Dreams, Longings, Memories - Visualising the Dimension of Projected Spaces in Fiction

→ Download at the bottom of the page

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

Es lächelt der See – Literary Hikinguide at Rotpunktverlag

Impessions from the advanced announcement of the new book publication:

Modelling Uncertain Geodata for the Literary Atlas of Europe

→ Download at the bottom of the page

Abstract: Mapping literary spaces is an interdisciplinary challenge for both literary theory and cartographic realisation. The inherent properties of textual space compared to real-world geospace are introduced and discussed in relation to build a data model for the on-going project, 'Literary Atlas of Europe'. Spatial descriptions in fiction are often vague, transformed or hardly locatable within the real-world geospace which serves as basis for the analysis and visualisation. To reflect the fictional world, additional attributes and composed geometries are required. To solve the problem, an attributed spatial data model was developed to meet the requirements for a comparative, flexible study of literary spaces with numerous thematical questions. Using this model, spatial data of fictional texts were classified into settings, zones of actions, projected spaces, routes and marker. To emphasise the complexity of the model, the internal structure and diversity are illustrated with the examples of the spatial objects setting and route.

More information about the data model, with excerpts from the paper can be found on the following page: → Link

Reuschel, Anne-Kathrin (2012); Hurni, Lorenz : Modelling Uncertain Geodata for the Literary Atlas of Europe. In: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Understanding Different Geographies, Karel Kriz et al.(eds.), Berlin Heidelberg: Springer, pp.135-157. → Download

From the text to the map – Literary geography an impulse generator (Original title: Vom Text zur Karte - Literaturkartographie als Ideengenerator)

→ Download at the bottom of the page

Piatti, Barbara (2012): Vom Text zur Karte. Literaturkartographie als Ideengenerator. In: Kartographisches Denken. Hrsg. von Christian Reder. Wien: Springer 2012, S. 269-279. → Download

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

→ Download at the bottom of the page

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)

→ Download POSTER [2.8MB]

Reading with Maps. Plea for a viualised Geography of Fiction (Original title: Mit Karten lesen. Plädoyer für eine visualisierte Geographie der Literatur)

→ Download at the bottom of the page

Barbara Piatti: Mit Karten lesen. Plädoyer für eine visualisiere Geographie der Literatur. In: Boothe, B., Bühler, P. et al. (Hrsg.): Textwelt -Lebenswelt. Interpretation interdisziplinär Bd. 10. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2012, S. 261-288. → Download

Mapping Literature: Visualisation of Spatial Uncertainty in Fiction

→ Download at the bottom of the page

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

Improved Density Estimation for the Visualisation of Literary Spaces

→ Download at the bottom of the page

Abstract: The elements that constitute the literary space can mainly be described by categories such as settings, zones where actions take place and routes along which characters move. Apart from the presentation of the specific locations and spatial distribution of literary places, we are also interested in the spatial pattern such places form, the boundaries that separate the literarily populated from the void regions and the varying density of the literary space. From a GIS point of view, the elements of the literary space correspond to point, line and area data types. However, the established method used to calculate the spatially varying density - the method of density estimation - is restricted to point data only. In this paper, we will present an improved method that is able to estimate the density regardless of the underlying data type. Our approach aims at adopting the typically radially symmetric kernel function to approximate also linear and areal features. We claim that this method treats point, line and area data in a consistent way by taking equivalent density contributions into account. The different steps of the improved method can visually be examined by the accompanying map examples.

Baer, Hans Rudolf (2011), Hurni, Lorenz: »Improved Density Estimation for the Visualisation of Literary Spaces« In: The Cartographic Journal, Special Issue Cartographies of Fictional Worlds, 48.4 (2011), S. 309-316. → Download

Mapping the Ontologically Unreal - Counterfactual Spaces in Literature and Cartography

→ Download at the bottom of the page

This paper deals with the realm of alternate worlds. Although the emphasis of such creations relies on historical alteration (resulting in an alternate time stream), settings can impressively support the historical alternative: most alternate history plots come with shifted or even newly drawn political borders and are set in transformed urban and rural spaces. Not surprisingly, actual maps or at least remarkably detailed layouts of the geographical framework play a significant role. In other words, counterfactual spaces can be mapped with words or cartographic symbols; they can be both told and visualized. By including both concepts from the field of theory of the narrative and from a cartographer's point of view, focus is laid on various strategies in order to map and/or remap cities, countries, as well as entire geopolitical situations.

Piatti, B. (2009); Hurni, L.: → Mapping the Ontologically Unreal - Counterfactual Spaces in Literature and Cartography. The Cartographic Journal, Volume 46, Number 4, Art & Cartography Special Issue, November 2009, pp. 333-342 (10), Maney Publishing → Download

Cartographies of Fictional Worlds (Editorial)

→ Download at the bottom of the page

This editorial provides an overview about past and current developments in the dynamic field of literary geography/literary cartography. It also alludes to the collection of papers presented in this special issue dedicated to »Cartographies of Fictional Worlds« - each of them handpicked by the guest editors Barbara Piatti and Lorenz Hurni.

→ The range of maps presented in this special issue is already impressive, from hand-painted pieces of art with the poetic appeal of the collage to highly sophisticated automatically rendered statistical surfaces, based on density algorithms.

The editorial has to be seen as a passionate plea for literary geography and literary cartography in terms of not only academic, but general benefit:

→ A literary-geographical reading can change our understanding - not only of books, but of the world we live in. It creates knowledge. Through literary geography, we learn more about the production of places, their historical layers, their meanings, functions and symbolic values. If places emerge from a combination of real elements and fictional accounts, then literary geography and literary cartography can work as a very efficient eye-opener.

Piatti, Barbara; Hurni, Lorenz (2011):Cartographies of Fictional Worlds (Editorial), The Cartographic Journal, Volume 48, Number 4, November 2011, pp. 218-223(6), Maney Publishing → Download