Creative Tech Week

Maps have long been accepted as objective representations of scientific information. However, contemporary cartographers have challenged this understanding, describing maps as fundamentally co-constitutive, simultaneously representing space and enabling its design. Through the subjective processes of data selection, analysis, and visualization, maps not only locate objects in space but also build powerful narratives capable of influencing everything from an individual’s experience of a place to public policy and the design of the built environment. In other words, mapmaking is not merely an exercise in representation, but is indeed a creative act.

Technological advances have led to exponentially increasing volumes of geospatial data as well as sophisticated digital representational tools. These developments point to new frontiers in mapmaking and geospatial data visualization. In particular, web-based visualization tools offer the ability to communicate to larger audiences than ever before; they also introduce the capacity for interactivity. No longer bound to the static representation of objects in space, a map designer can shape how a user interacts with and experiences spatial information through time as well as space. In this new paradigm, mapmaking can take the form of designing software platforms capable of interpreting and synthesizing geospatial data.

This presentation will explore the creative agency of interactive geospatial visualization through the design work of Landscape Metrics, a visualization studio based in Brooklyn. Example projects will demonstrate how cartography, shaped by technology and design, can translate geospatial data into compelling narratives.