At the very heart of the map, like the movie, is the narrative platform, as a means of mass communication, as visual art, a product of expression, as a language with distinct syntax and built-in grammar.
What are the building blocks of the map as a language? What are its components and how does the manipulations they generate work?
As in the case of any language, the cartographic syntax also operates within the framework of some particular "logic."
The cartographic language is a diverse terminological system that includes data collection, editing and interpretation.
The basic elements of the satellite image may be: size, angle, camera movement, lighting, and more.
From here begins the process of interpreting the photographic expression in the direction of a cartographic expression - a map.
Every action from here on is an appeal on the realist example. Every action creates a response, there is no action without a counter-action, the combination of the two is the heart of the matter. This creates a drama that begins and ends in combination.
The map is building and organization of a composition. Creating the map is a process similar to creating a movie. We activate in the mind of the map reader: angles, axes, motions, and all visual components in space. The cartographer is actually a director. All possible visual elements are engineered into the map.
Like any cinematic shot, the map also has one central component in the general picture, which can be called dominant. It is highlighted by the artist through graphic embossing of color, blurring, and more.
The aerial photograph as an objective camera, a fly on the wall, is a tool for voyeurism and an invasion mechanism. The larger the zoom, the greater the invasion of others life.
That's why the cartographer has to be subjective. He has to wander over the photograph like a mobile camera, extract meanings, and express his inner world.
Using as many graphic tools as possible, he creates a composition, by which he transforms the two-dimensional photograph into a three-dimensional creation. The 3D, which is a basic concept in the brain, requires the map reader to create a vanishing point of consciousness, a synthesis, which is the necessary conclusion for him from reading the map's data. The graphic vanishing point is created by highlighting certain elements at the expense of others. The vanishing point of consciousness is, to a large extent, also the visual vanishing point - the focal point.
Symmetry, therefore, becomes only one instrument of many species in the cartographer's toolbox. The photographed space is for him a means of expression. He breaks it by emphasizing or assimilating various elements.
Space design techniques are also a means of emotional-Pavlovian conditioning.
The cartographer creates space inside a space. It intensifies the dimension of depth by creating images, by changing focus.
The map creates a cinematic character, as every movie creates a cartographic figure. For example, movies dealing with the city. The fetishization of urban space exists in both films and maps. The city, movie, or map, may be perceived as threatening or friendly, foreign or close, and so forth.
Underlying the reading of the map is the map legend, which serves as an introduction to its principles. The legend enables understanding of the cartographic image as a semiotic array of: sign, signified, marked. This is the basic language of the concepts that build the map, and its principles of interpreting it.
The entrance gate to each map is formalism, which is a style under the "realist example." This is similar to basic concepts and basic patterns of the objective camera.
Then comes the question of the cartographic composition. The spatial arrangement as an emotional manipulation, space as a figure, space as a means of expression. Realism has to become a style, through the vanishing point of consciousness, and the symmetrical space becomes an asymmetrical space, the object of aesthetic choices.
Maps manipulates the dimensions of space and time. They takes us to many places and times. They may create a continuous consciousness or static consciousness. A dynamic map, liberated and dramatic, creates an entirely different emotional state from a static map.
That is how the narrative is created. The map is a plot anchored in narrative. It is an information channel that includes text and sub-text, as continuous and coherent as possible, which includes repetition, memory and recollection as basic principles.
There are map genres. The genre is a premise in cartography. Over the generations, genre principles have become the cornerstones of map art, such as the genres in classical Hollywood cinema.
The genre makes editing the map clearer. This is done through rhythm, images, associations, and so on.
In addition, it is possible to present maps as cinematic works, on video clips, through camera movement, and various editing combinations.
Many maps are currently being presented accompanied by soundtrack and cinematic music.
In the past it was the storyteller who wandered from city to city and told his experiences against the background of his journey map.
Today, cinema and the modern soundtrack make it possible to synthesize sound and image, and to present maps according to cinematic principles.
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| A satellite photo of Northern California |
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| Physical map of northern California |
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| Map of northern California settlements and roads |
