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

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

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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 â€" Literaturkartographie als Ideengenerator)

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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

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

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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