These Maps, that now number forty one, exist in several forms:
–on the Internet
–in publications
–as broadsheets
–in a collaboration between Pauline Oliveros and myself:
Begun in 2001, “The Library of Maps” project is about a fictional library, its inhabitants, map collections and spaces. Among the Maps’ characters are the Chief Librarian, the Hermit, the Cartographer, the Thread Collectors, the Mute Woman, the Blind Child, the Twins, the Sound Maker, the Singer, the Star Dwellers, the Astronomer, the Children, the Stone-Collectors, the Stone-Readers and the Gazers. The time frames of the Maps range from a single night to a span of many centuries, and they are set in a variety of different spaces. In addition to the Library’s rooms, courtyards, and garden, these spaces include the Sandstorm Desert, the Lake of the Heart, the Valley of Songs, the Village of Handmaps, the City of Maps, the Island of Tenderness, the Library of Alexandria, the Land of the Star Dwellers, and the Observatory. Some of them are based poetically in actual locations, notably in Japan, Czechoslovakia and Greece.
List of the Library of Maps texts (as of July 22, 2009):
The Five Maps, #1
The Map of the Cosmic World,#2
The Lost Map, #3
The Child’s Map of Time, #4
The Map of the Heart, #5
The Village of Handmaps, #6
The Arpanet Map and Eratosthenes’ Geographica, #7
The Cartographer’s Last Map, #8
The Unruly Map of Threads, #9
The Journeys of Penelope & Ulysses, #10
The Two Street Maps, #11
The Maps of Walter Benjamin, #12
The Maps of Benjamin Banneker, #13
The Map of the Sandstorm Desert, #14
The City of Maps, #15
The Sound Pencil and the Transparent Scores, #16
The Mute Woman’s Songs, #17
The Blind Child and the Transparent Scores, #18
The Mute Room, #19
The Star Dwellers and the Children, #20
The Birds, #21
The Maps of Death, #22
The Map of the Subterranean Passages, #23
The Sound Cartographer, #24
The Island of Tenderness, #25
The Courtyard of Letters to the Dead, #26
The Map of Sightings, #27
The Map of Falling Worlds, #28
The White and Red Cities, #29
The Young Astronomer, Brahe and Kepler, #30
The Young Librarian and the Ancient Library of Alexandria, #31
The Astronomer in Prague, Dresden and the Library, #32
The Young Astronomer in Italy and the United States, #33
Of the Night Sky and the Night Garden, #34
The Children and Hiroshima, #35
The Map of the Sleepers, #36
The Map of Stones, #37
The Windows of the Library, #38
The Unfinished Mappa Mundi and Tiresias, #39
The Mirror Boat and Hiroshima, #40
The Map of Mirrors, #41
Internet:
In their original format, many of these Maps were intended to be read with hyperlinks to Web images and texts. Thus, in 2003, Alison Cornyn, a dear friend, very kindly put them up on her Picture Projects website where they can still be seen with their original hyperlinks (although some of these are no longer functional):
http://www.picture-projects.com/between/essay.html
Note: since this website went up, I have added one more Map (#41, “The Map of Mirrors”), plus have edited many of the texts extensively, including
renaming some.
Publications:
“Rachel Marker and the City of Maps, Berlin, Summer 2001,” X-tra, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2001
Selections of the Library of Maps texts
Performance Research, Summer 2001, Vol. 6, No. 2, “On Maps and Mapping” issue:
#2, “The Map of the Cosmic World”
#4, “The Children’s Map of Time”
#9, “The Unruly Map of Threads”
#11, “The Two Street Map”
“No. 10: The Two Street Maps,” with commentary, published as a broadsheet (accompanied by a map by Peter Sis), History of Cartography, University of Wisconsin, 2001
http://www.geography.wisc.edu/histcart/broadsht/index.html
“The Map and the Magnifying Glass: An Email Exchange and a Fable” in Gisela Weimann, Reflexionen/Reflections, Weimar, Germany: Edition Eselsweg, 2002
“The Library of Maps, An Opera in Many Parts”
In April 2001 Pauline Oliveros and I began to collaborate on “The Library of Maps, An Opera in Many Parts.” On June 15, 2001, as a prelude, Oliveros created a CD, “Klangspiegel/Sound Mirror,” which I played at a conference about the art of Gisela Weimann at the Amerika Haus, Berlin.
At the end of my performance-like presentation, “The Map and the Magnifying Glass,” I read an adaptation of “The Village of Handmaps” (#6 of The Library of Maps texts), and then played Oliveros’ five-minute composition, “Klangspiegel/Sound Mirror.”
So far, there have been three productions of this “opera in many parts”:
#1, October 8, 2001, Suzanne Lacy’s Studio, Oakland, CA
#2, April 12, 2002, Mills College Children’s School, Oakland, CA, and Ark Community Charter School, Troy, New York
#3, April 18, 2002, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
In addition, Oliveros made a CD for an exhibition, ”The Library of Maps,” Bonnafont Gallery, San Francisco, CA, January 31-March 7, 2009
Broadsheets, limited edition, 2009
In January 2009, three of the texts–“The Map of the Heart”, “The Unruly Map of Threads” and “The Map of Stones”–were published in a limited broadsheet edition in this Bonnafont exhibition (part of the 2009 Artship Exhibition Series). The exhibition consisted of the broadsheets, some 90 small drawings by Slobodan Dan Paich, a group of Dennis Letbetter’s photographs, plus a collection of stones and a weaving. We also gave out at the opening a printout of my three poems “illustrated” by a selection of Slobodan Dan Paich’s drawings.
Note: this “Library of Maps” exhibition will be reinstalled at the Porter College Faculty Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, January 20- March 5, 2010.