Dublin 7
A writing/mapping project.
Last January I wrote one short character sketch every weekday for Januariad. Twenty-three in all. I’ve been thinking (and working) since on a way to archive these sketches in a coherent presentation. As each individual was based on a real person, I personally thought of them corresponding to a place, a location. Collectively expressing a neighbourhood. Almost all of them were observed in the area of Dublin 7, my postal district. A number were observed in the Phoenix Park, which is technically and strangely Dublin 8, but I am ignoring that distinction for this presentation.
So here is Dublin 7, a map/text page with the character sketches mapped against the approximate location of their original inspiration.
I have worked and reworked this site for several months. Far too long, far too many iterations for something that will be read by two dozen people. I have strong reservations about the introduction of interactive elements to enhance the reading experience. Recent journalistic forays such as Snow Fall and its louder, flashier heirs have brought this tension to the fore. There is writing and there is supplementary information. There is also decoration. There are now intertext videos, gifs, sound effects. How much of this enhances understanding? How much detracts from the text? What is augmentation and what is interference? A map seems to suit this collection, but maybe it is only a piece of tinsel.
The most interesting part of it for me was the construction of the map, assembled using OpenStreetMap data hunted down in obscure resources, and styled and hosted at Mapbox using their wonderful tool TileMill. The starting point was a mapbox tutorial. Available maps did not correspond to the information (or lack of it) I needed for this page. The shape of Dublin is all I wanted. The impression of it. The narrowing point of the Park, the familiar slow widening of the Liffey.
There’s something oddly romantic about assembling a map. Importing the seas, rivers, roads, railways and open spaces in individual layers. The application of colours, weights. So much is revealed or hidden in the contrasts. Every element is tangible, but waxes or wanes in relation to other forces. Beauty emerges from data. I present this data with the text, which makes it sound crucial. Perhaps it isn’t. I am feeling my way here.
