How can you show specific places in detail on a map? Traditionally this is made by choosing the appropriate scale, say, for example 1 kilometer = 1 centimeter. Local maps will use a small scale to show a city, or a neighborhood. Global maps that show the whole world will use a large scale.
This map uses a varying scale, that allows you to focus on one local feature (here a GPS trace of a walk made in Calais by artist Rajwa Thomé). But to keep in your eye the notion that this place belongs in and is connected to the whole world. It uses a cartographic projection designed by the radical cartographer and antiwar activist William Bunge. I implemented this projection in Javascript so that it could run live in a web browser.
Keywords for this map: projection, deformation, local, global, scale, un-scale
Second map (or PAM) is also based on some of the GPS traces by Rajwa Thomé. I made while listening to the group's discussion about ways to break out the map paradigm. The display tries to put in parallel the rhythm and velocities of different movements that cross paths in Calais. The movement of the artist walking around. The movement is blurred, fuzzy, amplifying the random noise that the GPS tracker always adds to the military-precision GPS signal. Some other lines show the driving speed of cars. The scale is different, so you cannot compare the place, but only the rhythms of the movements. The yellow line tracks the Eurostar train, connecting France to England and entering the channel tunnel in Calais. The waiting of migrants (picture of François Zajega's installation feedback screen). Lastly, the flows of financial information that uses microwave antennas to transmit "high frequency trading" orders between the financial places in Frankfurt and London, which, as demonstrated by ethnographer Alexandre Laumonier, also cross the channel in Calais.
Keywords for this map: networks, flows, un-center, un-scale, velocity, fuzziness, stillness.