Urban Media Archaeology 2010

After Tanya showed us the fun-but-unnavigable synergistic map gizmo FourWhere I became all the more skeptical with regards to slick, corporation-commissioned interactive mapping projects, but I have to say that the FedEx Experience is really very interesting. It might be more accurate to call it an “interactive slideshow” than a proper map, though the nation-areas, as they morph to represent various sets of data pertaining to different categories of information (employment rates, air travel, coffee, education, paper, etc.), do allow for further exploration and lead to other, less easily digestible articles. The prominent scrolling feature beneath the map, which serves as a countdown between these “slides,” is also a nice model for how a really well-developed timeline feature might look. Or perhaps it’s simply a fun slider with which to manipulate dynamic data visualizations. This post was not brought to you by FedEx.