As I sit here struggling with a major research paper, which has a very good chance of becoming the backbone of my Masters thesis, I keep thinking about Geography in general and what the hell that word means.

Most people when I tell them I’m getting a Masters (and eventually a PhD) in Geography assume that it has something to do with maps. Maps that have cities and countries and rivers and roads on them. Not so much. There’s definitely that in geography (even in my crazy department), but that’s not the kind of geography I’m doing. I’m interested in the way space is generated — by humans, objects, animals, machines, and software. Because space isn’t absolute (Newton was wrong!!), it changes constantly as humans and objects interact to form new spaces and the space itself pushes back as it is generated, creating an incredibly complex feedback mechanism/system. Even books are spaces as every writer knows. Spaces that (no matter how much we wish it weren’t true) are generated between the reader, the writer, and the text. Every time you write a story, you are making space and every reader works with that space and shapes it into another hybrid space. Sometimes that hybrid space is beautiful and sometimes it’s a giant mess. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

So the only maps I look at? Maps like the beautiful things at Information Aesthetics which are, essentially new ways of visualizing data spaces. In a way, that’s what I’m doing: creating unconventional maps of virtual spaces. Maps made of metaphors and text for the most part.

Did you forget the part where I’m a geek? This post should refresh your memory.