Digital Cartography: From Mapping Places To Mapping Society  

This blogpost is a result of the graduate seminar “Interfacing the (In)formal City” 2021.

Written by Andre Joglekar.

Digital Cartography: From Mapping Places To Mapping Society  

Cartography has had an essential role in contemporary communication. The spread of GPS (Global  Positioning System) in mobile phones, interactive mapping tools and social networks through the  internet have fuelled the development of the field. The objective role of traditional maps in a phase  of decline. Nowadays there are forms of interactive communication that have the potential of  broadening points of views by relating together different themes and sharing more information than  ever before. Recent development of technological tools have not only been able to sustain the  demand for maps, but also modified the descriptive capacity of traditional maps. There has been a  disciplinary redefinition of traditional maps, coined “multimedia cartography” by William  Cartwright and Michael P. Peterson. This term suggests that the role of the map has been redefined  beyond mere geospatial information. The changes are not just in the way the maps look, but in types  of audiences that look at the maps and the way audiences interacts with data. Cartography has  become a tool for politics, businesses, government entities, administration and many more.  Multimedia maps have broadened the types of information that can be conveyed, becoming an  efficient method to divulge visualisation of data coming from the most disparate sources. Digital  maps allow for more ways of data visualisations. Some examples include data visualisations of  pollution in a city, the number of Instagram photos taken by tourists or locals in a city, sensors that  measure temperature at the ocean floor or a more recent example of remapping the city during the  coronavirus pandemic lockdown period. Accordingly the main question I raise is to what extent has  technology shaped contemporary maps? 

The use of software and digital tools for the creation of maps don’t exclude more traditional  techniques of cartographic communication. Newer technologies are adapted to the traditional ones  creating a synergy without the new eliminating the older. For example the use of symbols for  position, chromatic scales for different data, scales, border lines, legends and units of measure are  all devices from the past that are taken in consideration when designing a map.  

What new technologies have changed in the production of maps is the computerisation of the  medium, and the increased opportunity for distribution and accessibility.  

Currently, the internet allows for easier and quicker access to databases in order to source  information for designing a map. Moreover, from being traditional medium to symbolically  represent information of geographical spaces, maps have entered the category of tools to present  any type of information accessible to everyone.  

The audience appears to be free to chose what information to absorb and takes the active role of the  protagonist. While paper maps served to navigate and explore geographical spaces, cybermaps will  guide us through the array of information we are exposed to doing the digital era. Navigating the cyberspace and the internet have become for a significant part of the world  populations, a daily experience, very close to watching television, cinema or reading a magazine/ newspaper.  

Not limited by a paper based format, maps have become instantly accessible, updatable and  sharable. Interconnection and immateriality have become the new features of maps. The speed of  the continuous evolution of this mediums has nonetheless some limitations. Information needs to be  constantly updated, further, the amount of information available creates the risk of compromising  the quality and acquisition of the data. Another limitation proposed by Dana Cuff is that “Maps are  never “true” or “singular” images, and the mapmaker is always implicated in the contingent process  of mapping.” (Cuff, 2020)  

Hence, maps are not neutral and as the author suggest, maps have become so omnipresent in daily  life that they appear “somehow objective systems, free of ideology, strictly utilitarian, and open to  everyone.” (Cuff, 2020)  

Further, Huybrechts et al. suggest another complication in the process of designing maps. The issue raised is that while creating maps designers are limited by local geographical spaces  whilst addressing issues of bigger, global scope. Huybrechts et al. state that: “Therefore, the  problem is how to connect and confront the local dimension with wider, societal,  themes.” (Huybrechts et al. 2020) Digitally produced maps, such as the one in Figure 1,  demonstrate how the problem can be tackled by visually addressing a local problem and sharing it  with the global community.  

Figure 1 shows a digital map of Calais, France designed by cartographer Arthur Beaubois-Jude  during the lockdown period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The map represents the perimeter of the  authorised living perimeter and places of the interest of the designer during the lockdown. 

Figure 1
Arthur Beaubois-Jude (2020)
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/ 2020-coronavirus-lockdown-neighborhood-maps/

The map does not merely represent geographical areas, but relates to bigger issues faced by the entire population worldwide. Thus, the map symbolised a local problem that resonates at a global  level. Similarly, other cartographers and designer have produced digital maps, with their own  artistic agenda, but showcasing a similar problem in their own city. The collection of these maps is  part of a bigger frameworks that suggest how during the lockdown every person’s world had to be remapped. The maps open window into the experiences and social limitations of people not just  locally but at a global level.  

In conclusion it is not easy to predict the future of cartography and the possible lines of  development. What seems evident is that cybermaps are moving towards frameworks that convey  every type of data or concept in the most immediate fluid and dynamic way possible. Maps have  become tools to facilitate social and political action. The challenges seem to be posed only by  technology. The limits lay in how far digital devices can select reliable data and process it so that  the map speaks back to audience.  

Cartography has the potential to become an important feature in the daily personal tools of people.  In a world where everything and everyone is more connected, the day digital cartography will  suggest not only the nearest parking but the at the exact time we want it, doesn’t seem far. Digital  maps generate new methods for presenting reality, and provide the framework to identify even  something that might have been previously neglected by the human eye.  

Bibliography:  

Cartwright, William. Peterson P. Michael. “Multimedia Cartography.” in Multimedia Cartography, Springer,  Berlin, Heidelberg, (2007): 1-10 

https://doi-org.proxy.library.uu.nl/10.1007/978-3-540-36651-5_1 

Cuff, Dana, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Todd Samuel Presner, Maite Zubiaurre, and Jonathan Crisman.  2020. Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Chapter  3 “Fused Scholarship: Practices of Urban Humanities.” 

Huybrechts, Liesbeth, Maurizio Teli, Mela Zuljevic & Mela Bettega. 2020. “Visions that Change.  Articulating the Politics of Participatory Design”, CoDesign, 16:1, 3-16 (+ editorial from the special issue on  participatory design the journal CoDesign: