geobloggers

Upfront Link: Resistant Maps – report (part 1)

Photo by we-make-money-not-art

A few days ago in a “Links for” post, I linked to Resistant Maps, which attracted my attention with, and summed up well by …

The representation of territory holds a historical role in the privileges of power. Geographical data has always been in its hands. The regaining of this representation goes through description and sharing practices (often in personal perspectives too). This is possible thanks to collaborative tools and the consequent value shifting of maps. Maps are not granted anymore by structures of power, but built by individuals who, drawing on the ideas of the psychogeographical movements, redraw the urban space according to fresh new coordinates.

Which also ties into the Flickr Geocoder post of a couple of days ago, borders and location can now be defined by people rather than a single “in power” appointed agency.

Well regine of we make money not art is there and has just posted her report, well part 1 anyway.

Snippets …

Google is the biggest operator on the net. They might provide us with cool mapping tools and applications but one must not forget that their first aim is commercial profit. MapOmatix is a free software developed by Hackitectura as a collaborative environment for creating and editing maps. The maps can contain physical elements (oil resources, telecomunication antennas,etc), abstract ones (such as human organisations, web servers) but they can also be used to emphasize relations between these entities. Behind this tool is the idea of editing and publishing tactical maps. See for example, their Deportations of African immigrants in Morocco map.

… and …

Thanks to the apparition of these new technologies, maps are not granted anymore by structures of power, they are built by individuals who, drawing on the ideas of the psychogeographical movements, redraw the urban space according to fresh new coordinates. People can now share with others a more personal vision of geographical data (as opposed to the one traditionally in the hands of power.) Personal information can be added to the presentation of a given territory and thus come to be part of the collective memory.

Waiting for part 2 now :)