September 3rd, 2009
The Map as the New Media Metaphor
Maps are the on-screen meaphor that’s best suited to capture and cope with a realm of networks.
Moving images used to be hostages to screens, both large (cinema) and small (television). But, the advent of broadband and the Internet has rendered visuals independent of specific hardware and, therefore, portable. One can watch video on a bewildering array of devices, wired and wireless, and then e-mail the images, embed them in blogs, upload and download them, store them online (”cloud computing”) or offline, and, in general, use them as raw material in mashups or other creative endeavours.