MENTAL MAPS

Perhaps the best map for getting lost was imagined by Lewis Carroll in The Hunting of the Snark. The character of Bellman describes it as “a perfect and absolute blank.” This map, however, is not entirely blank, for it contains the directions of the compass and a rectangular border—elements that qualify it as a functional map.

Our personal maps can be detailed or abstract; they may not even look like maps by any given standard. When we set out without purpose, our inner cartographers not only draw their own maps; they also come up with a set of tools, symbols, and signs.

In a world of digital maps, what possible function could a hand-drawn map have?

ASSIGNMENT 6: MAP

Create a map of your own function and design. It can look and function as a real map, or it can be completely removed from reality. It may have a complex set of symbols and signs, placenames, directions and markings, or it can be completely wordless.

Format: square, any size.