Publication
29 Apr 2025
Compromise projections for world maps
Did you ever create a world map? Then you will likely have wondered which projection you should use. Unfortunately, a sphere cannot be perfectly flattened due to mathematical necessities. Every projection thus distorts to some degree, and compromises have to be made about which aspects should have priority.
Franz-Benjamin has described a way to tailor compromise projections to your individual needs. To construct such a projection, a discrete global grid system (DGGS) is used to distribute points evenly on the Earth's surface. Then, forces between these points are iteratively computed, each of which reflects one aspect of distortion. These forces resemble principles from classical mechanics and make the points move in each step. This way, the projection is iteratively optimized until a suitable projection is reached. An implementation can be found on GitHub.
Visitor
3 Apr 2025
Will AH Holmes à Court visits our LAB
It was two days full of discussions and insights. Will AH Holmes à Court from Clare College, University of Cambridge, visited our LAB to discuss perspectives on space and place at the nexus of human geography, phenomenology, text processing, digital humanities, and geographical information science. We touched on topics such as the holodeck, Franco Moretti's distant reading, map distortion and its epistemological consequences, (non-)knowledge production in times of artificial intelligence, formal concepts in geography, unicorns and magic carpets, and much more.
Besides the exchange about Will's and our respective research, our joint work on representations of place was a central element of his visit. Will brought along various examples related to his own college in Cambridge, a French language school, and events in Berlin. We are already looking forward to his next visit on 19 May.
General
4 Mar 2025
Shaping Space, Fostering Dialogue: New Additions to the LAB Corridor
The corridor of our LAB has been outfitted with some interactive features, including a whiteboard for sharing ideas and evolving discussions; a gallery rail on which our publications are hung to encourage mutual engagement with our ideas; and a sign bearing the Space & Place LAB logo to strengthen our collective identity. These additions are meant to help shape our LAB as a place of inspiring scholarly dialogue, critical reflection, and creative collaboration. And we have plenty of these! We are working on a range of theoretical and applied aspects of place as well as a corpus of place representations. Stay tuned, there is more to come.
Publication
15 Jan 2025
Essay: Is Austria a good place for research?
The Austrian Academy of Sciences put the question Is Austria a good place for research? at the centre of its essay competition for 2024. Three submissions were honoured and six further ones shortlisted. Among them is one by Franz-Benjamin.
Franz-Benjamin argues that the question posed for the essay competition must relate to how we define good research. But even if this is clarified, he considers the question to be unwise. It is not a question of what is or should be, but of how we can bring about good research in Austria. Franz-Benjamin is convinced that each and every individual plays a decisive role in this, not (only) the institutional context. Accordingly, this essay formulates five appeals addressed to us researchers. Read for yourself!
Publication
16 Dec 2024
Book: Appreciation of linguistic variation
Dialects are characterized by regional differences in vocabulary, grammar, and the use and meaning of words, as well as in their strength. One of Eugen's research foci addresses language attitudes towards dialect and standard language as categories of social language varieties.
As part of this research, Eugen has published a book that analyses language attitudes towards dialect and standard speakers in the Austrian school context. Despite the variety of pronounced dialects in the Bavarian-speaking part of Austria and a majority of dialects and colloquial languages spoken in everyday life, attitudes towards dialects are ambivalent, even among teachers.
In a study conducted at several schools, gender-specific and regional differences in the perception of dialect and standard speakers were identified. A corresponding intervention led to a significant improvement in the competence assessments of dialect speakers. The book thus proposes to consider language variation as an essential subject in German lessons and accordingly demonstrates ways of consciously dealing with it.
The book is available both printed and as an ebook (open access).
General
3 Oct 2024
Mediated geographies
At the conference Mediated geographies: Exploring the dynamic nexus of media, environment, and place, the LAB contributed with a lecture on the mediation of places. Such mediation occurs through various media, including the visual and the textual medium, maps, paintings, and physical models. The focus here was on textual mediations and documentaries, which draw a picture of a place and, in a certain sense, distort what constitutes the place.
Such distortion can lead to stigamization as can be observed in redlining, a historically discriminatory practice in the USA. The distorted portrayal of certain neighbourhoods alone has led to racial and ethnic minorities being denied access to financial services. Another example is the film The Sound of Music, which presents a certain image of Salzburg and Austria and thus shapes the way American and Japenese tourists think about these places.
General
1 Oct 2024
Eugen Unterberger has joined the team
Eugen conducts research in the field of cultural mediation using digital methods. He is interested in questions of how historical information must be prepared to generate long-lasting interest among different target groups from the lay sector; how diverse cultural information can be linked to become intuitively searchable through knowledge management systems; and what role places play in this context. Further interests include the examination of different approaches to knowledge transfer, from classic didactic methods and different persuasion methods to different types of storytelling.
Together with other LAB members, Eugen supports the development of the Corpus of Place Representations in relation to semantic aspects, textual media, and cultural heritage.
Eugen did his BA and MA degree in german studies and received a doctoral degree for research at the nexus of variation linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language attitudes research. He has formed part of and partly been responsible for several projects.
General
23 Sep 2024
Visit at the University at Buffalo: Barry Smith and Thomas Bittner
Franz-Benjamin had the chance to exchange ideas with Barry Smith and Thomas Bittner during a short research stay at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. The focus was on establishing a substantive exchange and exploring possible collaborations.
In the discussions with Barry Smith, Franz-Benjamin's ideas on the nature of representation and ideas concerning place conceptualization were reflected upon and critically scrutinized. This gave new impetus to both research and current teaching activities in Salzburg. In addition, ideas on processual entities were discussed in the area of formal ontology.
Franz-Benjamin shares a doctoral supervisor (Andrew U Frank) with Thomas Bittner as well as a strong interest in interdisciplinary research: Thomas Bittner works in both the Department of Geography and the Department of Philosophy. The joint discussions were dedicated, among other things, to the quantification of geographical information and corresponding concepts of granularity, as well as Franz-Benjamin's ideas regarding the various levels of representation.
Publication
20 Sep 2024
Four arguments why places and information about places are inextricably interwoven
Research on information about places can often practically not be clearly demarcated from research on the places themselves. This is not a problem itself but raises the question of how geographical information science and human geography mutually relate.
This paper discusses four arguments as to why places and information about them are inextricably interwoven in many cases. The difficulty in finding a demarcation between the two lines of research is thus not due to a lack of academic engagement with these topics but rather due to the subject matter itself.
Consequently, research on the role of information in the context of places is indispensable for the study of places themselves. This raises the question again as to whether the separation of geographical information science and geography, as they are currently lived by distinctly different communities of practice, is justified.
Enjoy reading!
Publication
18 Sep 2024
On place, privacy, and ethics
The personal and often highly individualized relationship with places leads to a number of questions related to privacy and ethics.
This article addresses both privacy and ethics by arguing that location privacy needs to be considered a proxy for place privacy; that place-making exposes several inherently ethical dimensions, such as the participation in the place-making; and that equitable participation in platial information is an important component of ethical action in relation to places themselves.
Building on this, corresponding need for further research is outlined, specifically concerning power relations acting on places and multicultural perspectives in research about place.
Enjoy reading!
Visitor
17 Jun 2024
Markus Schaffert visits our lab to advance research on spatial aspects of rural sprawl
Progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is regularly evaluated. Markus Schaffert, Professor of Geoinformatics at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, researches, among other things, the influence of space and place on corresponding indicators.
As a guest researcher at our lab, Markus will work on the spatial expansion of villages; the visual communication of rural and urban sprawl; and the role of space in planning processes. He will also expand our repertoire of places by the Palatinate Forest as a place of tranquillity with insights from case studies.
General
3 Jun 2024
Jonas Faria Costa has joined the team
Jonas researches the concepts of agency, society, and place. He explores how the concept of place is fundamental in understanding human agency and sociality at large, but also vice-versa.
Within philosophy, his main areas of interest are social ontology, phenomenology, philosophy of action, and philosophy of mind. Beyond this, he engages with further areas that deal with agency, society, and place, such as geography, environmental psychology, and architecture. Besides his passion about the concepts of place, he has a strong interest in decolonial philosophy, philosophy of games, and Ancient Greek philosophy.
Jonas did his undergraduate degree in philosophy in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and his MA and PhD, also in philosophy, in Manchester, England.
General
21 May 2024
Event series ‘music in place – place in music’ receives ‘out of the box’ award
Together with soprano Friederike Kühl, Franz-Benjamin Mocnik has received the out of the box award from the City of Salzburg. The prize is awarded to teams that interweave scientific, cultural, and further aspects as part of corresponding events or projects. These are meant for the wider public and should relate to the places Itzling and Elisabeth-Vorstadt.
In the context of the award, Friederike Kühl and Franz-Benjamin will organize three public events under the title music in place – place in music. These events will explore the relationship between art and science in a low-threshold and participatory way. At the heart of this is the integration of the music performed and corresponding scientific explanations. These two aspects will not simply be concatenated but creatively interwoven. The first two events are about music in places and places in music, while the third aims to synthesize both.
The events will take place in October 2024. Further information will follow.
General
21 May 2024
Keynote ath the Finnish Geoinformatics Research Days
The Geoinformatics Research Days have become an established series of events in Finland, where researchers from the Finnish University Network for Geoinformatics meet and initiate collaborations through academic exchange. In 2024, the event was held at Aalto University in Espoo. As part of this event, Franz-Benjamin Mocnik gave a keynote lecture on place representation and place communication to provide insights into the research of the Space & Place LAB.
The keynote was also part of the GeoSPA lecture series ‘Space, Place, Analysis’, which invites leading researchers in geoinformatics to Finland and encourages international exchange. In addition, he was a guest at the Digital Geography Lab at the University of Helsinki, where ethical aspects of cartography and data science were taught in joint lectures.
Many thanks go to Kamyar Hasanzadeh and the team of the Digital Geography Lab for this invitation in a summery Finnish atmosphere.
General
4 Apr 2024
Maia Williams has joined the team
The Space and Place team is growing! We are pleased to share that Maia Williams has joined the group and will be working alongside Franz-Benjamin at EXDIGIT. Maia will be starting her own PhD research as well as participating in collaborations within the team, EXDIGIT, and beyond.
Maia has previously worked with spatial data and geographical information systems (GIS) across multiple domains. She has sought diversity in projects, gleaning ideas and skills from specialists along the way – anthropologists, ecologists, architects, urban designers, and data scientists amongst them. Her current research intentions are to better understand the nuanced mechanisms of place attachment and place change, and how place processes could be made explicit and more accessible within computational contexts.
Maia has swapped the Western Australian sandplains for Austrian mountains and is enjoying the newfound vertical dimension!
You can learn more about her here (a work in progress).
General
1 Apr 2024
Official opening of the Space & Place LAB
Hurray, the Space & Place LAB has officially been launched! We are an emerging lab at the University of Salzburg, Austria, dedicated to the research of places, spaces, and corresponding information. We use a wide variety of methods, ranging from theoretical considerations to applications, depending on what fits best with the various questions related to our object of investigation. With regard to digital media and methods, the lab is in close contact with the EXDIGIT project (Excellence in Digital Sciences and Interdisciplinary Technologies).
We are very much looking forward to our upcoming research! Stay tuned!