Metrography – London Tube Map to large scale collective mental map
2012 Feb
Concept + Idea
Benedikt Groß & Bertrand Clerc
Collective Mental Map
Real World Map Data
OpenStreetMap community
Developed with
Nowadays our orientation is seldom based on the actual geography and their landmarks alone. There are a myriad of alternatives, from street numbers to GPS routing in our smartphones, to guide us to a destination. The feature that all of these wayfinding devices have in common is that they abstract the real world spatial arrangement. For us, the implications of this abstraction are two-fold: First, the simplification of geography translates into a filtering of information and context and second, the longer we rely on these wayfinding devices, the more we become accustomed to a curated geography. This is most prominent in public transit maps which distort the spatial dimensions of a city into comprehensible nodes and lines. These distortions have a major influence on our perception of a city’s geography, often times defining our own individual mental maps of space and thus becoming the collective representation of the real world’s geography.
“Metrography” attempts to explore this phenomenon using the most famous of transit maps: the London Tube Map.
Similar to the process of my MapMap Vauxhall project, all real world geographical locations of stations, railway tracks and thames riverbanks have been matched with the corresponding positions on the London Tube Map.
First video shows the mathematical deformation mesh, which is applied in the second clip to tube stations, railways and the river thames. Both videos start with the real world geography and blend then gradually over to the Tube Map structure.
With the help of the second clip it is also much easier to understand what the main deformations are. Basically the inner city parts are scaled up and the edges are compressed and marginalized.
Related
Exhibition
Metrography @ Information In Style – Information Visualization in the UK, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing
2013–9
Exhibition, “Metrography”, Information In Style – Information Visualization in the UK, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, CN
Publication
Generative Design @ The Digital Turn: Design in the Era of Interactive Technologies
2013–3
Interview/Text, “Generative Design”, The Digital Turn: Design in the Era of Interactive Technologies, ISBN: 3906027023, Park Books
Exhibition
Metrography @ Visualizing Gallery Brücknerhaus, Ars Electronica, Linz
2012–9
Exhibition, “Metrography” is featured on Visualizing Gallery Brücknerhaus, Ars Electronica, Linz, AT
Press
Metrography @ WIRED
2012–4
Feature Article, “Metrography”, WIRED Magazine UK, April Issue, UK
Talk
Speculative Maps and Open Data @ W3C, Open Data on the Web Workshop
2012–4
Speaker, “Speculative Maps and Open Data”, Open Data on the Web Workshop, W3C, London, UK
Talk
Mashing up OSM and Mental Maps @ geomobLDN London
2012–3
Speaker, “Mashing up OSM and Mental Maps”, geomobLDN, London, UK