Mapping context series

This is a very interesting set of projects done some years ago by Dietmar Offenhuber:  subjective geographies in which the city is analysed through some particular point of views: 5 minutes places, Los Angeles in relative space, Loopcity .

http://web.media.mit.edu/~dietmar/MappingContext/

“We usually consider space as being structured by absolute units. A meter is considered to have a constant length regardless of its position in space. However, in our daily life we often use units that are relative in nature: we measure space in minutes, costs or memories.

Wegzeit is a project about Los Angeles and how it is transformed when brought to relative space. Asking someone in L.A. about the distance between two locations usually prompts a response in minutes. It seems paradoxical that people rely on subjective parameters for their spatial decisions in a city with a largely regular, cartesian layout. But especially here, where the influences of physical space are leveled by this regularity, the importance of subjective, relative spaces become visible more strongly.
The project consists of six dynamic virtual environments that propose models of how to visualize three-dimensional relative spaces. They deal with certain properties and effects caused by the nature of relative space such as the asymmetry of temporal distances.”

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