Map Your Moves by Moritz Stefaner is a visual
representation of
“more than 4000 moves from over 1700 people”, in and out of New
York City. Moves here stand for relocations of residency, or we might
say migrations. It follows these
relocations over the
course of 11 years, from 2000 to 2010. Stefaner used the data from an informal
survey led by WNYC, a NYC based public radio station.

Stefaner
extracted
from the data and represented several parameters or
dimensions. First
of all, location of the moves. The locations within the NYC have been
sub-divided in zip codes, whereas the rest of the world has been
mapped with a damped distance function. The NYC area is a white
circle and it occupies the greatest part of the map, which is
justified by the depth of detail, and by the simple fact that most
moves naturally involved locations in NYC. The second dimension is the vector of the move: if
we
click on a particular location, the vectors appear and we
can see all the moves to and from it, and, by pointing over the
connecting migration lines, the person's
reason for the move pops
up. This information
leads us straight into the
lives of the moving
people, and we can get
a glimpse into their
biographies, which is another subjective qualitative dimension. The chromatic dimension of the piece is telling, as Stefaner adopts
only three hues,
dark brown for the
volume of moves, blue
for the
moves into the NYC
area, and red for the
moves out of the area. Another dimension is the quantity
of the moves connected with a single location, be it a NYC zip code
area or a city around the world, and it is shown by the diameter of
the circle. Correspondingly,
the location circles are coloured based on the sum of moves, as to
say, if they received or sent outwards more moves. On the right side of the piece, beside the map, there are also two bar charts giving us the general statistical overview of moves,
divided by reason and through time. So, at a single glance, all three
dimensions are coexistant
and clear. But, there is much more to this image than all these dimensions. Stefaner's treatment of the diverse information, and the information in itself, implies a major paradigm shift in our world-image, as it is provided by geographical science. This representation, together with some others with whom it shares certain characteristics, are reshaping our maps from bottom to the top. I do not have the name for this type of representation, there are some possible name options circling around the web, but it is not the point. Instead of naming them, I will try to see what they do.
No comments:
Post a Comment