life, … [Read more...]
Mapping Fictional Realms: “Terram in Aspectu” by Liliana Farber (2019)
New Media artist Liliana Farber investigates the ways in which the virtual redefines the physical world. Using custom-made software and collected … [Read more...]
Gareth Damian Martin, Postcards from The Continuous City, 2018
The Continuous City is an in-progress photographic series by Gareth Damian Martin. The British artist, game designer and writer explores video game … [Read more...]
Abstract Layers of Territory: Maps by David Lemm
David Lemm is a visual artist and designer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His production ranges widely from illustrations to collages, multi-media … [Read more...]
Visualizing Land: Works by Matthew Rangel
Matthew Rangel is an artist from the San Joaquin Valley in California beneath the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His digital and analogical prints … [Read more...]
Apollo Missions 15-17’s Lunar Topographic Orthophotomaps (1973)
The Lunar and Planetary Institute (a self describing "research institute that provides support services to NASA and the planetary science community, … [Read more...]
Gianfranco Baruchello’s Infinite Small Systems
Gianfranco Baruchello was born in Livorno in 1924. Throughout his artistic career he explored several media, from painting to drawing, photography, … [Read more...]
Gábor Attalai: Map Works For Klaus Groh (1971)
Attalai Gábor (Budapest, 1934-2011) was a leading representative of Hungarian conceptual art, performance, and graphic design. His works, with a large … [Read more...]
MAP Office: Hong Kong Is Land (2014)
MAP Office, a duo of artists and architects formed in 1996 by Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix (already on Socks with their "Unreal Estates of … [Read more...]
Moving Boundaries in the Alps: Italian Limes (Venice Architecture Biennale 2014), by Folder and collaborators
After actually visiting the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, during the last week, we finally had the pleasure to … [Read more...]
Ascii-Art Mapping: SyMAP (or Early Computer Generated Cartography)
William Caraher, assistant professor at the University of North Dakota and writer of the site "The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World" … [Read more...]
The Three Mawangdui Maps: Early Chinese Cartography
Between 1972 to 1974 three tombs in the archaeological site of Mawangdui, China, were excavated. In one of them, the archaeologists … [Read more...]
City Maps by Jazzberry Blue
Jazzberry Blue is an an artist and illustrator based in Toronto. Among his rich production, stands out a set of city maps rendered in an … [Read more...]
Mapping the ‘Bloody Week’: The Last Days of the Paris Commune in a Cartographic Narrative
The events that occurred in the last month of La Commune, - the socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871 … [Read more...]
The Walled City of Shibam, a ‘Manhattan of the desert’
Sometimes ago we wrote about the walled city of Kowloon, a spontaneous, unregulated urban development near Hong Kong. Whereas that one was a … [Read more...]
Description of Egypt
Flavius Menu of N-D-L-R just wrote a very interesting post about the "Description de l'Egypte", a series of 23 volumes published after the failed … [Read more...]
Exploring the interiors of London Underground/DLR stations
Andrew Godwin, a British programmer, is working on a set of navigable 3d maps of London's tube stations. This is arguably an early version of … [Read more...]
Atlas for the Blind, 1837
From the spectacular David Rumsey Map Collection, the 1837 "Atlas of the United States Printed for the Use of the Blind", embossed heavy paper … [Read more...]
MinJeong Ahn, An Autobiography in Diagrams
Ahn Min Jeong writes: "My work appears to be emotionless and analytic, but when you take a close look at it, the majority of my work employs motifs … [Read more...]
Comparing Urbanization
Berkeley's Global Metropolitan Observatory is a site focusing on large trasformation of cities. Using aerial imagery mainly coming from the Landsat 7 … [Read more...]
Johann Leonhard Rost’s “Astronomisches Handbuch” (1718)
This is one the first (if not the very first) practical astronomy books published in Germany. "Astronomisches Handbuch" appeared in 1718, edited and … [Read more...]
How the World was Imagined: Early Maps and Atlases
Depictions of the world from the Iron Age to the Age of Discovery and the emergence of modern geography during the early modern … [Read more...]
How Big Really?
BBC has just released "How Big Really?", a site that allows for the overlay of the dimension of an event onto another geographical territory. That … [Read more...]
