Here’s where we’re looking
Using the geotags on digital photographs uploaded to Flickr, Eric Fisher has created maps of cities. To the left is San Franscisco.
Is the real city where we look for it, or is the real city the place we don’t see? Or is it both? Or neither?
Or does it depend on the city? Is your city mapped here? If so, is it the “real” city?
Tags: eric fisher, geotags
Are these questions in earnest?
Does it matter?
Infographic art like this is mesmorizing to me, how you can see something inexplicably organic in it, even though it’s mined out of only data of human action.
Bummed that Indy wasn’t included. I bet it’d have an interesting result since it’s designed as a hub/spoke around the central Monument Circle.
I guess not. Maybe I’m being dense, but it just seemed strange that you’re asking the questions you are about a project like his. It occurred to me that maybe you were being facetious. Or maybe the two (his maps and your questions) are less related than they seem? First because his maps are made of data points taken from a self-selected group (only those who post photos to Flickr), so already his representation is narrowed by that fact. Second, to ask if the city he presents is real (or that the map of the city denotes the “real” space of the city) seems odd because of the first point (self-selected sampling: there’s a not a city beyond what he represents only if you willfully ignore the hundreds of other ways of sampling city-space). Third, the question you’re asking about reality (re: if a tree falls and no one . . .) here seems to have a simple answer: there are as many cities as there are people (this accounts both for similarities and differences of city-scapes and experience), no matter where “we” look or don’t look (there are different ways of looking at this if we’re talking about official and unofficial space: populations without service, etc.). I guess I’m just curious about what your answers are to the questions you pose. . . . I like the post.
Sorry, my faux Italian accent crept in there: “there’s a not a city”
“there’s not a city”
Kind of jumped from the maps to a much broader idea. A good point, though, about the nature of the group represented.
I was sort of asking in earnest, though. If a writer writes about a city, s/he has to choose a perspective, a distance, a map. We look one way and miss another.
So, these are Flickr photos. One maybe assumes lots of them are tourist photos? You think? So the these are sightseeing sights? Which city is the city tourists go to?
Are these questions in earnest?
Does it matter?
Infographic art like this is mesmorizing to me, how you can see something inexplicably organic in it, even though it’s mined out of only data of human action.
Bummed that Indy wasn’t included. I bet it’d have an interesting result since it’s designed as a hub/spoke around the central Monument Circle.
I guess not. Maybe I’m being dense, but it just seemed strange that you’re asking the questions you are about a project like his. It occurred to me that maybe you were being facetious. Or maybe the two (his maps and your questions) are less related than they seem? First because his maps are made of data points taken from a self-selected group (only those who post photos to Flickr), so already his representation is narrowed by that fact. Second, to ask if the city he presents is real (or that the map of the city denotes the “real” space of the city) seems odd because of the first point (self-selected sampling: there’s a not a city beyond what he represents only if you willfully ignore the hundreds of other ways of sampling city-space). Third, the question you’re asking about reality (re: if a tree falls and no one . . .) here seems to have a simple answer: there are as many cities as there are people (this accounts both for similarities and differences of city-scapes and experience), no matter where “we” look or don’t look (there are different ways of looking at this if we’re talking about official and unofficial space: populations without service, etc.). I guess I’m just curious about what your answers are to the questions you pose. . . . I like the post.
Sorry, my faux Italian accent crept in there: “there’s a not a city”
“there’s not a city”
Kind of jumped from the maps to a much broader idea. A good point, though, about the nature of the group represented.
I was sort of asking in earnest, though. If a writer writes about a city, s/he has to choose a perspective, a distance, a map. We look one way and miss another.
So, these are Flickr photos. One maybe assumes lots of them are tourist photos? You think? So the these are sightseeing sights? Which city is the city tourists go to?
I live on Lower Haight. Reynard Seifert lives near Dolores Park.
I live on Lower Haight. Reynard Seifert lives near Dolores Park.
Evidently I live very near some East Bay photo op hot spots.
Of course these maps don’t show the “real” city. And my “real city” and “someone else’s” can’t possibly be the same. My “real city” is a complex salad of sensations and encounters and experiences acquired over years and “stored” in my brain as “memory”. I am in “my city” when I open my eyes and when I lay in the dark and listen. When I go out to eat. When I go for a walk or ride my bike or get in my car or get on BART or Muni or etc etc etc or walk around my house or sit in my yard. I can revisit “scenes” and add more to my brain. Sometimes things change. Well, always things change. Sometimes I am startled. I am always delighted.
That said, I have a great geek-love of maps and really enjoyed looking at these. I love “aggressively polycentric” LA and wish I “knew” LA the way I “know” the Bay Area.
Evidently I live very near some East Bay photo op hot spots.
Of course these maps don’t show the “real” city. And my “real city” and “someone else’s” can’t possibly be the same. My “real city” is a complex salad of sensations and encounters and experiences acquired over years and “stored” in my brain as “memory”. I am in “my city” when I open my eyes and when I lay in the dark and listen. When I go out to eat. When I go for a walk or ride my bike or get in my car or get on BART or Muni or etc etc etc or walk around my house or sit in my yard. I can revisit “scenes” and add more to my brain. Sometimes things change. Well, always things change. Sometimes I am startled. I am always delighted.
That said, I have a great geek-love of maps and really enjoyed looking at these. I love “aggressively polycentric” LA and wish I “knew” LA the way I “know” the Bay Area.
Jimmy Chen lives on Angel Island.
Jimmy Chen lives on Angel Island.