[Subtopia] Maps, Maps, Maps

A nice post on Subtopia - mapping projects are nothing new in design/ new media, but these are great and certainly move beyond pleasure of seeing data. You should check out the original post on blogger for the pictures. -sd

In case you have a little map fetish, well then, I have a few here you might want to peep. Yeah, we got maps. Maps of the global arms trade, maps of destruction brought upon Lebanon by Israel's recent bombing campaign, we've got a map of the business locations of the war profiteers of New York City. Maps that even trace the imperialist war torn history of the Middle East; interpretations of the spatial striation of incarceration in NYC; the densities of world poverty; maps that guage changing environments, flood levels even, as well as alert you to the planet's ongoing disasters. Hell, we've got a map that tracks the routes of the CIA's secret torture flights, the patterns of extraordinary rendition posted on a billboard for all to see.
Yes, sir. We got a few maps for ya. See?

Labanon Maps: The Maps of Israeli Assault on Lebanon are developed by a group of activists to demonstrate the reality of the Israeli assault on Lebanon. Maps based on Locations Bombed and Transport and Vital Sites Bombed. With some extras here.

NYC Guide to War Profiteers (the “mutual support network”, 2003.)

The Privatization of War (Colombia as Laboratory and Iraq as Large-Scale Application, A mapping project by Lize Mogel and Dario Azzellini)

A map of Selected CIA Aircraft Routes and Rendition Flights 2001-2006 (Three projects for the 2006 season of artists’ billboards produced by Clockshop. The participating artists are Trevor Paglen & John Emerson, Ignasi Aballi, and Nadiah Bamadhaj.)

Terminal Air: a dynamic information artwork that aggregates and visualizes torture taxi data. (Paglen, 2006.)

Maps of War: Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history? Pretty much everyone. Egyptians, Turks, Jews, Romans, Arabs, Greeks, Persians, Europeans...the list goes on. Who will control the Middle East today? That is a much bigger question.

Architecture and Justice maps criminal justice statistics to make visible the geography of incarceration and return in New York, Phoenix, New Orleans, Wichita, and New Haven, prompting new ways of understanding the spatial dimension of an area of public policy with profound implications for American cities.

Choose Your Weapon (Mapping the Global Arms Trade)

UNEP: Atlas of Our Changing Environment (United Nations Environment Programme, interactive map observing climate change and environmental change.)

AlertMap: Real-time Disaster Events: "The Havaria Emergency and Disaster Information Services in Budapest Hungary, uses Google Maps to offer a real-time interactive display of the world's ongoing disasters, with clickable descriptions, coordinates, damage levels."

Flood maps: Dynamic maps of sea level rise.