At the Amrose Sable Gallery in Albany, New York until May 25, an exhibition of Erik Laffer’s Cartography Series. The Albany Times Union has a review: “[T]he frenetic undercurrents of Laffer’s abstractions seem to strike a chord with our primitive nature, connecting with humankind’s eternal sense of searching. Paintings like ‘Digital Globe’ and ‘Texture’ employ basic forms, but are not superficial. They are primitive, yet fully imbued with the mid-20th century modernist style. If you’re looking for directions from his ‘maps,’ you won’t find any. Instead, you get wonderfully lost.” At right: “Longitude & Latitude,” 2007.

Like many large map installations, the Electric Map of the Battle of Gettysburg has gone the way of the dodo. The 30×30-foot map has been illustrating troop movements during the battle using more than 600 light bulbs since it opened 45 years ago, but there’s no room for it in the new museum opening in Gettysburg National Military Park; it closed, apparently for good, last month, and will be put into storage when the old museum building is demolished next year. In response, a campaign has sprung up to save the Electric Map. News coverage: Baltimore Sun, CNN, Penn Live, York Daily Record.

I have mixed feelings about this. It’s sad to see any large map installation go, but park officials are basically correct: the map has become a bit of a relic of a former time. The campaign has posted videos of the Electric Map presentation, which is nearly 30 minutes long. Let’s be honest: nowadays, that’s a bit much to sit through in a darkened room, watching blinking lights and listening to a recorded narration, especially when you pay for a ticket to do so. It’s a victim of more sophisticated presentation technology; no one, after all, watches film strips any more either. But I’m sure a place can be found for it somewhere.

Via Earth Is Square and Gadling.

The 2008 iteration of the Where 2.0 conference gets under way tomorrow; O’Reilly Radar rounds up the week’s activities.

Previously: Where 2.0 2007.

Astronomers have produced the first map of a planet outside the solar system. The resolution is admittedly low — all we know is that there’s a “hot spot” offset from the planetary noon by some thirty degrees — but what do you expect from a planet orbiting a star 63 light years away? Via Catholicgauze.

More on the devastation wrought on Burma (Myanmar) by Cyclone Nargis:

• UNOSAT has maps of the affected regions (as PDF files); the maps show the extent of flooding and the villages that have been completely submerged or flooded. Via Glenn.
• Google LatLong has two posts on using Google Earth in response to this disaster: one on importing the imagery and one on plotting local health facilities.

An interesting thread on MapHist about painting on maps — i.e., using a map like a canvas — yielded links to the following artists.

Suzanne Howe-Stevens: “Using maps as a background or frame allows her to emphasize the borders that exist between water and land. Those spaces that we love so much are disappearing; this is often reflected in the water scene’s drift into the map area.” Her works are subtle; you can’t really see the map backgrounds unless you examine them in close detail.

Brenda Schwartz-Yeager “paints both conventional watercolors and watercolor images on preserved navigational charts, adding personality to those images, each chart telling its own story.” Much more traditional work, with nautical themes on nautical charts, for example. Sample at right.

Satellite images from before and after Cyclone Nargis struck the Burmese (Myanmarese?) coast.

Microsoft Pro Photo Tools support geotagging, which is interesting, but it’s a bit hubristic to say that geotagging is going mainstream as a result of that, as the title of the article describing Pro Photo Tools’ geotagging features does. Which is not to say that that article isn’t worth a look, especially if you’re interested in geotagging your photos and you’re using a PC. Via Dan Catt.

Alan Taylor: “I set out to find the longest distance for which Google Maps would give Driving Directions. Now that they’ve shut down the fun ‘swim the Atlantic’ feature, things have changed a bit. It turns out there are multiple ‘longest drives,’ because the Google Maps World is partitioned (many countries don’t support driving directions), and sometimes ferries are included, and sometimes they are not.” Via Kottke.

Previously: Trans-Atlantic Driving Directions.

At the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise until June 8, an exhibition called Mapping:

The goal of Mapping is to put mapping tools, from sextants to software, in the hands of visitors and let them explore the science and technology of mapping. From compasses to Google Earth, Mapping will show the developments in map making and the diversity of data that can be incorporated. Mapping will showcase a myriad of maps, such as; digital, printed, relief, overlays, topographical and many others. It will also explore the tools and techniques associated with mapping spanning from surveying to satellite. Ultimately, this exhibition will enable visitors to develop a deeper insight of how multifaceted the science of mapping is. Mapping is designed to be hands-on, encouraging engagement from our visitors and enabling them to experience the thrill of making discoveries.

The exhibiton has more than 20 interactive and hands-on exhibits. The Idaho Statesman has more; there’s also a press release (PDF) from last December (the show has been open since January).

A sale of the largest private collection of Cook memorabilia includes, as one of its highlights, the Banks Map, depicting Australia and New Zealand. Printed in 1772 in a run of only 100 copies, the map was privately done while the British Admiralty took its time reporting on Cook’s discoveries. The Sydney Morning Herald:

The so-called “Banks map” was engraved in 1772 on the orders of Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, the scientists on the Endeavour, soon after Cook returned triumphantly to London. Only one other copy has survived — a version printed on inferior paper held by the British Library.

“The Banks map shows, for the first time, the whole of Australia,” a director of Hordern House, Derek McDonnell, said.

“It is the first chart of the east coast of Australia to be published. It is the first identification of Australia as a continental entity. And it is the first full map of New Zealand. It is this map which sorts out [the geography of] the South Pacific.”

It’s scheduled for completion in 2010, but already the Atlas of Yellowstone, tantalizing bits of which that have already been completed are already available for preview, looks more than promising. It goes beyond maps of just the park, although those will certainly be included, to place the park in a wider context, both in place and time. I’m looking forward to it. Via AnyGeo.

This is lovely: All Streets by Ben Fry, a data visualization of “[a]ll of the streets in the lower 48 United States: an image of 26 million individual road segments. No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas convey low population. The pace of progress is seen in the midwest where suburban areas are punctuated by square blocks of area that are still farm land.”

Created in 2006; Ben describes how it was done in this blog entry: “Nothing particularly genius about this piece—it’s mostly just a matter of collecting the data and creating the image. But it’s one of those cases where even in a (relatively) raw format, the data itself is quite striking.” No kidding. Also via Kottke.

The U.S. Geological Survey is running a number of projects in Afghanistan, including the Afghanistan Airborne Geophysical and Remote Sensing Survey, for the Afghan government: “Data collected during this survey will provide basic information for mineral and petroleum exploration studies, which are important for the economic development of Afghanistan. Additionally, use of this data is broadly applicable in the assessment of water resources and natural hazards, the inventory and planning of civil infrastructure and agricultural resources, and the construction of detailed maps.” Press release.

NASA’s Earth Observatory has a page of photos of cities at night taken from space; at right, Tokyo. “Astronauts circling the Earth have the wonderful vantage point of observing the nighttime Earth from 350-400 kilometers above the surface, taking in whole regions at once. Onboard cameras and a bit of experimentation allow astronauts to take highly detailed images of our cities at night and share them with the rest of us.” In addition to photos, an explanation of how it’s done. Via Kottke.

The Missing and Stolen Maps Database has been announced.

In early February 2008, the International Antiquarian Mapsellers Association (IAMA) voted to provide funding for the development and maintenance of a missing and stolen map database. The database is the result of advance cooperation and collaboration between dealers, collectors, librarians and curators. …

This developing database is one of many efforts in the fight against international thefts of cultural property. This is free of charge, fully searchable, international in scope, and accessible using individual usernames and passwords. The title was selected to indicate that not all the reported items are necessarily stolen, as there are other factors that may, at times, result in the disappearance of these valuable historical documents.

We believe that this database will be a useful tool, facilitating more rapid and accurate dispersal of information between relevant groups, including law enforcement. This would speed the retrieval of these valuable stolen documents for libraries, collectors and dealers.

Via MapHist.

In the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois, Diane Dretske writes an essay in praise of county atlases:

County atlases were certainly a marketing tool to sell books, but they occurred at just the right time in American history when farms and small communities were beginning to prosper. The atlas became a symbol of local achievements, boasting the accomplishments of farmers. Midwestern farmers were especially fond of the gilt-lettered atlases, putting them on parlor tables and proudly turning to the page where their farms were featured. …

Historic atlases are one of the most requested collections for research at the Lake County Discovery Museum’s archives [where Dretske works]. County atlases are rare, due in part to their heavy use by owners and large size that made them difficult to store properly.

Another find from Modern Mechanix, reprinted from the October 1939 issue of Popular Science: “A colorful map of the United States, complete with rivers, mountains, boundary lines, and other geographical features, adorns a novel rain cape recently introduced. Made in either red or blue, the cape is fitted with a hood, and has extra large armholes to permit it to be worn over a regular coat.”

Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 map of the New York subway system, which introduced a Beck-style diagrammatic transit map to the city (and which New Yorkers were not prepared for; the map was controversial and encountered opposition before it was replaced in 1979), is back. Kind of. In an exclusive with Men’s Vogue, Vignelli and his design team have updated the map to reflect 30 years of changes and are selling a limited 500-print run for $299, with proceeds benefiting Green Worker Cooperatives. Via MetaFilter.

Previously: Massimo Vignelli Defends His Map; Eddie Jabbour’s New York Subway Map; New York Subway Maps.

Artist Elizabeth Berrien does wire sculpture; some of her creations are maps. “She’d often felt that the intricate, organic lines of our living planet and its features — continents, great river and mountain ranges — would make a glorious translation into wire.” Via Cartophilia and You Are Here, Hon.