Remote Sensing Tools

Deborah MacPherson notified me this morning that she’d written-up a piece introducing myself and friend Nikolas Schiller, at Accuracy & Aesthetics.

It’s always interesting to read what others think about what I have to say, and I don’t think that I could have received a more elequent review of my thoughts in this case. The synopsis she wrote, I think is appropriate toward the kind of person that I am and continually strive to be.

Also added is reference to friend Nikolas Schiller, someone in the mapping world who I think is doing some incredibly interesting work with his artistic renderings using aerial imagery. His recent project, lolmaps.com, launched into even more elaborate conceptual territory by incorporating various elements of social, media, political, and mapping references (among others) — as well as playing on the LOLcats meme phenomenon.

The most interesting thing to me about Niko’s maps, is that he bypasses the mind-set of usability in their more typical sense of use — generating a concept that causes one to think within the context of a map environment (to which there are various levels and concepts to realize). The irony being, that his maps force an inward focus toward a central coordinate-point — perceptually instructing the viewer to succomb to the inward momentum engaging the peripheral, to which subsequent and simultaneous natural reactionary perceptions seem to emerge, generating a viewer’s sense of global depth and awareness [eg: the universe is infinitely big, as it is infinitely small].

To me, there is no more real a state of conceptual consciousness than what I often see being generated within his maps — and I believe it also to be a beautiful thing knowing that the center-point is geodetically accurate to its mapping coordinates, which makes them even more profound mathematically and within the overall concept.

Deborah also informs me that she’s still going over much of Nikolas’s work at his web site, as there’s so much to absorb.

Accuracy & Aesthetics is a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Vienna VA, established April 2004 to improve the exchange of ideas and digital information across cultures and disciplines. We serve the general public and standards organizations by bringing together a variety of experts and general publics to foster interdisciplinary alliances, establish new standards and build consensus products.

Updated on: October 28th, 2007 at 3:59 pm