Evie Ruddy is a digital media artist, freelance journalist and creative writer, specializing in digital story telling. “Village Voices: An Audio Walking Tour of the Cathedral Area,” while evidently a form of digital story telling, is also a cybercartographic map. Cybercartography is defined as “The organization, presentation, analysis and communication of spatially referenced information on a wide range of topics of interest and use to society in an interactive, dynamic, multimedia and multi sensory format (Taylor, N.D., p.2).”
This interactive, GPS located and triggered audio map shares personal and collective histories through a multi-media multi-sensory experience, facilitated through a smart phone audio guide application called izi.TRAVEL. This map prioritizes spatially located qualitative information over the creation of a graphic artifact. Its significance lies in its content, its utility, and its focus of performance and narrative.
When it comes to learning about our environments in all capacities this fully immersive and ’bottom-up’ method of communicating location-based information is very meaningful. It triggers emotional responses to location based information
One of the short fallings of this map is it its reliance access to smart phone technology. Only those privileged with the ability to spend 100$+/mo on a phone plan have access to the full, 1:1 audio map experience. This platform also relies heavily on the use of Google Maps imagery, appropriating the issues that come along side it.
Follow
Tatum, this was a very interesting project. The narrative between transversing the physical landscape and the storytelling from those who inhabit the spaces create a very intriguing visual narrative for the viewer. Like the women “…to shovel snow”, you can imagine her in your mind. Love it.