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paper.dropbox.com/doc/Rethinking-Rethinking-Maps--BAOXySgVBU~pOeli7wIUnCo~Ag-X3LtGE1DXor1EjqbYNsvj
Škobrtal, Petr ; Leitgeb, Šimon (referee) ; Kubíková, Zuzana (advisor)
The book Rethinking Maps summarizes the findings of researchers, according to which the map — its structure and formal appearance is full of symbols, categories and explanations based on the field of cartography — is an artificially created social construct. The way we browse maps is crucial to our perception of the space that surrounds us. If we want to be geographically related to a certain place, we convert its location and the route that needs to be taken to the destination in a certain scale. When we say that "something is there," we describe a space, which identity is defined only by a carefully structured graphic symbols in a precisely specified grid and scale. In this context, Denis Wood (The Power of Maps) notes that maps do not only function as a reflection of neutral reality. The world is recorded on them from a certain point of view, and apart from being tools of communication, they can also serve as a tools of power. In today's context, that means, for example, that most local services are defined by the interests of their authors, the paid advertising of the companies or the interests of the corporations to which the application belongs. Bachelor thesis Rethinking Rethinking Maps tries to develop an approach that could partially redefine these principles. Formal representation is not fundamentally different from similar applications offered by internet map services, but works differently in user access and attempts to modify the navigation service so that in the final state, the content of the map is formed by the users themselves. The user experience does not end with a straight highlighted trajectory, the path is not determined by the easiest and fastest way to overcome the route from start to finish. Validation of given locations is generated on the basis of user knowledge and the application connects routes into circuits through which the places can be related in their common geographical, historical or social context forming the identity of individual localities — places are not defined by a red highlighted route, but by various forms of content that is generated by the users themselves. The goal is to create a tool that would ideally help shape a community that not only consumes the world, but also experiences it and tries to enroll it differently than by the number of stars or the ratio of coffee acidity.
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SocialMaps Manifesto
Škobrtal, Petr ; Leitgeb, Šimon (referee) ; Kubíková, Zuzana (advisor)
In the past two decades, a digital copy of the world has been created with perfect precision. It is an unprecedented achievement of the third modernity, and the speed of its creation is fascinating. We walk through it daily and are a part of it without reflecting on its existence, its nature and its unclear transactional relationship. We have come to see the various mapping services and applications as obvious innovations. A simple fragment of the quantum of functionalities of our devices. Calculator, clock, email, maps. But a digital copy of the world was not easy to build. And it was certainly expensive. Yet it is offered to us for our use without any restraints. The central motivation of the companies that have created this virtual space — in which the dramas of humanity are notionally played out — is to monitor it continuously and carefully. Our behaviour, activities and interactions are the desired compensation. They are constantly analysed and interpreted into data that can be traded. The loss of privacy is a tax we pay. An unspoken transactional relationship has been sealed without our knowing its exact terms and consequences; and the corporations that formulate them are rapaciously avoiding legislative-legal framework. Map applications, which are today the most important product of cartography, are the sneaking hegemony that reduces the world to a few categories whose primary imperative is profit. Many of them use the map as a platform in which places are inserted to represent a simple reflection of the capitalist perception of the world. Shops, hotels, bars, restaurants, businesses. Such maps manipulate our view of the world by how they portray it and what they present to us in a bounded way. And by our conformity, we unwittingly accede to these practices and help to preserve their status quo. We can easily decide not to use the digital map services and applications in place, but they are only the symbolic tip of an ambitious project of monitoring our privacy. Maps are hopelessly caught up in a tangled web of Big Tech, software and the Internet of Things. They are drained of their influence and limitless potential to serve a single purpose. It is therefore necessary to seek a ways forward for a paradigm shift affecting the form, nature and function of digital web maps. This manifesto offers some of them.
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paper.dropbox.com/doc/Rethinking-Rethinking-Maps--BAOXySgVBU~pOeli7wIUnCo~Ag-X3LtGE1DXor1EjqbYNsvj
Škobrtal, Petr ; Leitgeb, Šimon (referee) ; Kubíková, Zuzana (advisor)
The book Rethinking Maps summarizes the findings of researchers, according to which the map — its structure and formal appearance is full of symbols, categories and explanations based on the field of cartography — is an artificially created social construct. The way we browse maps is crucial to our perception of the space that surrounds us. If we want to be geographically related to a certain place, we convert its location and the route that needs to be taken to the destination in a certain scale. When we say that "something is there," we describe a space, which identity is defined only by a carefully structured graphic symbols in a precisely specified grid and scale. In this context, Denis Wood (The Power of Maps) notes that maps do not only function as a reflection of neutral reality. The world is recorded on them from a certain point of view, and apart from being tools of communication, they can also serve as a tools of power. In today's context, that means, for example, that most local services are defined by the interests of their authors, the paid advertising of the companies or the interests of the corporations to which the application belongs. Bachelor thesis Rethinking Rethinking Maps tries to develop an approach that could partially redefine these principles. Formal representation is not fundamentally different from similar applications offered by internet map services, but works differently in user access and attempts to modify the navigation service so that in the final state, the content of the map is formed by the users themselves. The user experience does not end with a straight highlighted trajectory, the path is not determined by the easiest and fastest way to overcome the route from start to finish. Validation of given locations is generated on the basis of user knowledge and the application connects routes into circuits through which the places can be related in their common geographical, historical or social context forming the identity of individual localities — places are not defined by a red highlighted route, but by various forms of content that is generated by the users themselves. The goal is to create a tool that would ideally help shape a community that not only consumes the world, but also experiences it and tries to enroll it differently than by the number of stars or the ratio of coffee acidity.
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