Cartography

This last week I have been researching further into the process of mapping and documenting data. Cartography is the study of making maps. It uses a combination of science, aesthetics and technique. Recently, cartography has become a computer driven discipline and there is an increasing number of practising artists beginning to use the process as influence of their own work.

David Endleman, Line Drops 1997

This is a visualisation of hundreds of underwater pipelines that draws oil from a reservoir. It is a display of visual data from an unseen landscape, created using geological modelling software. I like the composition and the abstraction.

Kate Mclean Smell Map 2013

This map shows the data of smells in Amsterdam. Mclean walked around the city documenting what smells were most prevalent to her and then turned the data into this visual map. Without the key to this work, it is totally unclear what is happening yet once I read more, the marks begin to make sense. 

I now need to begin to figure out how I can use this concept of a visual language within my own work.