Cyberspace Atlas
October 29, 2008
Some readers might still remember the website “An Atlas of Cyberspaces” at cybergeography.org, now unfortunately only available as a static online archive. Back in the days, it was a very inspirational site that collected various “information maps” that explored the realm of graphical representations of “cyberspace”, and of Internet networks in particular.
Now imagine a website in early 2000 that contains “visualizations” ranging from geographical ISP backbone networks, over 3D virtual worlds, to screenshots of the movies Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix. Imagine a website that featured Brad Paley’s textarc, Judith Donath’s PeopleGarden, as well as Ben Fry’s master thesis Tendril. It blew my mind. In fact, it was one of the main influencing factors for my own growing interest towards design and visualization. And it probably was the predecessor of the very weblog you are reading right now.
Gunilla Elam, Ericsson Medialab
Anyway, connected to this website was a book that originally appeared in 2002. Its contents are now freely available as a series of high resolution (228MB) PDF sections available here [kitchin.org]. The book gives an interesting overview of the early years of (more “popular” forms of) data visualization, including chapters about mapping Internet infrastructure and traffic flows, mapping the Web, mapping online conversation and community, imagining cyberspace in art, literature, and film. It comes highly recommended. (text by Infosthetics)
Paul Kahn
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson, NCSA, UIUC
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