The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

You are here #2
|| 6/8/2006 || 10:45 pm || Comments Off on You are here #2 || ||

Location: Calvert & Cliffbourne, NW, Washington, DC
Durantion: Up for less than two weeks.

In hindsight, I wish I would have placed it farther up the block on a street sign that wasn’t leaning!

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You Are Here #1
|| 6/5/2006 || 10:27 pm || Comments Off on You Are Here #1 || ||

Location: Corner of T & 14th St., NW, Washington, DC
Duration: Taken down on 06/28/07

So I read about “Hitchhikers” last week and was inspired to make my own. I took a piece of scrap wood I found on the street and glued a tessellated aerial photograph of the exact in which it is hanging. Within the photograph there are two arrows pointing to the exact same location but only one is the geographically correct location. This creates a cartographical paradox of being at two places at once, which we all know is impossible. Or is it?

I am excited about challenging the actual definition of what defines a street map. Is it a map of streets that you use when driving? Or a map seen while walking down the street? Or a way to get lost?

My Artist Talk At The Old Print Gallery
|| 10/16/2010 || 12:08 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

background map: Park La Brea Quilt #2

Yesterday, Friday, October 15th, I gave an artist talk at the Old Print Gallery in conjunction with my exhibition. The screen grab above is from a special opening slide that I made for the talk. Its the first HTML page that I have used the auto-refresh tag. It was designed to cycle through different maps every 10 seconds before the lecture began. I might add this feature to the front page of the website now that I see that it works. The talk lasted a little over an hour and included a brief Q & A at the end. Thank you to everyone who came.

Below are the “slides” that I used for my presentation and most are hyperlinked to their original entries:

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[Found Map] The 3rd District Police Station in Washington, DC
|| 12/16/2009 || 9:20 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Found Map on a display at the 3rd District Police Station in Washington, DC

Over the holidays I’ve had friend’s come and visit me. When they drive to Washington, DC, I always go to the police station to get my guests temporary parking permits. Two weeks ago I noticed this display on the opposite side of the station and decided to snap a couple photos. I don’t know who designed the display, but think the juxtaposition of the photographs on the map was interesting. What this map does lack, interestingly, is a little red dot that says you are here. The photograph and the map has no geovisual correlation because the map makes no reference to the location of the Third District Police Station. Is it possible that the layout was generic and the detail photograph was inserted for each of the different police departments? I have not been to any other stations, so I don’t know if the police in 2D are as lucky as 3D. I like the display, I just wish there was a better geographic connection embodied within it. I could add one. Maybe I should. A bonus would be the map of where Zone 1 and Zone 2 parking permits are allowed. I’ve asked officers present if they had one they could show me and they’ve never had one. This important boundary map helps ensure all citizens are given the appropriate Zone to park in. Thankfully I live in a permeable boundary that allows both Zones, but what if you live in an area that is one Zone only and you happen to get the wrong one and your guest gets a $100 ticket? Not fun.

Postmodern Cartography: You Are Probably Not Here
|| 8/8/2009 || 2:56 pm || 3 Comments Rendered || ||

Just click!

You’ve probably seen a map sometime in your lifetime that proclaims YOU ARE HERE. Well what if you are looking at a random location? You could actually be there, but you are probably not. I first came up with this postmodern cartographic concept back in December of 2007 when I made the first graphic. Yesterday I decided to expand the concept by adding new graphics and making a webpage dedicated to the concept. It currently features only 8 different foreground graphics that are randomly displayed over two folders of map ‘zoom-ins’ (146 close up & 136 far away) originally used in “American Stereography #3.” I hope to add more foreground graphics over time and I would also like to update the background image folders with newer imagery because the page currently shows only maps that I made in 2006.

Total number of visual combinations: 2256 = (146 X 8) + (136 X 8)

Just click click click to cycle through the images

Related Lost Series Entries:

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The D.C. Colonist receives a warm welcome from Senator Joe Lieberman at today’s Business Meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
|| 2/11/2009 || 2:43 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Roll Call’s photo of the week from April, 2007

Today I attended the Business Meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs dressed in my colonial attire. I wear this costume for every congressional hearing related to representation for the residents of Washington, DC. I arrived early enough to snag a decent seat and sat down next to my friend Shadow Senator Michael D. Brown. As the other Senators arrived for the meeting he & I chatted about ideas related to what we can do next to get statehood for the District of Columbia.

A few minutes later when Senator Joe Lieberman walked in, Shadow Senator Michael D. Brown stood up, greeted him, and shook his hand. Senator Lieberman then looks at me and said something along the lines of “I’m glad to see that we have a colonist here. Do you go by the name of Paul Revere?” I said, “No, I’m just a DC colonist.” He followed, “So you don’t have a name? Just ‘DC Colonist’?” and I responded, “I’m just a DC Colonist that suffers taxation without representation.” He smiled, walked over to the end of the table, and sat down at his seat. A few minutes later the hearing began and he decided to greet me publicly…..

Click here to listen to the audio
or
Click here to watch the video

[to watch the video, you first need to hit play, then scroll the slider over to about 21:10 to watch the introduction]

Senator Lieberman said:

I do want to note and welcome Mayor Fenty of the District of Columbia we are honored that you are here and a somewhat older resident of the District from colonial times [laughter] also present. I gather you are making the general point about taxation without representation [off camera I nod in the affirmative]. Okay I don’t need to make my case any stronger than that [laughter]. Thank you for being here.

Also worthy of mention is that later on in the hearing (at around 43:15 into the video), Senator George Voinovich mentions the time when the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were in Washington, DC and we lobbied them on the Potomac River (right photo). Hearing him mention that day made me laugh. It was one of my favorite demonstrations I’ve ever taken part in! I remember watching the parliamentarians applaud our efforts from the ship and the following day they passed a resolution calling on the United States government to give DC residents congressional representation.

In the end, only Senator John McCain voted against the bill, S.R. 160, the senate version of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009, and it passed the committee with a vote of 11-1. Unfortunately, I agree with McCain’s opinion, only states should receive representation in Congress.

I feel that DC Vote and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton wasted a huge opportunity to give DC residents equal representation in Congress by reintroducing this three-year-old, constitutionally questionable legislation that was written for a Republican controlled congress. Times have changed, however, the bill and its constitutional underpinnings have not. I’m not sure what will happen next to the bill, like when will it be voted on, but I am sure it will be challenged on it’s constitutionality. In the meantime, I’m going to continue to work with my Shadow Delegation on lobbying for statehood for the District of Columbia.

UPDATE: February 12th, 2009 – Comedian Stephan Colbert interviewed Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton the following night:

The Colbert ReportMon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

DC Voting Rights Act – Eleanor Holmes Norton

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

Its too bad the editors missed the chance with the Colonist…

Related Colonist Entries:

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My New York Map Society Presentation at the New York Public Library
|| 10/4/2008 || 7:03 pm || Comments Off on My New York Map Society Presentation at the New York Public Library || ||

Below are the “slides” used in my presentation for the New York Map Society. Culled from the last four years of entries on this website, the selected maps show the range of my cartographic endeavors. What is missing, however, is my explanation of why I chose each slide.

The presentation was was supposed to go for about 45 minutes and have about 15 minutes of Q&A, instead it went for about 75 minutes and had about 15 minutes of Q&A. In all, I felt it was a very successful presentation and I deeply grateful for the New York Map Society for inviting me and the wonderful staff at the New York Public Library for their assistance.

Sensor Spatial Analysis

Park Circle Quilt – Quicktime Virtual Reality

North, South, East, Westminster – Outdoor Installation

View the entire presentation:

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A Ziploc Bag of Leftovers Overlooked
|| 8/9/2008 || 6:48 pm || Comments Off on A Ziploc Bag of Leftovers Overlooked || ||

The video above shows Thursday night’s dinner in a gallon ZiplocÂ® bag with the text “You are here” left outside of the “Quart Bag” group art exhibit at the Civilian Art Projects. It was supposed to compliment my piece as locationally humorous street art. I only wish I would have taken more quality video to put this together, but I overlooked that technicality myself. Woops.

Check the photos from Friday night here, here, and here.

Du Er Her
|| 3/1/2008 || 11:40 am || Comments Off on Du Er Her || ||

Du Er Her = You Are Here (in Danish)

About a month ago I was contacted by the author of the book “You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination.” She was interested in using one of my maps for her upcoming book (expect another posting in the not-so-distant future about this). One of my daily reads as of late is Copenhagen Cycle Chic. It’s a simple blog that shows photographs of women on bicycles in the Denmark’s capital city. Looking at the photographs everyday make me want to move to Copenhagen. The other day while I was looking through the author’s Flickr photostream I spotted the photo above and smiled.

you are not here – splash page update
|| 12/12/2007 || 10:38 pm || Comments Off on you are not here – splash page update || ||

For the last few month’s I’ve been rumenating over what images I should display on my website’s splash page. I’ve enjoyed having the “Socio Ditata Labore” engraving up, it captured that time of my life perfectly. This morning I came up with an ironic catchphrase that I felt would make a humorous graphic that could be used in conjunction with the engraving: “you are probably not here.” It’s quite possibly the antithesis of the popular catchphrase “you are here.” Even the loading graphic on the Festival of Maps website uses the iconic dot with the words “you are here.” What if a random place in America was chosen instead? There is a slight possibility that the dot would indicate that you REALLY are (t)here. Chances are you won’t be (t)here, but you will be at my website at least….

I also added a scan of a 250 Dinar bill featuring Saddam Hussein, an updated armillary sphere, cell phone photo of my You Are Here street art, and SloMo the Statehood Snail.

There are currently 6 randomly chosen graphics to compliment the 1891 images in the directory. By doing the math, that means there are 11,346 different combinations (and counting) on my website’s splash page and every new Quilt projection map will add 30 new combinations.

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: