Maps As Art: Globes Combine GIS With Psycho-Geography

From Computers, Society and Nature:

Ingo Ghunter has been making "‘map-art"’ for nearly a decade. His globes illustrate the spatial interpretation of some rather mundane statistics on global wealth, environmental issues, and trade. Certainly, the art is appealing on a visual level, but it also serves as a critique of the Western world and the globalizing economy. Many of the globes illustrate the geographical disparity between rich nations and poor nations of the world, where geographical scale and colours assist in illustrating the point in a more profound way than by way of any statistical table or graph. These exaggerations in scale and colour effectively illustrate the capacity that cartography has in revealing a function, and divulging information to its audience beyond the simple purpose of representing space.

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This art could be considered to represent the convergence between GIS and psycho-geography, where GIS is a system for creating awareness in a creative way of the global landscape. As a purposeful device for spatial analysis, and as an innovative and artistic device for social commentary - GIS is a broadly utilized tool that has a great capacity for visualizing many different spatial and aspatial phenomena.

Mr. Ghunter's globes can be found here. Cartographers, GIS Professionals and other map enthusiasts will definitely enjoy browsing through his 300+ globes. The globes are visually stunning and can be enjoyed solely for their artistic merit. Like all artists, Mr. Ghunter brings his point of view to his work. While not all viewers will agree with him, like all great art, the viewer is made to stop and think.