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The caption of this image is rich with a reading of the map and the implications of the locations of the West Lake Landfill and other toxic sites, including the contaminated water that drains into the Missouri River. I am wondering if the analytic purchase of this image could be enhanced by having these connections illustrated by arrows and/or circles, or perhaps in even more creative ways. I'm thinking here about how meteorologists sometimes illustrate currents and flows over the top of their background visualizations to illustrate their argument.

This image and caption combo illustrates the aspects of place that google maps does and does not show. There are visible highways and rivers, small icons and titles identify nearby shops, eateries, and other municipal and industrial sites. The data to the left, including the ratings and the sarcastic image of the young blond man, also captures a bit of the sarcastic online discourse circulating around this place. What is not captured, however, is the lived experience of this place as toxic.

I honestly think the caption of this image is quite strong. The only thing I might suggest is to be a bit more explicit in the critique. As in, are these elisions just absences or are they more like disavowals? What do these absences/disavowals tell us about the intended purpose of google maps? How are these purposes being subverted or reinforced by the users, and to what effect?

This image is a screenshot and is therefore a sort of co-creation, but one that is intended to critically appropriate and comment on the original purpose of the screen-content of that shot. This makes me think of photography, in that the art and the meaning is determined by what Allana has decided to include and exclude from the screen at the moment of capture. She did not create the content, but she zoomed in enough to identify toxic sites and the nearby communities and businesses that they impact.

This visualisation communicates both the presences and the absences that are included in a common medium such as google maps, and how this shapes and represents the interaction between people and the environment they move through or live in. The inclusion of the reviews and the created image for the Landfill Site also shows people's critical engagement with this seemingly 'neutral' representation of their surroundings, drawing attention of what is left out in the map. 

To extend the ethnographic message, the caption could perhaps briefly address the nearby communities that are talked about. It is mentioned that radioactive material is carried through backyards and parks - whose backyards and parks are these, how populous are the surroundings, how is this area viewed by residents and visitors? Was a winery overlooking a landfill ever popular, even before the owners descended into conflict? Who could the people leaving reviews be, why would they be searching for this site?

The image is a screenshot of a google maps search, so it could be considered a found image. What is notable is the contrast between the formal, uniform and detached representation of the area through the map and then the ironic intervention through the picture.

Tio enrich the image, perhaps some of the reviews could be added in some way, perhaps overlaid onto the map to not take away space from that. Maybe at the edges of the map it could be indicated what side the aiport is or where the radioactive runoff is coming from, to contextualise this area within the wider surroundings. Maybe small annotaitons could also indicate the communities or residential areas that are visible and give the viewer more information about them.

This visualisation says something about 'official' or normative representations of the physical landscape, its exclusions and people's creative engagement with making visible what is left out.

The photograph and caption brilliantly analyse the ways in which toxicity is represented (online). As the caption suggests, we can learn from google maps and the reviewers how people think about and deal with quotidian pollution/catastrophes that unfold slowly rather than abruptly. By drawing attention to the online community here as well, and the seemingly ironic rating of the place, the artifact hints at the ways in which digital represenations are entangled with the material world.