The image above is of a tactile map made by the Inuit of parts of the coast of Greenland. It seems the Inuit mapped their territory by songs, legends and these tactile maps. It also shows how the empirical world of space as the empty side of a binary relationship with place is badly flawed.
The Inuit like the Aboriginal songlines show in these artifacts that place can equate to person hood and space. That they are embodied in a personal and spatial relationship to a whole.
I saw these hand maps and also thought of my mobile phone which has gps built in. Now wouldn’t it be possible to make gps phones become like tactile maps buzzing and vibrating when you take a wrong turn for instance. Moving through space would become an experience of touch not just vision.
via tightgrid & middlesavagery (& the images)
3 Comments
This is a good site, first of all.
There are maps like those you mention in the last paragraph of this post. They’re a type of haptic map, originally intended for use by the blind. I haven’t seen any applications using a cell phone, but that’s certainly a great idea.
I couldn’t find an immediately useful resource, so here’s a link to an assemblage of links and resources for you to wade through:
http://blindreaders.info/mapgraph.html
Geoff,
Thanks for the link I’ll take a look, and hopefully expand on those first comments.
Oh and Tightgrid is excellent by the way, I’ve just added it to my linklist.
Wow! This is Eskimo’s rapid prototyping
Cool.