MAPPING

"Make a map, not a tracing!"
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

Mapping is a form of analysis... digging and finding unseen relationships 

As a follow-up to our great conversations on the power of LINE to make unseen relationships between points... here is an amazing This American Life story talks about the act of mapping

Here are some drawings by some students at Pratt that use act of mapping to reveal new systems of organization (here revealing the flow of capital within a city) and spaces on the page.

analysis mapping the ancient Chinese city of Lii Jiang, China and its ever increasing cycles of capitalism (Christopher Egervary and Alex Drabyk)

composite drawing showing network relations (Christopher Egervary and Alex Drabyk)

If interested, here is a fantastic reading:

James Corner, The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique & Invention, 1999 
Maps describe relationships and organizations. They prioritize specific types of information (space, time, value, emotion, connectivity, etc.). They differentiate types and degrees of information through notation. Maps construct the unconscious – what is not yet understood. 
The process of mapping, as outlined by Corner in The Agency of Mapping, involves three stages: first, set the field of information to map and the system by which to map; second, select and isolate the data to be mapped; third, draw out relationships that re-connect the data.

James Corner explains mapping in his essay, The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention as "a creative practice, mapping precipitates its most productive effects through a finding that is also a founding; its agency lies in neither reproduction nor imposition but rather in uncovering realities previously unseen or unimagined." Mapping does not represent the obvious but rather uncovers a hidden truth that exists between the layering of information. With your analysis exercises you should be prepared to explain how the mapping revealed unique characteristics about your performance. What does the map reveal to you?