Summer seems to be a good time of year to dig out those movies that we have liked over our time on digital urban so far. First off we are going to look at our own movies (its slightly indulgent) that in the 1500 odd posts often get lost, we will run through why they were made, the software involved and their place in the bigger picture.
Full post with movies after the break below:
Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Geography. Show all posts
2010-02-01
Come in Neogeography Your Time is Up
We are currently writing a technical report on all things geographic and coming to write the term 'Neogeography' has to be honest become painful. Sure, we have written many papers and book chapters on the topic but perhaps its one to lay to rest as we try to explain below...
The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.
Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.
Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.
The ability to mine data via new emerging methodologies for the collection, analysis and leverage of spatially related information is gathering pace and entering the main stream of social science. The key to this is three fold, firstly the move of information into the digital domain with datasets previously limited to corporations or local government organizations becoming available online, this is a recent trend. Secondly the rise of Neogeography, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing and citizen science above and beyond the traditional geographic domain. Thirdly the development of new toolkits that take advantage of various application programming interfaces (API’s) to allow non-programmers to quickly and easily mix, match and visualize datasets which would of previously been prohibitively technical. Such activites as a whole can be defined as Neogeography, the term derives from Eisnor (2006) one of the founders of www.platial.com where she defines it (Neogeography) as ‘…a diverse set of practices that operate outside, or alongside, or in a manner of, the practices of professional geographers.
Rather than making claims on scientific standards, methodologies of Neogeography tend towards intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic, but may just be idiosyncratic applications of ‘real’ geographic techniques. This is not to say that these practices are of no use to the cartographic/geographic sciences, but they just usually do not conform the protocols of professional practice’. We see this as key to the renaissance of geographic information, the term Neogeography is perhaps of its time, in a similar manner that ‘Cyberspace’ is now rarely used. The importance is the trend towards the intuitive, expressive, personal, absurd, and/or/ artistic use of data without worrying, or indeed caring, about standards. A term to replace Neogeography? Perhaps there is not a need for one, its all about visualising spatial data, is there a need for a term that distinguishes between the professional and the non-professional, we would argue not.
Neogeography was 2006-2009, perhaps its time to leave it there.
2008-07-26
Geography in Second Life
Geography in Second Life: Neogeography from digitalurban on Vimeo.
The movie above is a 3 minute clip of our work to date in Second Life. We have been working on Second Nature Island on land kindly donated by the Nature Publishing Group to explore how 'classic geography and cities' can be imported into Second Life. A high definition version can be viewed via Vimeo by clicking on the HD link in the movie player.
Music is by the Tartan Rascals
See Nature.com for more information on our work and other 'scientists' working in Second Life.
As ever any thoughts, comments or questions are welcome...
2007-08-28
Geographic Awareness - 1 in 5 Cannot find the US on a Map?
Spatial and geographic awareness are kind of central to both our blog and the research in our Lab at CASA. As such it came as a slight shock to hear the statistic that 1 in 5 American citizens are unable to point out the United States on a map.
To be honest this cannot be true can it? The YouTube movie below shows Miss Teen South Carolina answering the question why she thinks 1/5th of Americans can't find the US on a map:
Before anyone asks - we were not trawling YouTube for Miss America Videos, the link comes courtesy of the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog.
Amazingly the YouTube movie has been viewed 3.5 million times to date - if the movie was geographically tagged and embedded into Google Maps maybe that would help the statistics...
To be honest this cannot be true can it? The YouTube movie below shows Miss Teen South Carolina answering the question why she thinks 1/5th of Americans can't find the US on a map:
Before anyone asks - we were not trawling YouTube for Miss America Videos, the link comes courtesy of the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog.
Amazingly the YouTube movie has been viewed 3.5 million times to date - if the movie was geographically tagged and embedded into Google Maps maybe that would help the statistics...
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