NACIS 2019

What Cartography Is: An Introduction
Presenter: Mark Denil, sui generis
Cartographers do not generally distinguish between making maps – engaging in cartographic practice – and consideration of cartography as a practice. It is, in fact, often assumed that the former subsumes the latter. We have seen, however, that many questions – of motivation, ethics, or aesthetics, to mention a few – cannot be adequately addressed internally. Appeals to map-making as story telling or as science are similarly unsatisfactory. This paper will not attempt a complete definition of cartography as a practice, but instead an introduction to the connection of a practice of cartography to a world in which cartography is practiced.

Tools for Personal Web Cartography - A Critical Review
Presenter: Stephanie May
Personal cartography is markedly different from the maps we make for clients at work, in terms of how we relate to and represent the content, and how we use and share them - field notes, directions scribbled on a napkin, marked places in your phone app. Nevertheless this is at the core of how people use maps, and of how we psychically understand place. This talk explores personal mapmaking in everyday life, from theoretical frameworks to use cases, and with this basis, looks at the everyday web mapping tools we use. Can web cartography measure up?

Hidden Costs: Towards a More Sustainable Digital Cartography
Presenter: John Swab, University of Kentucky
What does a sustainable cartography look like? While maps are often utilized for sustainability-driven work, environmental concerns have often been of little importance to the practice of cartography. In this presentation, I address the sustainability of digital cartography by offering fresh insights into the material, financial, and environmental costs of mapping. Proceeding chronologically through the lifecycle of a digital cartography project opens new vistas to understanding the unintended impacts of our craft on the world. Additionally, this presentation seeks to integrate larger debates around sustainability in data studies into conversation within cartography.

Why we should all think of our maps as art
Presenter: David Smith, Rutgers University
Styling of maps is more than an expression of the aesthetic tastes of the cartographer or prevailing sensibilities of the field. Color, texture, contrast, etc. all provide cues that affect how the reader understands and responds to the spatial information being presented. At the core of art is the exploration of how these variables convey meaning beyond the simple diagrammatic representation of the subject. I argue that consciously engaging in artistic thinking in the design of all maps, including "scientific" maps, can help us guide readers toward the understanding we want them to gain from the information we present.

Animate space
Presenter: Nick Lally, University of Kentucky
Co-presenter: Luke Bergmann, University of British Columbia
In the interest of expanding the possibilities for cartographic visualizations of space, we have previously suggested a generalization of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to broader realms of geographical imagination systems (gis). Here, we share cartographic workflows that use an experimental prototype gis, "Enfolding", along with Blender to produce animated maps of relational spaces. Enfolding allows the cartographer to reconsider and redefine distances–which may represent affective connections, communicative links, travel times, or other creative understandings of distance–and change them over time. In resultant maps, space becomes dynamic, relational, and processual, opening new possibilities for communication with current research in human geography.