Cartographies Of Place

Media are incorporated into our physical environments more dramatically than ever before - literally opening up new spaces of interactivity and connection that transform the experience of being in the city. Public gatherings and movement, even the capabilities of democratic ideology, have been redefined. Urban Screens, mobile media, new digital mappings, and ambient and pervasive media have all created new ecologies in cities. How do we analyze these new spaces? Recognition of the mutual histories and research programs of urban and media studies is only the beginning. Cartographies of Place develops new vocabularies and methodologies for engaging with the distinctive situations and experiences created by media technologies which are reshaping, augmenting, and expanding urban spaces. The book builds upon the rich traditions and insights of a post-war generation of humanist scholars, media theorists, and urban planners. Authors engage with different historical and contemporary currents in urban studies which share a common concern for media forms, either as research tools or as the means for discerning the expressive nature of city spaces around the world. All of the media considered here are not simply "free floating," but are deeply embedded in the geopolitical, economic, and material contexts in which they are used. Cartographies of Place is exemplary of a new direction in interdisciplinary media scholarship, opening up new ways of studying the complexities of cities and urban media in a global context.

Cartography has a troubled history as a technology of power. The production and distribution of maps, often understood to be ideological representations that support the interests of their developers, have served as tools of colonization, imperialism, and global development, advancing Western notions of space and place at the expense of indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities. But over the past two decades, these marginalized populations have increasingly turned to participatory mapping practices to develop new, innovative maps that reassert local concepts of place and space, thus harnessing the power of cartography in their struggles for justice. In twelve essays written by community leaders, activists, and scholars, Radical Cartographies critically explores the ways in which participatory mapping is being used by indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other traditional groups in Latin America to preserve their territories and cultural identities. Through this pioneering volume, the authors fundamentally rethink the role of maps, with significant lessons for marginalized communities across the globe, and launch a unique dialogue about the radical edge of a new social cartography.

An innovative, interdisciplinary study of cartography as a significant multifaceted cultural practice in Romantic period culture.

Cartographies of New York and Other Postwar American Cities: Art, Literature and Urban Spaces explores phenomena of urban mapping in the discourses and strategies of a variety of postwar artists and practitioners of space: Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Vito Acconci, Gordon Matta-Clark, Robert Smithson, Rebecca Solnit, Matthew Buckingham, contemporary Situationist projects. The distinctive approach of the book highlights the interplay between texts and site-oriented practices, which have often been treated separately in critical discussions. Monica Manolescu considers spatial investigations that engage with the historical and social conditions of the urban environment and reflect on its mediated nature. Cartographic procedures that involve walking and surveying are interpreted as unsettling and subversive possibilities of representing and navigating the postwar American city. The book posits mapping as a critical nexus that opens up new ways of studying some of the most important postwar artistic engagements with New York and other American cities.

Exploring narrative mapping in a wide range of literary works, ranging from medieval romance to postmodern science fiction, this volume argues for the significance of spatiality in comparative literary studies. Contributors demonstrate how a variety of narratives represent the changing social spaces of their world.

The Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada for the years from 1929 to 1937 included a series in nine parts of important papers on "Crucial Maps" which have been a frequent source of reference ever since for students of the history of discovery and of early cartography. Their author, William Francis Ganong, had a life-long interest in the natural and human history of his native province, New Brunswick. Although he was primarily a botanist, with four full-length books and an amazing number of articles to his credit, it was through his series of monographs in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada that the breadth of his interests became known. For over fifty years he contributed almost annually to the Transactions the results of his systematic investigations into New Brunswick's physiography, aborigines, early explorations, wars and settlements. Crucial Maps, which concluded in 1937, was the last series of articles. Ganong was the first investigator to employ a critical classification of maps based upon groupings by period and type, although the cartography of Canada's east coast had earlier been introduced by Baron Alexander von Humboldt. Ganong's contributions to cartography are enormous: for example, his reconstruction of Cabot's voyages, while all may not agree with it, is a masterpiece of inductive analysis which will remain a model in historical research; his chapters on Gomez, Verrazzano and Fagundes are still the chief secondary sources on these discoverers. There have been notable additions to the bibliography of discovery and maps since Ganong wrote; recently published works as well as the complete file of Ganong's correspondence with his fellow cartographer, G.R.F. Prowse, were consulted by Theodore E. Layng, Map Division, Public Archives of Canada, in preparing the commentaries which accompany this edition of Crucial Maps. These commentaries, with Mr. Layng's introduction, also provide an interesting sketch of Dr. Ganong and his work. Another important feature of this edition is the index prepared by William Morley of the John Carter Brown Library. In much of his work Ganong was a pioneer, and, while subsequent studies have reached different conclusions on some points, many of his results have seldom been challenged. Students of the present and future will still use and quote from Crucial Maps. Royal Society of Canada Special Publications No. 7

Edited by thought leaders in the fields of urban informatics and urban interaction design, this book brings together case studies and examples from around the world to discuss the role that urban interfaces, citizen action, and city making play in the quest to create and maintain not only secure and resilient, but productive, sustainable and viable urban environments. The book debates the impact of these trends on theory, policy and practice. The individual chapters are based on blind peer reviewed contributions by leading researchers working at the intersection of the social / cultural, technical / digital, and physical / spatial domains of urbanism scholarship. The book will appeal not only to researchers and students, but also to a vast number of practitioners in the private and public sector interested in accessible content that clearly and rigorously analyses the potential offered by urban interfaces, mobile technology, and location-based services in the context of engaging people with open, smart and participatory urban environments.

Public art is on the urban agenda. Given recent claims about the importance of creativity to urban prosperity, opportunities for installing or performing art in the city have multiplied. As cities strive to appear culturally dynamic, the stakes of artistic production rise higher than ever. Exploring the interaction between art and the public in Canadian cities, Urban Encounters features writing by artists, architects, curators, anthropologists, geographers, and urban studies specialists. They show how people and places affect the structure and content of public artworks, what kinds of urban spaces and socialities are generated through art, and how to investigate and interpret encounters between art and its viewers in the city. Discussing a variety of art forms, including mobile cinemas, street improvisation, audiovisual investigations, and assembled objects, the contributors treat public artworks not just as aesthetic installations, but as agents that participate in the social and cultural evolution of cities. Using original, hands-on approaches, Urban Encounters reveals how art in the urban public space generates encounters that can transform both the city itself and the ways that people relate to it. Contributors include Alison Bain (York University), Robert Bean (NSCAD University), Lawrence Bird (architect, artist), Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (University of Victoria), Brenden Harvey (Dalhousie University), Wes Johnston (artist, curator), Léola Le Blanc (media artist), Brian Lilley (Dalhousie University), Barbara Lounder (NSCAD University), Mary Elizabeth Luka (York University), Sebastian Matthias (HafenCityUniversity), Christof Migone (Western University), Ellen Moffat (media artist), Kim Morgan (NSCAD University), Solomon Nagler (NSCAD University), Martha Radice (Dalhousie University), Nicole Rallis (McMaster University), Susanne Shawyer (Elon University), Shannon Turner (Aarhus University), Laurent Vernet (INRS Urbanisation Culture Société), and Nick Wees (University of Victoria).