Here & There is a wonderful project from Schulze and Webb, exploring the workings of modern maps. Here’s the project in their own words:
Imagine a person standing at a street corner. The projection begins with a three-dimensional representation of the immediate environment. Close buildings are represented normally, and the viewer himself is shown in the third person, exactly where she stands.
As the model bends from sideways to top-down in a smooth join, more distant parts of the city are revealed in plan view. The projection connects the viewer’s local environment to remote destinations normally out of sight.
What’s so damn beautiful about this project is the way this map gives you superpowers, extended beyond the levitated overview of traditional maps. Now, I wouldn’t go as far as calling maps new technology (according to Wikipedia maps have been a part of human history for a possible 8.000 years), but it’s a typical trait for new technology to mimic characteristics of the area it’s evolving. Such as webpages designed like printed media.
I believe that new technology (whether digital or analog) gets really interesting when it stops mimicking, and – like Schulze and Webb – truly upgrades previous possibilities.
Read more and buy the maps here.