Response to Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your feedback. It is great to hear your comments and your take on my project. I wanted to respond to you, but am not sure how this will reach you.

I hope it does, eventually

1.
"The data being ethnicity of restaurant vs geographic area, bigger blobs equals more of that type of restuarant, and the largest blobs include all types of restaurant in each area. Please let me know if I've got this wrong."

Partly correct, the blobs are sized according to the amount of restaurants in that area for that ethnicity. Eg. CBD blobs are usually quite big and they sometimes intrude into say Parnell and Newmarket blobs. However the blobs on each page refer to one ethnicity so all Chinese foods are on one page, if layered on top of Italian, one can quickly see where the Italian and Chinese restaurants are, geographically. However, your comments show a good understanding of the project so maybe your comment I just highlighted is just a mis-wording (can't seem to find the right word!)

2.
"Could you have used another layer of information (like colour) to help differentiate the different data sets? "

I originally did use different colours but when I started overlapping them, it was hard to differentiate between the ethnicities and aesthetically, it looked really messy. By putting them all in one colour, it limited the amount of layers one could compare and made the act of layering more important since the person would have to remember what they are placing down and there is a constant flipping to compare a layer on the top with a layer closer to the bottom.

3.

"There is a question of scale here too, as smaller text would mean that the blobs wouldn't necessarily intersect, so perhaps its a curiousity of the mapping itself rather than the city."
True that the text size and the length of restaurant names have a impact on whether the blobs intersect or not, however, the concentration of restaurants in a particular area (CBD, Parnell, Newmarket) should graphically show a difference compared to a cluster in other areas (Takapuna). Not all areas are equal and I hope that I have balanced it graphically to show that.

4.
"It seems the insights from your mapping haven't realised their full potential in re-mapping our understanding of the city. Another axis or layer of information might help. What happened to your proposal to compare auckland's restaurant diversity with cultural diversity? "

If I had the time, I would have tried to find out the geographic, ethnic breakdown of the Auckland area. The Census only has a break down between large ethnic groups ie. European/Asian/Pacific Islander. My mapping breaks it down further to Italian, Chinese, Mexican. This detailed data for population is harder to find, but I agree, would have added an interesting comparison to the ethnic restaurants.

Cheers

Lyannie

Food by ethnicity - geographically

Intent

Food defines a culture -sweet,spicy, rich, tart-

yet what does it say about Auckland's culture?

From the vast amount of ethnic food available, it is quite evident that there is a diverse mix of culture in Auckland. Mapping each restaurant that appears in the yellow pages, by ethnic category, this project aims for two things.

One, to show the giant variety of restaurants available to Aucklanders, not all are listed.

Two, to see how one ethnic category overlaps in geographic location with another.
What has resulted is a multi-layered map that can only be viewed by a few layers at a time. The multitude of cultures represented by the restaurants outnumber the capacity to comprehend the vast diversity at one glance.

Pick and choose various ethnic categories as you like.

Perhaps the combinations you pick defines who
you are.

Ethnicities tracked: Algerian * Asian * Belgian * Brazilian * Chinese * Cuban * European * French * German * Greek * Indian * International * Irish * Italian * Japanese * Korean * Malaysian * Mediterranean * Mexican * Middle Eastern * Mongolian * Nepalese * New Zealand * Russian * Scottish * Spanish * Taiwanese * Thai * Turkish * Vietnamese *

Other exhibits

Other exhibits

Setting up

My exhibit

Setting up the exhibition

Changes

Since the last blog, many things have changed

1. At first I was thinking about printing out each ethnicity and then hanging them on a wall all next to each other. This changed and this sort of format would not allow overlapping which is where the strength of this scheme lies. By over lapping different ethnicities, one can easily see the differences of ethnic restaurants in each geographical area.

2. The overall look of the pages changed as seen above.

3. I decided on presenting the pages in front of a light box. Below hung the 29 ethnicities and one could pick and choose what ethnicity to compare.

a taste of what's to come

This image shows the Euro (unclassified) restaurants in the Auckland area...other ethnicities to come

Culture and food part 2

My idea has evolved a bit.

First image shows all European dining in Auckland area, listed geographically

I'm now planning to separate the different ethnic foods into a transparent layer. Each layer (about A1 size) will be hung and is moveable in the sense that the layers can be compressed or separated so that a person can walk between them. That way the ethnic foods can be compared as the viewer likes.




Second image shows the suburbs of Auckland, geographically.

Please comment

My installation:
Different coloured perspex, business card sized, hung on one wall of the gallery. For each perspex rectangle is the name of a restaurant and it's phone number. The colour of perspex relates to the ethnicity of the food served. The placement of the perspex on the wall is in relation to the location in Auckland Central District.

From a distance, the colours show the intensity and variety of culture in Auckland, on close inspection, the individuality of the names further differentiates each food outlet, yet it is all in English - the unifying factor.

What do you think?

Numbers and more numbers

It's been awhile since I've blogged so I thought I would just give an update of what I'm currently doing.

Step one: It is the mid-semester break and I'm getting started on data gathering. I have gathered data on Auckland's ethnic groups in each suburb (thanks Statistics NZ). Am now in the process of gathering in excel all the restaurants. I am compiling a list of restaurants and cafes by ethnicity and location and a name to identify so that I don't double count.

Next step: to group the restaurants and graphically locate on an Auckland map along with the Statistics NZ data.

MVRDV's project on Metacity Datatown is a great resource. I like the idea of creating a landscape from the data for maximum impact. This is what I want to do for the exhibit, create a data landscape...so projections will be needed. I'm not sure graphically how it is going to turn out but that is my intention. To graphically show as a landscape how culturally mixed, (or not) is Auckland through food retail.

Food Culture

Collecting food data will show how many restaurants exit for each distinctive culture. Perhaps this can be compared in a ratio to the population of Auckland. Is there a consistency ie. 20% Malaysian = 20% Malaysian population in Auckland.....most likley this correlation is not 1:1.

Auckland from google maps

Auckland at a glance from googlemaps. Places of activity are shown but the experience is not. Is there a way to go beyond just pinpointing a location?

Food map research

Mapping the hidden.

Taco Truck Lover Maps His Favorite Eateries Online
by Cyrus Farivar

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89990576

"steers people toward smaller, harder-to-find eateries" current trend of maps.

Fast food in Kansas city. On the left chockfull of outlets, on the right nothing!
Starbucks locations in US as of June 2008

Images sourced from http://www.caffeinemaps.com/ and http://www.fastfoodmaps.com/