04 Dec 2007, Written by Paul M Davis in tech

How do you map your community or your life?

Pumpkins, originally uploaded by officialthisamericanlife.

I listened to a fascinating episode of This American Life this past weekend about different modes of mapping–in the show delineated by the five senses in a discussion of the many different roles that maps play and the many things they can communicate.

The most interesting speaker was Denis Wood, a cartographer who believes that maps in aggregate can create a form of narrative and has been mapping different elements of his community of Boylan Heights, NC, for decades–the city pipes, which houses have received the most coverage in the local paper, and even the map above, of the jack o’ lanterns in the neighborhood. Over time, Wood has discovered fascinating pieces of synchronicity between the maps of seemingly disparate objects and concepts. As the TAL site notes, “In short, he’s creating maps that are more like novels, trying to describe everyday life.”

It’s a fascinating thought–how do we map our communities and, indeed, our entire lives? What is revealed when you remove the streets from a map and instead map other elements? This episode, recorded a decade ago, poses a great number of questions about the nature of maps as a way of communicating not only practical information but also abstract concepts and even narratives. It seems to me, in this time of Google Maps mashups and geotagging, that there is a collective move towards expressing all sorts of disparate ideas via maps, but most examples I’ve seen are primarily ways of communicating practical information. What are some fascinating ways you can think of that maps (or map mashups) are being used to convey ideas or narratives with the current technology?

Listen to This American Life’s “Maps” Episode

Paul M Davis is a Chicago-based freelance writer obsessed with the media, class and arcade-style video golf. He is also the editor of Is Greater Than. His personal site can be found at www.paulmdavis.com.

View all articles by Paul M Davis.