I have finally decided that I really have to do something with this blog! Let’s start with baby steps!

#ArtsHack 2013 was a great series of workshops organised for arts students by the University of Melbourne last year. ITS Research at Uni does the great job of ’empower[ing] researchers to do great things with IT.’

TileMill/Mapbox are in fact the mapping platform for websites and apps like foursquare, pinterest & two of my faves Direct Me NYC 1940 & 1940s New York. The possibilities really are endless & you can see more on the Mapbox Showcase

You can do numerous extremely complex maps in TileMill and my group did a more simple one that pinpointed institutions that displayed antiquities in the city of Melbourne. My own test version was even simpler and, for the purposes of my thesis, I wanted to do a map of locations of nineteenth-century shopping arcades in Australia.

It was very fun to tinker with it but I am not sure for my purpose that I wouldn’t simply be just as happy creating something in Photoshop, with which I am far more familiar. But if you are doing extremely complex mapping projects, I think TileMill – just one of the many mapping programs around – could be great.

Anyway – here is my humble little map which will give you a great idea of where the Fashionable Promenades were built in 1800s Australia! Never fear … in the next few days I will start giving you some lists of what and where they were!