You Are Here: 1000 years of mapmaking history in one brief segment
From: Jackson Braider
Length: 08:50
Maps set us up to face a profound existential challenge: They can tell us "you are here" -- complete with star and arrow -- but what they're pointing to is "there" on the map.
Independent producer Jackson Braider talks with two enthusiasts who tell us that maps are far more than tools to tell us how to get there from here. Ronald Grim is the curator of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library whose recent "Journeys of the Imagination" exhibition offered 50 different ways of seeing the world. Dennis Cosgrove, professor of geography at UCLA, reminds us that "war is God's way of teaching geography to Americans."
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Piece Description
Maps set us up to face a profound existential challenge: They can tell us "you are here" -- complete with star and arrow -- but what they're pointing to is "there" on the map. Independent producer Jackson Braider talks with two enthusiasts who tell us that maps are far more than tools to tell us how to get there from here. Ronald Grim is the curator of the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library whose recent "Journeys of the Imagination" exhibition offered 50 different ways of seeing the world. Dennis Cosgrove, professor of geography at UCLA, reminds us that "war is God's way of teaching geography to Americans."
Broadcast History
never broadcast
Transcript
YOU ARE HERE: The Map in the 21st Century
Jackson Braider
Host Intro:
For desk top explorers logging into Google Earth ...location, location, location is everything. Today you can find your position on the planet right down to the nearest hundredth of a latitudinal second. But as independent producer Jackson Braider reports... the growing popularity of killer apps like Google Earth and global positioning satellite systems actually invokes an existential challenge 500 years old.
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Outro: The Boston Public Library is about to launch a web site dedicated to their extensive map collection. You'll find it at leventhal map center dot o.r.g.
Jackson Braider is an independent producer based in Boston.
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
Host Intro:
For desk top explorers logging into Google Earth ...location, location, location is everything. Today you can find your position on the planet right down to the nearest hundredth of a latitudinal second. But as independent producer Jackson Braider reports... the growing popularity of killer apps like Google Earth and global positioning satellite systems actually invokes an existential challenge 500 years old.
@@@@@@@@
Outro: The Boston Public Library is about to launch a web site dedicated to their extensive map collection. You'll find it at leventhal map center dot o.r.g.
Jackson Braider is an independent producer based in Boston.
Musical Works
A Salty Dog (Brooker/Reid): Procol Harum. A Salty Dog. Westside, 1999, 3:00
Map of the World, Part II (Siberry): Jane Siberry. The Speckless Sky. Duke Street Records, 1985, 3:00.
Additional Files
- A trinitarian map of the world, courtesy of the Boston Public Library (worldmap.jpg)
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Phil Corriveau
Posted on September 24, 2006 at 01:50 PM | Permalink
Review of You Are Here: 1000 years of mapmaking history in one brief segment
There is an awful lot of information densely packed into this nine minute piece; perhaps too much. I listened to it three times, and picked up something new each time. The production is good and the material well presented, but I sometimes found myself reaching for the rewind button to better understand what was being said. The topic itself is fascinating, and as is said in the piece, "it is extraordinary how poorly educated Americans are about geography". If nothing else, this piece taught me how little I know about mapmaking. Producer Jackson Braider does a good job of fitting a lot of information into the piece, and introduces the idea of ethnocentrism in mapmaking; looking at the world through one's own cultural frame. Although I enjoyed listening to the feature, this is one of the few times I would suggest that a nine minute piece be expanded into a half-hour or hour long documentary.