Else Where

ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING explores the importance of maps as aids to navigation, understanding, and cultural representation. Traditionally written by history's victors, maps are gaining new currency in our information-saturated age as a means of making arguments and processes visible. Mapping technologies today are as diverse as the agendas driving them: the human body is mapped with 3-D software, buildings are mapped with lasers, and cities are mapped by satellite. ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING proposesby visual example and written analysisthat mapmaking is a fundamental design process, one that shapes the physical and conceptual dimensions of contemporary multicultural society. ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING is the second installment in an international visual/verbal collaboration focusing on the design implications of new technologies. It follows the award-winning book IF/THEN: PLAY, published in 1999, and is designed by Amsterdam studio Mevis + van Deursen. Janet Abrams is director of the University of Minnesota Design Institute. She edited IF/THEN while working at the Netherlands Design Institute, Amsterdam. Peter Hall is senior editor at the University of Minnesota Design Institute and a contributing writer to Metropolis magazine. Distributed for the University of Minnesota Design Institute