This ad for Mercedes Benz is really intriguing how google maps vernacular infiltrates reality. Escape The Map
Its been out a while the ad and had meant to post sooner. It is intriguing because I imagine that a projection on the road with the street view would help with sat nav's as opposed to trying to glance to your right to see a sat nav. You could just stare at the street. Would be cool.
But from a mapping point of view I was interested as it mixes the hyper real through the vernacular of google maps with reality. Now from my experiences I had learnt that hyper real was associated with the postmodern and specifically baudrillard 'the map preceedes the territory'. Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal.
Having looked at a recent paper by Sébastien Caquard, Cartography I: Mapping narrative cartography. See here: http://phg.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/06/0309132511423796
Sebastien points out an interesting view of the story map, this is the fictional representation, the story map as Sébastien Caquard puts it;
‘map is more interesting than the territory because it is an idealized simplification of a complex – and often depressing – reality. This resonates with the idea that in the postmodern world most of the time the hyper-real appears joyful beside the deterioration of the environment to which it refers (Westphal, 2007).’
See now this idea of the postmodern hyerreality being joyful is what I remember with Baudrillard and simulacra's, but I wasn't aware of the map is more intersting than the territory a point illustrated by the latest novel by Michel Houllebecq entitled La Carte et le Territoire (The Map and the Territory) (2010).
I'm not sure how we're supposed to weigh between Baudrillard or Houllebecq, but like how Sebastien says they follow with this idea of the joyful presentations of reality. Many of the these joyful selections that have been crowd sourced by google maps.
'Paraphrasing Houellebecq, in other words, ‘Google Maps are more interesting than the territory’.'
This leaves me very intrigued that the story maps that Google are providing are more interesting than reality, much in the repsect that this Escape the Map ad by Mercedes Benz particularly realises well.
It makes me want to visit, or at least try to read the videos / papers that transpire from this: Cartography & Narratives
Meanwhile, read more about the different perspectives on the map and the territory here
I have been trying to get Vism.ag/Vol 4 available in print away from P.O.Demand services and got decent prices too, but still trying to find investment to do a long enough run to realistically make it viable. But... I will try to get an ebook available of it soon and the reason I bring it up is that there are a few selections of work by Denis Wood in the online sample and there's a review of his book Everthing Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas that I'm sure will be of essential reading to cross reference with the thoughts of the Story Map and fictional cartography. (the word fictional still distracts me as google maps work on a degree of truth, they arent made up).
Anyhow, happy hols everyone and will try to get more posts up. In the mean time, follow @visualthinkmap on twitter for more of what I see, just less analysis.
Escape the Map
Virtual Galleries
Ok, this is probably going to get a lot of blog post coverage from a variety of disciplines becasue it marry's so many together with its street view-indoor approach to navigating a gallery which is very effective through the code, and GUI blogs but also the artists and general art enthusiasts.
Starry Night by Van Gogh at the moma,
So I post it today becasue it deserves sharing many times, but also to say, PLEASE still make the effort to go see the works of art in real life as there is so much more to experience from them than what can be seen on a photograph of the works! They're not all presented like Mona Lisa at the Lourve keeping you a hundred miles back from it.
That said its better to see the context of how the works is presented in the gallery context as opposed to just pictures of the art when you image search. You can learn more about the context as I say such as, its frame, its 'actual' size and not what a high resolution file can reproduce at. You see the colours of the walls, the lighting, the exhibition of the work as a whole/collection, the healthy amount of s p a c e around the pictures for you to visually devour without any erroneous data/sensory input.
Therefore its very good, can learn a lot about how its presented, ok a selection of pieces, its not the whole gallery, they need to still try and draw you in and make some money. By the way, I hope the current uk climate doesnt effect this free access to great art. Lastly, its lalso brings this art to the masses who maybe wouldn't otherwise ever have the opportunity to go see it, enjoy it, and get those creative visual juices going.
Get on with documenting the rest of the worlds galleries and featuring them google, get the camera in there and make more interactive enhanced 'Joiners' like David Hockney.
http://www.googleartproject.com/
Love it!
30 free top wordpress plugins for new blogger to wordpress converters
Well, a friend had a server, let me use it and I finally agreed to convert my Blogger blog over to WordPress now that I had a little more time I said to myself i could make sure I get it to work and not effect permalinks etc. This notion that I had penetrated the very depths of the web with my writings ;o) would lose the links they'd established, it would be too hard, I didn't get the wordpress.org and the wordpress.com distinction. Why didn't I politely ask to borrow some server space from my friend sooner? If you have access to server space and the privileges of manually editing files, uploading, write access/permissions (although this I have found necessary for only a few plugins) If you have the time one day to install all these plugins (extremely simple btw, download the zip files of the plugin, login-to-wordpress-online-admin-interface. then plugins-add new-upload-choose the zip folder-submit) EASY Well, firstly huge thanks to Rahul Bansal, there may be better explanations for converting blogger to wordpress, but his blog post and plugin below made it so easy and straightforward. START with Rahul. Blogger To WordPress Redirection If you have imported your blog from blogger (blogspot.com) then you might be redirecting visitors from your old blogspot blog to your new wordpress blogs HOMEPAGE. While this approach ensures you get all the traffic redirected from your old blog to new blog, a visitor may feel lost! What if a person is referred to your old blog via search engine or other link listings? So this plugin just takes care of this part. It checks for which post people were looking on old blog and then redirect them to same post but on new blog! All this is so transparent that a visitor will never get confused! DO NOT forget to read Installation section. Its simple but slightly different. If you stuck somewhere you can visit plugin homepage to leave comment or buzz me! I found his tutorial very easy and clear to use on how to convert over to wordpress from blogger and this plugin was perfect to clear up my concerns over already established links to blogger posts. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/blogger-to-wordpress-redirection/ You will need to install a theme, there are loads. It took me a while to find a theme (Vector Flower 1.0 by EZwpthemes) that I felt safe enough to restyle graphically and keep the same image names and not have to tweak code much. Then, these 30 plugins compatible to wordpress 2.7 (be careful with plugins for compatibility to your platform version, one isn't below - super edit) should truly convince you it was the right decision to switch.
- Link Harvest
- PHP Code Widget
- Broken Link Checker
- Monitors links in your posts, pages, the blogroll, and custom fields (optional).
- Detects links that don't work and missing images.
- Notifies you on the Dashboard if any are found.
- Also detects redirected links.
- Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).
- Link checking intervals can be configured.
- New/modified posts are checked ASAP.
- You view broken links, redirects, and a complete list of links used on your site, in the Tools -> Broken Links tab.
- Each link can be edited or unlinked directly via the plugin's page, without manually editing each post.
- Scissors
- WP Super Edit
- Requires WordPress Version: 2.8 or higher
- Compatible up to: 2.8.1
- Drag and Drop interface for arranging the WordPress visual editor buttons.
- Access to built-in WordPress visual editor buttons and functions.
- Customized TinyMCE plugins to add additional buttons and features like tables, layers (div tag), advanced XHTML properties, advanced image and link properties, WordPress emoticons, style attributes, css classes for themes, search / replace, and more.
- Options for allowing users to configure visual editor settings; One editor setting for all users, role based editor settings, and individual user editor settings. Only WordPress administrators can activate or deactivate TinyMCE wysiwyg visual editor plugins. In single or role based modes, only administrators can arrange editor buttons.
- Easy to install and remove. WP Super Edit uses separate database tables for its settings. Currently only the Super Emoticon / Icon Plugin will leave short tags in your posts or pages.
- Amazon Widgets Shortcodes
- Carrousel Widget
- Deals Widget
- MP3
- My Favorites Widget
- Product Preview
- Product Links
- Slideshow Widget
- Product Cloud Widget
- Wishlist Widget
- WP Super Cache
- Users who are not logged in.
- Users who have not left a comment on your blog.
- Or users who have not viewed a password protected post.
- Hot Linked Cache Images
- smushit - optimise Images file size
- Category Cloud Widget
- WordPress Plugin SensitiveTagCloud 1.4.1
- DropCap First Character
The plugin is called dropcap_first and is available for download if you so desire.
What it does is it makes the first character of the post BIG in a magazine style. I got the idea (and most of the CSS code) to do this from an article called Magazine Style CSS Drop Caps and then it was just a matter of writing the relevant PHP code to do what I wanted. Just make sure that text is the first characters in your post and not code. Adds some nice style to your posts, breaks up that dense text a little. Current Version Download: dropcap_first plugin http://www.rc.au.net/blog/2006/07/27/dropcap-first-character-wordpress-plugin/
- wp-utf8-excerpt
Main features of the plugin:
- It supports multibyte language (such as Chinese). It will not produce gibberish as some other excerpt plugins do.
- The html tags in the original posts, i.e., the font styles, colors, hyperlinks, pictures and such are preserved in the excerpt.
- For better readability, it displays 300 characters for each post on the homepage and 150 characters for each post on archive pages.
- Smart Ping Updater
- FD Feedburner Plugin
- Google Analytics for Word Press
- Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
- Compatible up to: 2.9
- Google XML Sitemaps
- Optimal Title
- PostRank
- Top 10
- Link within - show related posts with thumbnails.
- Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
- WordPress Mobile Edition
- SMS Text Message
- WP-Print
- Open wp-content/themes/<YOUR THEME NAME>/index.phpYou may place it in single.php, post.php, page.php or theloop.php also.
- Find:
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
- Add Anywhere Below It:
<?php if(function_exists('wp_print')) { print_link(); } ?>
- Share This
- Tweet Suite
- WP Ajax Edit Comments (for WP 2.5+)
- Comment Luv
- Do Follow
- NoSpamNX
- Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
- Compatible up to: 2.8.4
- Found many of them from these lists, so i'm sure you'll spot number 30. I'm sure I'll find more, the 29 others are good start to get your wordpress on its way effectively.
Information Aesthetics Diagram
From they're paper Towards a Model of Aesthetics in information Visualization, Andrea Lau & Andrew Vande Moere (who was previously quoted, see here) create this fantastic equilaterral triangular digram that helps understanding of the types of images, charts, art, design & much more.
Although I have yet to read this paper, this diagram investigates & structures the different types of mapping between the three poles of:
Aesthetics - Focus on visual style & experience
Data - Focus on representing abstract data sets
Interaction - Focus on user input & feedback
Regular readers will notice that this blog seeks to find some of the most creative & innovative (aesthetics) ways of visualising, mapping (hence I tend to call them visual maps) information (data).
I am also intersted the Interaction between users mentioned in the diagram such as the HCI (human computer interaction), explored really well by lauren bugeja in her research map, and taking into account the level of engagement of the graphics, GUI (graphic user interface) both in website design such as hierachy/composition, but also the graphics themselves beeing stimulating when dealing with interactive visualisations such as kartoo, visual acoustics or music plasma.
The higher engagement allows greater playfulness through more challenge, presenter control, and variety in a game for browsing, read here presentation visualisation by till voswinkel.
This diagram certainly gives a reader/user of this visual map/diagram a better awareness of how these interesting factors of info vis, data vis, art, design & graphics all coherently piece (reflected in its jigsaw syle puzzle) together.
Excellant, read the paper, as will I.
For further research into visualisation read, views on visualisation from eager eyes. Or see more papers co-written by andrew vande moere.
found here: http://visualmethods.blogspot.com/2007/09/information-and-aesthetics.html
Snack on my Maps
Having seen quite a few internet visualisations such as that of the Information Architects - web trend map in a Harry Beck style seen a few times & Opte Project in these spider web constellation style, it was great to see a more graphic impression of it.
I know it was made in 2006 by the artist group Eboy, mentioned in Viz Think 08 post, but Foo Bar is great visual thinking. I first saw their excellant intricatly detailed environments in Illustration Now! although probably aware of that style in circa.
I'm quite curious as to what lost fm is playing from its van but I'd love to assume that the literal interpretation of RSS feeds is represented as a Snack Bar, or maybe deli.icio.us could be or as a advertisement for food. Would be a great visual for feeding.
Visual Communication: Wordless Recipics
http://www.coo.kz/
This is the website Lauren Bugeja has created to house these beautiful visual maps. The visual equivalent of a thesis - work from her final semester in Visual Communications.
She calls these visual maps Recipics, good use of ambiguity in the word pun on recipes. These are great explorations of visually mapping information making it universally accessible. She still uses the paradigm of numbers & arrows, but what I like best is how she uses these & space to depict time & measurements fig. Depicting time in a similar tecnhique to Bradford Paley in Once more around the sun. She uses faded flames contrasted to full colour to depict gas mark, which is admirable technique removing the use of numbers.
She has great experiments between mimetic depictions of food, but creates great iconic characters to represent meats i.e. lamb=sheep, beef=cow & pork=pig, fig.
Bugeja acknowledges the occasional stumbling block: “The ingredients are still a work in progress,” she said. “For example, it’s hard to explain the difference between flour, baking powder, anthrax and cocaine without words.”
A clean sans serif font, & beautiful pastel colours really caps off a great, excellantly executed idea.
Her research map as she calls it, looks at the contrast of word & images, human factors with Human Information Processing with communication. In relation to interaction of the GUI (graphic user interface) she states the same as I have researched with engagement allowing greater playfulness through more challenge, presenter control, and variety in a game for browsing.
What’s most relevant here is the Information Architecture to ‘organise information to create meaning’ through ‘scheme & structure’ i.e. mental schemas and these visual map techniques of brainstorms, spider diagrams etc (Bugeja, 2008, p VC Major project). There are many more beautiful visual maps of all topics linked under diagram diaries on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenbugeja/sets/72157594238802216/
New York Times Key Magazine Cover
Note that I dont have an obsession with New York at the moment, but with such great art foundations of Rauschenberg, DeKooning & Pollock its no surprise of its creative vein. Today technology is the key that has fused creativity & opened boundaries to allow interdisciplinary practice.
The New York Times real estate magazine Key started with the cover design concept of hiring people that are brilliant to do personal interpretations of what a key means to them & their lives. The 1st cover in the Fall 2006 by Carin Goldberg featured all the places she lived at using the font Dynamoe (green & black thumbnail) & spring 2007 (yellow & purple thumbnail) was designed by new york design studio 2x4.
In dialogue with John Maeda (author of Creative Code: Aesthetics + Computation) art director Dick Barnett looked at some of Maeda's sketches and replied to him saying how he's 'loving #3 Google Mappish Mondrian' (3rd thumbnail along) idea and how he might 'think of a way to make it more personal to [maeda's] life'. Maeda responded utilising Boston, he states how he 'thinks of the world as a sort of map of cities', a topographic territory, he 'mined the internet for all the cities with an airport' & made a simple diagram and then drew some 'fluid like curves [framing] to connect into the centre of the keyhole' (4th thumbnail), (Centaur Publication, 2007, p. nov – 42).
Maeda wanted to concentrate on the background rather than the foreground & after some design processing (problem solving) such as replacing fonts used to that of Key magazines T-Star, it was finished. The design is brilliant, although probably not that easy a task to create without access/stroke knowledge of computer science functionality but excellant aesthetics. The overall white stands out from the blue (a colour normally percieved as depiciting sea in maps) causing a slight incongruity on part of the viewer, map reader/user. Boston being the epicentre of travel in this map providing the key access to other cities and the viral red linking lines spidering the topgraphic locations.
Excellant Map utilising technology to visualise data functionality mentioned upon with Bradford Paley, in the heart of its design.
'John Maeda is an artist and a computer scientist, and he views the computer not as a substitute for brush and paint but as an artistic medium in its own right. His mission is to foster the growth of what he calls 'humanist technologists'- people that are capable of articulating future culture through informed understanding of the technologies they use' (http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/maeda.html, 2008, p. john maeda interview).
More examples of the stages of Maeda's Key Cover design here, http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/09/06/realestate/keymagazine/20070909_KEY_COV_SS_index.html
Creative Review. New York. Centaur Publication, 2007, p. nov – 42).