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technically if they were produced within the necessary technical parameters—a consequence of the «illusion of a universal (because technicized) intelligibility of images»? [21] So with these questions in the background the phenomenon of navigation and mapping cyberspace, but also images and text, moves centre stage.
In his publications since 1983, Edward R. Tufte has summed up his experiences as a graphic designer making visual presentations and maps. Here he confronts the Modernist dogma of «less is more» (Mies van der Rohe, Robert Venturi) with the data display dogma «less is a bore»: «Well-designed small multiples are inevitably comparative; deftly multivariate; shrunken high-density graphics based on a large data-matrix drawn almost entirely with data-ink; efficient in interpretation; often narrative in content; showing shifts in the relationship between variables as the index variable changes (thereby revealing interaction or multiplicative effects).» [22] But artistic/scientific applications in particular can make it
particularly clear how much the map depends not just on design, in other words on creative artistic input, but also on users and the deployment of dynamic presentation options. Being able to generate maps mechanically and algorithmically and also present them in electronic form underlines the fact that the map is just temporary, thus manifesting itself as a fleeting point in time.
Mapping, the process of making a map or superimposing two different areas, and navigation, exploring a space (a stretch of road) are two complementary «art of action» modes (Michel de Certeau). A number of artworks have addressed the theme of maps in order to track down events and actions and locate themselves topographically. They have formulated a «liberated cartography strategy,» [23] without creating a specific view of the link between digitalization and electronic networking. This is all the more astonishing as scaling, the fact that the scale can be changed, is directly analogous with the zoom function used in optical techniques, so it is definitely always conveyed and broadcast digitally and telematically. These connections will be presented in
