Search

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.

Rob Nixon's concept of slow violence might be brought into the caption here to emphasise the slowness and everyday-ness of disaster sites such as this where violence occurs but is not recognised as such. Out of interest, I would like to know more about whether the wine itself was ever tested or found to be contaminated but the way in which the family dispute is highlighted really tells the story of the site. The caption really brings the map to life.

This is a screenshot from google maps, created by the author but found rather than 'taken'. The aesthetic is therefore everyday and familiar, which sits well with the theme of quotidian exposure to toxics in the landscape that this picture comments on.

The image is great as it is for the reasons outlined in my other annotations.

The image really highlights the everyday nature of toxics exposure for some people. The map (and its associated cartographic history for representing landscape) is an excellent way of visualising the ways in which sites like this are connected with people and places around them. The caption highlights this and brings the image to life ethnographically.