A map gives the visuals and the words, but to combine the two is what makes the viewer connect with that piece of paper, and there stood my first challenge. My visuals and words would fall flat if the map was unable to get the viewer to interact and experience the city. Here I reinforced the idea of mixing the fictional with the nonfictional, and merging stories. Adding existing landmarks into a fictional city gave the viewer a certain sense of ‘finding their bearings’ in this otherwise unknown territory. The second step becomes almost instinctively to explore the city, and while you explore you take a certain route, and that route is also full of its own landmarks. If the fictional landmarks just act as labels, it would feel almost sterile, so I gave each landmark a backstory. This way I was able to add an experience to my fictional printed maps. The stories in return acted as citations, giving the map social assent, a certain validation.
UNDERSTANDING MAPS Before I could even start creating my maps I needed to know what a map was, to understand what a map did and how it did that. Initially my project was titled, ‘A Tourists Guide to Bangalore’s Parallel Universes’. Disregarding the obvious semantics of that title, the aim of the project was to create a functional map of a fictional city which stems from a familiar reality. A map has to be something that fulfills not only function but creates a desire to discover and explore. It becomes a tangible form of a city, which extends beyond regular social hierarchy, much like a phone directory, it becomes a singular source of information. It requires you to return to it time and again, not limiting its audience by access to technology.
“if maps are but partial truths masquerading as the whole story, lies layered on top of lies, nests of interests advancing one cause at the expense of 48