MAPPING GAMES
Mapping Games We make maps, "...wherever we go, whenever we go, out of our movement on foot and in car, in boat and in plane, out of pictures we see and movies we watch, out of the things we read in the newspapers and hear on the radio, out of the books we read, the maps we consult, out of the atlases we flip through… out of the globes we spin. It is all labor, it is all work, the construction of these mental realms; and when we draw on them - for even the most mundane activity - we are bringing forward into the present this wealth we have laid up through the sweat of our brows."1
Maps re-present to their viewers, though a code of signs; "...a code can be said to be an assignment scheme (or rule) coupling or apportioning items or elements from a conveyed system (the signified) to a conveying system (the signifier)." 2 By presenting the viewer with a map stripped of these signs, one can explore the idea of a map as a locatory tool for illustrating the relationships that exist between points in space.
The complexity of such a map lies not in the association of signifier and signified, but rather, in the numerous ways in which its various parts can be seen as part of, and individual components in, the whole. The process of mapping a series of spatial relationships, in which forms are highly abstracted, can be used to determine a system of spatial and temporal codes. Transferring this code from a simple conceptual model to one which is more particular and increasingly complex, will allow similar relationships to be easily identified and represented; the lessons learned and made manifest in the construction of this mental realm, can now be made to work toward a greater understanding of the relationships inherent in a particular place.