Recently I’ve had the great opportunity to work with Jim, a recently retired Ordnance Survey Surveyor. I wanted to develop some work that brought together the individual perception of a place and the mapping that formally describes it. I’m interested in the idea of human scale and how the individual perceives the lay of the land particularly at long distances. So the task I set out to do was to map as far as the eye can see, which I have a feeling will turn into the title if this all works out. I’ve selected 5 different points within the park, chosen for there distances from each other and the varying length of views they have. So the idea is that i stand on the chosen point and look for the furthest horizon, identify it and mark it on an OS map, this then continues as I turn 360 degrees.
It sounds like a simple process, but believe me its not and the questions it has thrown up have made this process really interesting, if a tad difficult. During the course of this mapping exercise we’ve developed a methodology and way of working, for instance if we follow the furthest horizon round and suddenly another horizon appears which is further away, how do you mark that on a flat map? So we came up with the Horizon Jump, which is represented by a straight ruler line, like a line of sight. This also came into play when a tree was half way up a field blocking the previous horizon line. Some marks were made easily as they were clearly identified buildings or paths or fences already on the map. When it came to very long distances it was a matter of deduction, we’d have to work on what we new to be true and simple maths, all this marked out on a 1:25000 scale it sometimes became a matter of guesstamology. What all this results in is very bizarre shapes imposed on maps which I will cut out and take out of context, leaving the size of the world from that point, like nothing else beyond exists. I’ll put up a picture of the cut out map soon.
