The Maps Issue features jawdroppingly beautiful art by R. Justin Stewart. Read what the artist has to say, and leave comments below.

Artist Statement:

Inspired by the evolving interpretation of ideas, my work investigates how information is translated, transformed and conveyed across time and space. The complex process of interpretation through which civilizations and individuals alike make sense of information, is deeply rooted in a contextual belief structure. The changing of such structures greatly impacts the resulting understanding of ideas and information. My work presents the viewer with information that has been translated through an unfamiliar lens of visual display. The disconnect that arises between different presentations of identical information highlights the need for a historical and contextual investigation in order to make sense of the world we live in.

More on this issue’s pieces:

Guided is a Labyrinth game where a Twin Cities street map is carved 1/16″ deep and the Twin Cities Transit System routes are carved in 1/8″ deep, allowing a marble to roll through the transit routes but not the streets.

Bus structure 2am-2pm is a three-dimensional model of the Sunday Minneapolis / St. Paul public transit system, where the horizontal axes represent directional movement and the vertical represents time. The piece is constructed of 47 horizontal layers, each forming a map of the bus routes that run during a given interval of time. Looking down from the top, one sees the Sunday bus map of the Twin Cities, while looking from the side, the times appears as strata building upwards. Within each layer, every transit route that operates at that time is represented by wood balls placed at its scheduled stops.

Regroup is a 3D map of the Google diaspora depicting the post-Google relationships between 37 ex-Google executives. The color and size of each unit correlate to the company they formed post Google.

Divided Time (1999-2009) is a 10 year portrait of the The United States of America. Each day is represented by one thread, the length of which corresponds to the closing value of the Dow Jones. By using only blue thread and small weights, the information blurs together regardless of its methodical organization. In a world where daily stock quotes overwhelm the culture, divided time (1999-2009) engulfs the viewer in the data, minimizing the importance of any particular day and instead emphasizing the circularity and unpredictability of life.