Dreams, Longings, Memories â€" Visualising the Dimension of Projected Spaces in Fiction

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Abstract: In fictional, narrated worlds (literature, movies, graphic novels etc.) so-called projected spaces can play an important role. They have different qualities than settings, since they are created and called up via the imagination of the protagonists: Heros and heroines in novels are dreaming of, longing for or remembering places, both existing and imaginary ones. Projected spaces are introduced here as part of a genuine geography of fiction and hence subject to the currently dynamically developing field of mapping literature (also summarised under the term of 'literary cartography'). The paper delivers first examples and some basic theoretical thoughts, before it moves on to the presentation of a set of newly designed map symbols for this specific spatial category. What can cartography add to a deeper understanding of projected spaces? The paper concludes with an outlook to a future research agenda.

More interessting research and information about projected places, can be found on the following page: → A Scientific Blog about Projected Places and → Memories, Dreams, Projected Spaces (both only in german)

Piatti, Barbara; Reuschel, Anne-Kathrin and Hurni, Lorenz (2013) : Dreams, Longings, Memories - Visualising the Dimension of Projected Spaces in Fiction. In: In: Proceedings of the 26th International Cartographic Conference, Dresden, Germany 2013 → Download

A Literary Atlas of Europe. Mapping and Analysing the Geography of Fiction with Interactive Tools

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In connection with a presentation of the ongoing doctoral thesis of Anne-Kathrin Reuschel (which covers all technical and cartographical questions of the »Literary Atlas of Europe«) a poster has been prepared that summarizes the atlas project. It deals mainly with data modeling and data acquisition as well as with visualisations of single objects of fictional spaces. Comprehensive descriptions can also be found on the following websites: data model, data aquisition and single object maps.

The poster can be downloaded as pdf version at the bottom of this side.

Abstract:
It all starts with the supposedly simple questions: Where is literature set and why there? The nascent research area of literary geography aims at visibly rendering overlays of real and fictional geographies to perform complex spatial analyses.

This includes fictionalisation processes over time (of a region, a city); interactions between fiction and reality; and last but not least coherences between natural phenomena, historical or political events on the one side and the quality or quantity of fictional spaces on the other side. What has been lacking up to now is a common ground in form of a consistent methodology in order to break down the geography of fiction and a data model which is able to reproduce inherent rules of fictional spaces.

The «Literary Atlas of Europe» aims to provide the technical workaround for literary scholars. It allows - in one system - the combinations and comparisons of all analysed data along with adequate, automated, interactive visualisations of individual spatial objects, calculation of statistical surfaces and more complex GIS analyses.

Literary Atlas of Europe (POSTER preview)

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Mapping Literature: Visualisation of Spatial Uncertainty in Fiction

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Abstract:The interdisciplinary project 'A Literary Atlas of Europe' aims to develop an interactive atlas as a research tool for spatial analysis of literature. The central questions of where do stories take place and what interactions exist between literary spaces and the real space are answered by means of cartographical visualisation. This paper provides an overview of an extensive systematic evaluation of the literary space and proposes a practical implementation of literary spatial data into a database. In this process, specific properties of literary spaces are identified: the narrated spaces are fragmentary; they have vague boundaries and are often hard to localize, if at all. Furthermore, they can be transformed and remodelled by the author and can be linked to any time period. Considering these properties of fictional data, it becomes clear that visualisation of inherent uncertainty is necessary. The main challenge of this research is developing appropriate visualisation methods that visually satisfy those above-mentioned inherent rules of individual literary places. Therefore, visualisation methods for several specific properties are suggested and subsequently implemented to allow automatic map generation.

Reuschel, Anne-Kathrin (2011); Hurni, Lorenz: Mapping Literature: Visualisation of Spatial Uncertainty in Fiction. In: The Cartographic Journal, Volume 48, Number 4, November 2011, pp. 293-308.→ Download

Mapping Literature. The Prototype of »A Literary Atlas of Europe«

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Mapping Literature and analysing maps of literary landscapes are the ambitious aims of the project »A Literary Atlas of Europe«. By means of cartographic knowledge and techniques, instruments are provided to investigate various spatial aspects in the field of literary geography. Literary spaces are working different compared to other spatial themes - all spatial objects are described by words - and require new data models and visualisation methods. This paper will present the required complex text analysis, the actual data acquisition and the automated visualisation of certain spatial literature entities. Based on three model regions the feasibility and transferability of the presented methods are determined.

Reuschel, A.-K. (2009), Piatti, B; Hurni, L.: »Mapping Literature. The Prototype of 'A Literary Atlas of Europe'«. In: Proceedings of the 24th International Cartographic Conference, Santiago de Chile → Download

The Geography of Fiction – The Project “A Literary Atlas of Europe” (Original Title: Die Geographie der Fiktion - Das Projekt 'Ein literarischer Atlas Europas'

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Summary

Where is the setting of literature? How does fiction make use of existing geographical spaces over a period of several centuries? At the Institute of Cartography of ETH Zurich an interactive prototype of a literary atlas of Europe is currently under development. The system is designed to make visible the specific geography of fiction, which has its own dimensions and follows its own rules, but which nevertheless corresponds with and stands in mutually dependant relation to real-world areas and places.

The goal is to set up a new literary history of Europe, spatially structured and cartographically supported. Allowing for individual queries, visualisations and ongoing addition of data, the atlas system opens a promising new horizon for literary studies.

Keywords: literature, fiction, setting, literary theory, literary geography, literary atlas, maps, interactive mapping, interactive atlas, visualisation, imprecise geography, statistical surfaces, database.

Piatti, B. (2008); Reuschel, A.K.; Bär, H. R.; Hurni, L.:Die Geographie der Fiktion - Das Projekt 'Ein literarischer Atlas Europas'. In: Kartographische Nachrichten 06/2008, S. 287-294. → Download [6.7MB]

A Literay Atlas of Europe

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Published in german: A.K.Reuschel (2011), B.Piatti: »Ein Literarischer Atlas Europas« In: Geoinformationssysteme, Prof. Dr. M. Schilcher (Hrsg.), Beiträge zum 16. Münchner Fortbildungsseminar, abcverlag → Download [3.5 MB]