Reviews

Hypercities: Thick Mapping in the Digital Humanities by David Shepard, Todd Presner, Yoh Kawano

partypete's review against another edition

5.0

really interesting history and inquiry into the burgeoning intersection between information systems and studies in the humanities. some of the danielewski-esque interludes were unnecessary or needlessly esoteric, but overall a very interesting read

legsbian's review

medium-paced

4.0

Really interesting, dynamic book that brings up provocative questions about digital mapping and plays around a lot with historicity and futurity. Todd Presner, who seems to be the main narrator for the HyperCities project, is a phenomenal writer. The last chapter lost me a little, but I still highly recommend this book!

“Mapping is not a one-time thing, and maps are not stable objects that reference, reflect, or correspond to an external reality. Mapping is a verb and bespeaks an on-going process of picturing, narrating, symbolizing, contesting, re-picturing, re-narrating, re-symbolizing, erasing, and re-inscribing a set of relations. On its most fundamental level, a map is a graphical representation of a set of relations. Maps are visual arguments and stories; they make claims and harbor ideals, hopes, desires, biases, prejudices, and violences. They are always relational, in dialogue or contact with someone or something. [...] Maps are representations of the world, which reference other representations. When we are georeferencing historical maps, we are not “correcting” them or making them “accurate”; instead, we are keying one representation to another representation (not to reality).” (15)