conceptual US/my life
You should see a Google Map below. If you don't, just click here.
Even if you do see the map, you'll have to click on it or click here to get the full effect.
Basically, there are some colored areas:
* light pink (Pennsylvania) = "BIRTH"
* light green (the Mid-South) = "GROWTH"
* dark pink (California) = "TOXIC"
* dark green (Yosemite) = "REFUGE"
* blueish (Pullman) = "PEACEFUL"
* all gray strips are labeled "CORRIDOR" and they're the various routes I've driven between the other colored areas.
There's a story, essentially the story of my life from age 15 to 34 (now), in all the individual points.
When you click on the map, you should see a list of points and labels in a chunk on the left. You can click on a point and it should zoom over to that point, and you can read a description. The points are relatively chronological ("My Hometown" is first and "Hello, Pullman" is last) and the descriptions for each point make up the story. Or, the story I'm telling now, which of course is just a little bit of the story. The framework of the story. Something like that.
When I think of the US, I don't think of it as states or cities or even regions like "the midwest" or anything like that. I think of it in terms of where I've been and what I did there. For me, the US is four specific chunks and then a wide swath of "underexplored" territory. Not "unexplored," because I have been to more places than I point out on the map, but "underexplored" because I haven't spent enough time to make the area a part of myself.
Even if you do see the map, you'll have to click on it or click here to get the full effect.
Basically, there are some colored areas:
* light pink (Pennsylvania) = "BIRTH"
* light green (the Mid-South) = "GROWTH"
* dark pink (California) = "TOXIC"
* dark green (Yosemite) = "REFUGE"
* blueish (Pullman) = "PEACEFUL"
* all gray strips are labeled "CORRIDOR" and they're the various routes I've driven between the other colored areas.
There's a story, essentially the story of my life from age 15 to 34 (now), in all the individual points.
When you click on the map, you should see a list of points and labels in a chunk on the left. You can click on a point and it should zoom over to that point, and you can read a description. The points are relatively chronological ("My Hometown" is first and "Hello, Pullman" is last) and the descriptions for each point make up the story. Or, the story I'm telling now, which of course is just a little bit of the story. The framework of the story. Something like that.
When I think of the US, I don't think of it as states or cities or even regions like "the midwest" or anything like that. I think of it in terms of where I've been and what I did there. For me, the US is four specific chunks and then a wide swath of "underexplored" territory. Not "unexplored," because I have been to more places than I point out on the map, but "underexplored" because I haven't spent enough time to make the area a part of myself.
1 Comments:
Julie,
This map is pretty awesome.
It seems at the heart of the map is somewhat of a discussion, or at least comment, on artificial borders. I really like the fact that in your explanation you say that the US is not states to you, but chunks of space, each with there own specific meaning. What I find interesting about this is that, in some ways, you have done away with one form of artificial border (States) and created your own. This is, I think, telling of all map making and cartographic exercises: somewhat arbitrary division of geographic space. Arbitrary, I guess though, only to an outsider, as your divisions are completely meaningful to you.
Maybe your division, however, is more honest than other divisions, in that you acknowledge how personal and arbitrary the divisions are.
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