The Map Designers moving on to Manchester

The eager response to The British Cartographic Society 'once in a lifetime event', The Map Designers seminar in Glasgow in November 2006, has prompted us to review the prospect of a 'one off'.

Not only did those who came enjoy the day as a forum for shared ideas about map design, but they also expressed the feeling that this event could be the start of a whole new focus on the interface between cartography, map-graphics and map art.  It seems that once is not enough.  Even just taking into account the short papers presented by our three guest speakers, the breadth and depth of cartographic activity from outside the profession is staggering.  Cartography is blossoming in areas we never imagined and in its contact with the arts has fashioned new ground for discussion and experience.  Where cartography is concerned 'tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis' - times change and we change with them.  If you missed details of our Glasgow event and therefore would like more background on our events, please email to [log in to unmask].

In this respect two further 'once in a lifetime events' are now being considered as joint ventures between the British Cartographic Society (BCS) and the Society of Cartographers (SoC).  The first will take advantage of an offer from Futuresonic, the Manchester-based arts and music festival www.futuresonic.com to create a new style event to delve further into the map-graphics and map-art aspects of map making.  This will take place at the Futuresonic Social-Technologies Summit around the 9th to 12th May. Our event will be an opportunity for cartographers, artists, designers, map hackers, DIY technologists, architects, games programmers, bloggers and semantic web philosophers to meet and share their experiences.  So, as the saying goes, 'don't dream it, be there'.  Fuller details of the Manchester event will be available from me and on the BCS and the SOC websites, over the next few weeks.

To ensure that we have as wide a range of contributors as possible, we would like to invite suggestions and papers on any of the above subjects for consideration.. Please email details of suggested papers or any suggestions for contributions to me at [log in to unmask].

Best Wishes,

 

Lynda Bailey

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On behalf of the Map Designers Group of the British Cartographic Society, and the Society of Cartographers.