Redefining the Basemap

Current collaborative mapping projects using locative media technologies have often overlooked the conventions of the base map as a site for reinvention. Although these projects are ambitious in their aim to propose alternative organizations of urban space through the way it is digitally mapped, they remain bounded by datasets that reinforce a Cartesian and static notion of urban space. This paper questions the methodology of the base map as it is utilized in these projects, and proposes alternative approaches for mapping the city. Specifically, it looks at the city as a space of events, defined by the ways in which it is used rather than the orthogonal geometry by which it is constructed; and highlights several key examples from the history of urban planning and art practice that provide models for such alternative mapping strategies. By focusing on the limitations of the base map, I hope to provoke new ideas for these emerging projects. Collaborative Mapping As the technologies of locative media develop, they have engendered a series of projects that utilize GPS (Global Positioning Systems), wireless networks, and mobile technologies to augment space with its digital double of media annotations. Among these, collaborative mapping projects have proposed to use locationsensing technologies to create a shared interpretation of urban space. Admirably, they offer tools with which to gather multiple perspectives of place – escaping the margins of tourist guidebooks and visitor maps – to enable a collective memory in which, in the words of Figure 1. Urban Tapestries mobile phone interface. Photo: John Paul Bichard. © Proboscis 2004. http://urbantapestries.net Giles Lane, "ordinary citizens embed social knowledge in the new landscape of the city."[1] As the strategies of this vision are defined, the code is written, and the geographic data sets are collected, it is crucial that we examine the strategies of mapping itself; including not only what is mapped but how. Figure 2. Urban Tapestries PDA interface. © Proboscis 2003. http://urbantapestries.net Many of the first forays into collaborative mapping projects, including Urban Tapestries[2] [Fig. 1, Fig. 2] and PDPal [3], layer annotations upon common base maps. These base maps are conventional street grids analogous to the information displayed by a Google Map or a MapQuest search.[4] They draw from common digital data sets, such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s TIGER databases,[5] to represent the city. Based on user queries, maps that depict static geographic landmarks including road systems, transit routes, block plans, and popular destinations are produced. Undeniably, this version of the base map is a common reference. The spatial hierarchy of the street map is reinforced by the daily practice of navigating a new city, finding a subway stop, or an unfamiliar address. However, embedded in these interactivecity.sant.baseline.01 everyday references is a set of assumptions that order our perceptions of physical space. As Geographer Dennis Cosgrove describes, "Cartography acts not merely to record the various ways that the city is materially present, but as a creative intervention in urban space, sharpening both the physical city and the urban life experienced and performed there."[6] Although many collaborative mapping projects undermine their own base maps by layering them with collectively defined concepts of space; including participants’ emotions, itineraries and memories, these annotations are inextricably linked to the predefined foundations of the map they overlay. In its 20th-century configuration, the base map is a purely geographic categorization of urban space, defined by the Cartesian coordinates, the road system, and the block plan.[7] As a pedestrian tool, it provides a means of orientation as a way-finding device, listing street and district names, landmarks, parks, etc. It also has a regulatory function, describing property lines and zoning boundaries. Like any map, the contemporary base map inscribes a conception of the landscape. Jean Baudrillard’s adage that "it is the map that precedes the territory"[8] is especially relevant. The cartographic conventions of the base map are an expression of a singular notion of urban space – one that favors the street over the route, the static over the temporal, and the formal over the subjective. As locative media projectsix are created that build upon the datum of common base maps, they are structuring a collaborative notion of space within this predefined conception of the city. Moving Beyond the Grid As locative projects seek new ways to interpret the landscape through collaborative mapping, there is an opportunity to promote an alternative to the convention of the base map that avoids reinforcing our current notions of cartography. Towards this end, there are some important questions to consider that may help to define potential directions for these projects by reflecting on the modalities they omit. Firstly, can we consider mapping the city through its use patterns, rather than illustrating it as an assembly of static landmarks? Is it possible to invert our notion of the city to foreground the fluctuating patterns of occupation and abandonment? Is it possible to repopulate the map to emphasize the rhythms of urban life rather than just the spaces in which they occur? Can we use wireless technologies to reflect back on themselves, revealing the emerging hybrid landscape of the material and the "Hertzian,"[10] as WiFi nodes are installed, wireless devices deployed, and adhoc networks [11] formed? Finally, how should we associate the ephemeral events of the city in order to understand them as an evolving set of relationships? Historically, urban theorists have envisioned the city as a space that is constructed through the patterns of its occupation. In Kevin Lynch’s seminal book The Image of the City, published in 1960, he proposed that we understand urban space through the construction of mental maps. These maps are formed by our experiences of navigating urban space, including the temporary events that activate the life of the street. Lynch describes "Moving elements in a city, and in particular the people and their activities, are as important as the stationary physical parts [...] While [the city] may be stable in general outlines for some time, it is ever changing in detail."[12] More radically, Michel de Certeau proposed in his 1984 book The Practice of Everyday Life that the street is a place defined by urban planning but transformed into a space through the act of walking. He suggests that "space is composed of intersections of mobile elements. It is in a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it. [...] In short, space is a practiced place."[13] Michael Batty, in his 2002 essay for Environment and Planning, argues the need for a temporal emphasis in urban theory, analyzing the dynamics of urban change. He poses the question, "Is it possible to conceive of cities as being clusters of 'spatial events.’"[14] The interpretation of the city, articulated by these and other scholars, implies the development of an urban cartography that is generated by the shifting patterns of use rather than the stationary references depicted in conventional base maps. Several key examples of alternative mapping techniques, in the history of urban planning and art practice, may inform the development of contemporary cartography. Although they are not templates for current mapping tools, they provide provocative precedents for redefining the base map. Specifically, they offer methods for representing the ways in which the city is traversed. The mobile is emphasized over the stationary in these maps, offering a way of understanding the city as a temporal system. In addition, the contours of the city are rendered through the routes of its inhabitants, inverting the standard visualization of a path plotted over the street-map used in current mapping software like Mapquest and Google Maps.{15} Ultimately, the geographic logic of the map is put into question, framing the experience of urban space according to a system of relations, rather than one’s position in the urban grid.Figure 3. Louis Kahn's diagram of existing traffic movement for his Philadelphia Planning Study.[16] intelligent agent 06.02 interactivecity.sant.baseline.02