Monday, September 15, 2014

Neogeography: A fusion of art and mapping

                Neography is a modern take on geography, combining the science of geography and GIS with digital art.  “The term ‘neogeography’ is taken to engulf traditional geography as well as all forms of personal, intuitive, absurd or artistic explorations and representations of geographical space, aided by new technologies associated with the Geospatial Web” (Papadimitriou 2013).  As this quote illustrates, neography is a fascinating hybrid of two seemingly incompatible fields that is accomplished through the powerful software of modern GIS. 
                                          Figure 1 Technologies that contribute to Neogeography
                
                Geotagging and georeferencing are two such ways our modern intuitive software enables neogeography.  In the process mappers are able to add personal flair such as “snapshots, texts, music, random sounds and noises and even video clips” (Papadimitriou 2013).  With Neogeography, mapping becomes much more of an individual, grassroots phenomenon rather than an administrative government one. 
                Another phenomenon that accompanies neogeography is an increasing accessibility and usability of GIS software.  No longer is it required to map with extensive knowledge of GIS software.  “Some packages, such as those provided by Yahoo, require no prior GIS skills to produce interesting and aesthetically pleasant output in neogeography” (Papadimitriou 2013). 
                In conclusion, neogeography has helped change mapping into a form of art.  “Geographical education may well open a new chapter in response to these developments, possibly called ‘neogeographical education’, whose aim would be to foster educational activities worldwide in order to build the newly emerging geospatially enabled Web 3.0” (Papadimitriou 2013).

Citation:

Papadimitriou, Fivos. "A "Neographical Education"? The Geospatial Web, GIS and Digital Art in Adult Education." International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 19.1 (2010): 71-74. Routledge. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.

1 comment:

  1. I found this really interesting. You opened my eyes to a new concept that I did not know much about. I feel like with the user friendly and fun software you mentioned, along with the intrigue of making art with features like sound and image could take GIS to a new level and possibly draw more people into the field. With this, however, I feel like will need to be paired with some old-fashioned technical GIS work to ensure maps that are actually useful to society. We wouldn't want accuracy and other important measures to be thrown out of the window in place of maps filled with Youtube videos and pop songs. Nevertheless, I think this is a big deal for GIS. I look forward to seeing more. Thanks for the post.

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