[ISEA2022] Paper: Peter Anders — The Tapestry: Past and Possibility in the History of Magic

Abstract 

Remote paper presentations, date: June 10. Session:The space as a representation

Keywords: Magic, Western Esotericism, mapping, history

This paper presents The Tapestry, a mapping of the history of magic. It describes a system that lets users create lifelines and map them using GoogleEarth. Each lifeline, or thread, is laid over the globe, showing the trace of the person’s historical travels, locations, and activities. By successively laying these threads over one another, users can see points of intersection, suggesting historic interactions and influence. It is hoped that such graphic presentation and users’ pattern recognition will lead to discovery of previously unsuspected influences in magic’s historical development.

For the video recording of the presentation see: Amalia Creus  — Intro, including video of the presentations

  • Peter Anders is an architect, educator, and information design theorist. He has published widely on the architecture of cyberspace and is the author of “Envisioning Cyberspace”, published by McGraw Hill, which presents design principles for on-line spatial environments. Anders received his degrees from the University of Michigan (B.S.1976) and Columbia University (M.A.1982) and the University of Plymouth Planetary Collegium (Ph.D. 2004). He was a principal in an architectural firm in New York City which designed facilities for the production of photovoltaic panels. He has received numerous design awards for his work and has taught graduate level design studios and computer-aided design at universities including the New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of Detroit-Mercy, and the University of Michigan. He is a former board member and chair of ISEA International foundation. He is also principal of Kayvala PLC, a design practice specializing in architecture and media/information environments.