Notes + Links on art, design, and technology
by Casey A. Gollan

Map of Online Communities by XKCD

An amazing map of Queens, painted by Paula Scher then enlarged by painter Michael Imlay to wrap around the walls and ceiling of Queens Metropolitan Public High School.

Fra Mauro’s Mappamundi, 1459, from Maps of the Imagination by Peter Turchi

Historically significant because:

Mauro’s map, oriented with south at the top, and dense with drawings and text, represents the transition from medieval mapping, which presented as much Christian dogma as geography, to the scientific mapping of the age of discovery.

But on a more personal level:

In the novel A Mapmaker’s Dream, James Cowan imagines the attempt of Fra Mauro, an actual fifteenth-century cartographer, to draw what he hopes will be a definitive map of the word, based not only on existing maps but on the stories of travelers from around the world. He learns that there are an infinite number of ways to depict reality. As the magnitude of this realization settles in, he writes, “My map absorbs me with what it does not reveal.” Later, despite or because of his efforts to be comprehensive, he tells us, “I am left with a sense of existing in an unfathomable void, surrounded by blankness.”

One way streets in New York, made using the Google Maps style editor. (via Cartogrammar, roomthily)

mattlehrer:

I created a map out of Grub Street’s list of the 101 Best Sandwiches in New York. 10 down, 91 to go.

omg.

(via youngna)

Here is the front of Jason Polan’s—awesome!—hand drawn map of the Art Fairs and Other Useful Spots. Though the scale may be a little off, you will find all the major fairs, museums, some nice galleries + shops, Marfa, Texas, Taco Bell, and TWO zoos. Well played, Mr. Polan.

In addition to chasing celebrities (last year I may or may not have been following Chuck Close around The Armory Show), you’ll want to keep your eyes peeled for the Jen Bekman Projects | 20x200 Street Team who will be handing out free totes, maps, popcorn, and a few more things that are clever, useful, hilarious and still top secret!

(via jenbee)

Threw together a bunch of images from the /tagged/maps and /search/maps pages of Notes + Links yesterday while brainstorming for a project to map a journey. I was really happy to be able to find instant images + backstories on lots of these images, some of which I remembered only vaguely. It was a good reminder of how useful this site is, but also how incomplete it is. During the presentation, I kept remembering things that I like but never posted and thinking, “AHHH I have to add that before I forget again!”

The plan is to take my collected personal data (5 Year Diary, Foursquare, Last.fm, Mousetracks) and do something-to-be-determined that makes it more interesting or at least less sterile.

Finland’s Unnamed Islands, 2000, by Nina Katchadourian
Paper map fragments between microscope slides on aluminum shelves, 1 foot x 8 feet

I cut out hundreds of islands that were nameless from an atlas of Finland. These clusters were placed between microscope slides on long aluminum shelves.

I am partial to this because of my heritage, but also because it is awesome! One of the few standout pieces in the otherwise laborious but predictable show Slash: Paper Under the Knife at the Museum of Art and Design.