Sound maps matter: expanding cartophony

In this article I investigate online sound mapping practices, taking cartophony – the coming together of cartographic and sonic activities – as an important contribution to emerging ways of thinking and practicing mapping. I first develop a typology of approaches to cartophony, before moving on to reveal the normative tendencies of online combinations of sound and mapping through an analysis of three platforms: Freesound; audioBoom; and Radio Aporee. Showing how in different ways each of these platforms supports an approach to sound mapping that favours pinning high fidelity, indexical audio-recordings to a seemingly neutral base layer, I question what is glossed over through this approach, while also considering how visual and sound-based strategies for communicating about places illuminate and resonate with one another. Discussing some more experimental online sound maps, I highlight the value of such projects in their current form, and argue for the continued expansion of cartophonic practice.     

Europe's confused transmutation: the realignment of moral cartography in Juan de la Cosa's Mappa Mundi (1500)

Following the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci in the last decade of the fifteenth century, the New World of the Americas entered the cartographic and moral consciousness of Europe. In the 1500 mappa mundi of Juan de la Cosa, navigator and map-maker, we see Europe as a hybrid moral entity, a transitional blend of the medieval and the modern at the crossroads between two mappings of Europe. This paper argues that the Juan De la Cosa map represents a blurred transition between map-making traditions and a mixed moral rhetoric of European identity. The De la Cosa map operates across two sets of imagined axes: held horizontally, the map is set to a Ptolemaic grid with Europe straddling the Prime Meridian, and yet when held vertically it presents a medieval moral continuum in which the Americas occupy an ascendant position, a verdant new Jerusalem in contrast to the Babylon of the Old World. Europe is both drawn to the centre of a new world order, and also pushed to the moral margins in an echo of the medieval mappa mundi still imperfectly resolved.     

The Nature and Genesis of the Peutinger Map

The place of the Peutinger map in the history of both ancient and medieval geography and cartography is controversial. Many basic questions as to its sources, dating and purpose remain unanswered. In the light of various pieces of new evidence these problems are reassessed. It is argued that the Peutinger map does derive from a Roman original but that, without precedent in Roman cartography or impact on later medieval cartography, the mapping of itinerary data onto a base map of the oecumene is likely to be a genuine innovation of the designer of the archetype. There is no need to suppose the map to be an officially state‐sponsored product. The sources relied upon were commonly available and would have been familiar to the public in late antiquity. The purpose of the map is more likely to have been ornamental than practical. It is impossible to determine a precise date or location for the creation of the archetype, but the cultural viewpoint embodied in the map is undoubtedly antique, Latin and western.     

Interpreting urban space through cognitive map sketching and sequence analysis

Traditionally, analysis of sketch maps of urban areas has focused on the interpretation of hand‐drawn renditions of features that are most familiar to individuals. Few researchers have investigated the sequence that sketchers use to identify features on the urban landscape and how these features are linked together to form a coherent ‘picture’ of an area. This article builds upon previous research by exploring the sequential pattern of sketch map creation. Two research questions are proposed, namely, can a repetitive sequential order in element inclusion be identified for different individuals sketching the same urban environment? If so what features are mapped in which order to create the sketchers' image of the city? Findings suggest that three distinct groups of cognitive maps exist, namely, sequential, spatial and hybrid, and that the map elements of each group are organised in a distinctive manner with paths and landmarks as principal elements. It is suggested that insights into this process provide more substance to understanding how individuals interpret and structure urban space and use this information to navigate both known and new environments.     

Academic Cartography,Internal Map History,and the Critical Study of Mapping Processes

ABSTRACT

Academic cartographers consistently expressed an interest in the history of map form (design and practice), at least until the 1980s. This essay reviews the formation of academic cartography, primarily in central Europe and the United States, and the scholarly work on the internal history of cartography that was clearly manifested in Imago Mundi. Internal map history catalysed the development of socio-cultural map histories after 1980 but did not itself change along those new lines. This was unfortunate because it is by paying attention to internal questions of the physical and graphic form of maps and the practices of mapping—albeit critically reconfigured as the processes of producing, circulating and consuming maps—that map historians will discover new and fertile intellectual ground.     

非物质文化空间数据库与地图表达方法——基于蔚县剪纸的实证研究

本文提出了"文化景观→文化载体→空间数据库→载体联合→文化景观"的非物质文化空间数据库与地图化表达模式,为开展系统性文化地理研究奠定基础。蔚县剪纸的实证研究中,通过解析蔚县剪纸文化景观,建立了包括艺人、生产作坊、文化受众、网络店铺等10种文化载体的空间数据库;通过不同的文化载体整合实现艺人分布空间、艺人行为空间、艺术风格空间、艺术传承空间和产销空间等地图表达成果。地图表达为进一步开展景观格局特征及其驱动机制的挖掘分析奠定了基础。本文是针对文化地理研究方法论的探讨和实证,通过文化景观的抽象语言描述到地图可视化表达,为非物质文化现象的时空研究提供了新模式。     

Ulsterisation and the Troubles thriller: Eoin McNamee's Resurrection Man

Although the progression of peace is, in all likelihood, finally imperilling the ascendancy of the thriller as the literary venue for representing social and political life in contemporary Northern Ireland, the genre continues to provide important access points for understanding the Troubles. Eoin McNamee's grim and harrowing Resurrection Man, for example, may be the only contemporary Northern Irish novel to represent the British government's mid-1970s internal security strategy known as ‘Ulsterisation’. By suggesting the various ways in which violence and subterfuge were nourished by government interests and supported by covert operatives, McNamee's novel subtly depicts a London intent on managing the conflict while insulating it from British politics and international criticism. Even as it does so, though, Resurrection Man ultimately struggles to avoid the thriller's more regressive tropes and generic conventions.     

An astrologer's map: A relic of late antiquity

Abstract

A Greek map of the world, which includes a windrose, zones, places in and around Egypt, and hell, is studied in reference to its context: an anonymous astrological miscellany. Other examples of this map have been found in a second context, among anonymous scholia to Theon of Alexandria's commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables (Procheiroi kanones), which were also of use to astrologers. The selection of Egyptian place‐names found on the map provides some clue to its possible origin, while the omission of the Mediterranean as well as the port of Alexandria is significant. Evidence suggests that the original map (known today only through later copies) is of an earlier date than the texts surrounding it, and that it may be one of the earliest world maps preserved from Late Antiquity.     

The Date of the Gough Map

ABSTRACT

The date commonly given for the Gough map of Britain, about 1360, is, in the author's opinion, wrong. Arguments that have been offered to support such a dating are invalid. The best indication of the date of the map is the writing on it, which is essentially in a hand of about 1400, a dating endorsed by expert palaeographical opinion. Indeed, a few exceptional features of the handwriting may suggest a slightly later date. A few specific non-palaeographical features of the map confirm a date of production close to, or a little after, 1400. Comparison with other late medieval maps of large inland areas from any part of Europe shows how precocious or advanced the Gough Map is, even for the beginning of the fifteenth century. Arguments suggesting that the map had an earlier ‘prototype’, reflecting the affairs of King Edward I, are also found to be without merit.     

Island Archaeology,Model Systems,the Anthropocene,and How the Past Informs the Future

The use of islands as ‘model systems’ has become particularly relevant for examining a host of important issues in archaeology and other disciplines. As papers in this special issue of the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology demonstrate, islands can serve as critical and ideal analytical platforms for observing human populations in the past and their evolutionary histories within complex and insular human ecodynamics. In this paper we address the issue of how islands are also important models for future sustainability and as corollaries for the survival of humans generally. In a sense, island cultures and ecosystems can be seen as microcosms of the issues we have faced as humans, and provide important insights for understanding the fate of our species, particularly as it pertains to the exploration and colonization of new worlds.     

1920年代以来国内外商业空间研究的回顾、比较和展望

主要采用文献研究、比较研究和动态研究方法,选取20世纪20年代以来国内外商业空间研究成果中的典型代表,通过时间纵断面上的梳理和空间横断面上的对比,总结出国内外商业空间研究包括商业空间结构和商业空间选择研究,依据研究时序和内容,划分了国内外商业空间研究阶段,得出国内外在研究范式、内容和成果等方面的异同。并对国内商业空间研究进行展望,提出商业空间对城市空间的影响、商业空间分异、商业郊区化和虚拟商业空间可以作为今后研究的重点领域。     

大型购物中心与幼童母亲的多重身份建构——女性主义、家庭化、公共与私人空间的超越

大型购物中心成为研究现代都市女性身份与社会、空间关系的三棱镜。本文聚焦于"幼童母亲"这一群体,探究其身份认同与购物中心的相互建构过程。通过南京市虹悦城购物中心的研究发现,幼童母亲在购物中心内建立起了多种身份认同,并在身份认同驱使下形成多重实践。这一过程使得幼童母亲在购物空间中突破了传统的公共空间与私人空间的二元划分,借助私密空间的综合性和社会化实现了女性自我个性的释放,实现了社会性别空间的重新定义,同时也重新定义和建构了大型购物中心这一现代都市消费空间。     

信息技术影响下的空间观及其研究进展

本文主要评述信息技术影响下时空观、空间构成、空间形成和信息技术对空间的影响等方面的研究进展。文章认为传统的空间概念在信息技术影响下发生了改变,空间观由实在论走向关系论,空间尺度无限缩小,空间向着多维度发展。在信息技术影响下,传统空间观从内涵到外延都发生了深切的变化,空间观的研究正由理论研究向运用与实证研究转化,未来应重点构筑我国信息技术影响下的空间理论体系。     

Anton Raederscheidt’s Distorted Self-Portraits and Their Significance for Understanding Balance in Art

Following a right cerebral stroke, the German artist Anton Raederscheidt produced a remarkable series of self-portraits that depicted his severe visual neglect and gradual recovery. These distorted images, like those drawn by others with this disorder, inform us about lateral balance in art and why it is common in the art of cultures separated in time and space. After describing how artists in various cultures have employed lateral balance, I present Arnheim’s view that this aspect of art is the result of visual forces generated by the brain. Following a brief history of visual neglect, I present evidence that this disorder provides us with clues to the origin of the visual forces responsible for lateral balance in art. The relevant brain mechanisms control exploration of visual space by integrating orienting movements with visual spatial information. The prevalence of lateral balance in art becomes understandable when we consider that these brain mechanisms evolved to promote survival in our vertebrate ancestors. I end with a speculative neurological account of the aesthetics of lateral balance – why it is pleasing and its absence is displeasing.     

A Content Analysis of Imago Mundi, 1935–2010

ABSTRACT

The 592 research articles in the first 62 volumes of Imago Mundi, from 1935 to 2010, are analysed to discern trends in the scholarly approaches, biases and interests of historians of cartography. Particular attention is paid to map historians’ preferred historical periods and topical subjects of study, to their nationalistic tendencies and to the shifting importance of traditional, internal and socio-cultural approaches to map history.     

Mental maps of global regions: identifying and characterizing “hard” and “soft” regions

ABSTRACT

This article presents the quantitative synthesis of mental maps that identify different types of world regions. It is the result of a large-scale survey conducted in 18 countries, based on a sketch map approach. The number, shape, and extension of these vernacular world regions vary according to countries, cultures, and the personal styles of respondents who drew the maps. However, when we collectively analyze the regions identified by respondents, we observe that the figures of global regions are more or less recurrent. While the most commonly used division of the world is into “continents”, we can identify “hard” and “soft” regions of the world. Whereas a “hard” region, such as Africa, can be recognized relatively unambiguously as a continent, “soft” regions may include numerous regional distinctions such as East Asia, Russia, South East Asia, and the Middle East. Our methodology involves defining a set of characteristics that discriminate between “hard” and “soft” regions (measuring spatial uncertainty and the relative vagueness of limits and fringes), then accounting for the correlation of these areas on the world map.