NACIS 2018

Precision and chaos in gunpowder maps (10 minutes)
Presenter: Nick Martinelli, Apple
Controlled chaos and precision are topics for this gunpowder mapping presentation. There are several Methods for controlling and manipulating the incendiary process to get a desired outcome. How much control is appropriate? Differences in results will be explained. Finally I will discuss what is gained and what is lost when manipulating the level of control over the chaos that makes gunpowder maps distinctive.

Confluence and Beyond: Explorations in gunpowder mapping (continued...) (10 minutes)
Presenter: Matt Dooley, University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Copresenter: Hailey Sauer, University of Wisconsin-River Falls
Gunpowder mapping, a technique grounded in contemporary art, involves the controlled burning of paper through the ignition of gunpowder through a stencil. It provides a novel approach to the mapping process that encourages collaboration between makers, spurs conversations about geography and our environment, and crosses the digital divide. In this presentation, we discuss our recent work in gunpowder mapping focused on river systems in the central and southeastern U.S. as well as the Saint Croix Watershed in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Abstraction and Experience in Nature: Layering Perceptions of Place
Presenter: Lauren Rosenthal McManus, Independent Artist
Ecology serves as the conceptual framework of my investigation and maps provide the visual language for my expression. My recent drawings are made using pigments derived from rocks collected along lakes and streams; they are geographical blueprints layered with artifacts of a human connection to place. Lacking the markers by which we usually locate and navigate, these maps offer an opportunity to re-orient, to identify with and within the patterns of nature. By reframing boundaries and exposing vital bioregional relationships, these works highlight our inherent interdependence.

But What About the Place
Presenter: Steven R Holloway, toMakeTM Press & Editions
Have you been to the place itSelf? Making a map is about place, and place is something that is both other than, but also ourself - an interwoven and dynamic relationship. Making should involve a conscious exploration with this otherness before a mark is made; with emptiness of mind and intent. 'I wake to sleep, and . . . learn by mapping where I stop to map.' Our mark-mapping presents the opportunity of a moral center, no left or right, only the voice of the Place. You have to be on the side of the Place, the whole interwoven inclusiveness within which we live.

Beneath the Surface: Mapping with Intaglio
Presenter: Jake Coolidge, Colorado State Univ./National Park Service
Drawing maps by hand led me to rediscover intaglio, or etching, as a means to further explore the expressive dimensions of cartography. In this talk I'll discuss my initial foray into hand-printed cartography–a simple map of Mt. Rainier–as well as more recent projects and experiments. Etching a copper plate, working its surface with hand tools, inking it, and running it through a press spurs an exchange between the cartographer and the print medium that I have only begun to explore.