Introduction: A Brief Note on Navigation: How Do We Get Around These Days?

• Main Author: Sean Scanlan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York City College of Technology 2011-01-01
• Series: NANO
• Subjects: navigation; narrative; criticism; Scanlan; Liu; Derrida; systems; technology
• Online Access: http://www.nanocrit.com/issues/issue-1-navigation-all/introduction-navigation

The theme of the first issue of nano is Navigation. The usual suspects of navigation come to mind, don’t they? Map, sextant, and compass are essential to understanding how humans find their way from one place to another. But these technologies are not new, and they may not be the most important navigational technologies. Fast-forward to our present age and we must contend with navigating screens, pads, pods, and other information technologies. In fact, if you are reading this, then you know how to navigate several systems: button, login, address, page. The three essays in the first issue of nano speak of navigation as a complex, varied process. First, in “Algebra of the Visual: The London Underground Map and the Art It Has Inspired,” Alan Ashton-Smith explores the organizing principles of London Underground maps. Second, Robert Tally’s “On Literary Cartography: Narrative as a Spatially Symbolic Act” encourages us to consider how narratives operate much as maps do. A. Kendra Greene’s “Five Directions” presents examples of real-world navigation in which getting from A to B involves fitting pieces together, synthesizing.