Nikolas Schiller
Encyclopedia
Nikolas Schiller is an American
blog
ger, a prominent digital map
artist
in the blogosphere
, a vegetarian, and a civil rights
activist who lives in Washington, DC. He is primarily known for developing Geospatial
Art, which is the name he has given to his collection of abstract fantasy map
s created from kaleidoscopic
aerial photographs.
to study geography
and computer science
at the George Washington University
. In 2004 he created a blog
called The Daily Render and unlike many people at the time, chose to prevent search engines from accessing the content. Over the next 1000 days he developed and published a unique type of map composed of kaleidescopic aerial photographs. In the lead up to the second inauguration of George W. Bush
, he developed one of the first on-line maps of the planned events to use aerial photography. In May 2007 he created a site for image macro
s of his maps in the vein of the popular LOLcats meme
with his website LOLMaps. During the summer of 2007 he created website showing a simulated I.E.D.
experience using a "drive" down a street constructed with Google Streetview. At that time he also discovered that the aerial and satellite imagery
of downtown Washington, D.C. was purposely out-dated for national security
concerns. In the fall of 2007 he designed the record cover for Thievery Corporation
's 12" single Supreme Illusion (ESL110), which features aerial photography
of the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon
. In March 2008 he removed the robots exclusion protocols from his blog, which now allows his website to be accessed from all major search engines. In July 2008 he was assaulted on his doorstep by three men, but survived with only a bloody lip. As a blog
ger, he has worked with writers at Wonkette
and the Huffington Post. He currently resides in the Shaw
neighborhood of Washington, DC.
legislation that would give residents of the District of Columbia only one vote in the United States House of Representatives
. He has created a DC Flag
and a DC license plate to express the concept of taxation with one-third representation. He has been known to attend voting rights
demonstrations wearing colonial outfits to emphasize the fact that District resident are colonists who suffer from Taxation Without Representation.
In February 2009, under the motto “The United States government operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so should Metro
,” he created a Facebook
Group called "Washington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro" to help lobby for expanded operating hours.
In July 2009 he put up a sign on a street lamp outside of MTV's
The Real World
house in the Dupont Circle
neighborhood of Washington, DC that said IN THE REAL WORLD ALL AMERICANS DESERVE FULL REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS. In November 2009, while dressed in colonial attire, he was asked to take off his tricorn hat during a Congressional hearing on budget autonomy for the District of Columbia and was briefly detained by the U.S. Capitol Police, but was allowed to return to the hearing after promising to not put the hat back on. As an antiwar activist, he once arranged bricks on the rooftop of his home to spell out NO WAR so that his message would show up on Google Maps
.
In January 2010, he co-founded a non-profit organization
called the DC Patients' Cooperative, which he hopes will become a licensed medical cannabis
dispensary
in the District of Columbia. In May 2010, after the Council of the District of Columbia
passed legislation to regulate the medical cannabis program, he went on record advocating for more employment protections for qualified patients. In February 2011, he helped organize a town hall meeting
to educate the public on the medical cannabis program's regulations. On the one year anniversary of Congress approving the legislation, he helped organize a press conference to call on the District of Columbia government to fully implement the program, allow patients to grow their own medicine, and to establish an affirmative defense
for patients. Due to the "glacial pace" and a requirement to sign a legal waiver concerning federal prosecution for participation in the program, he said that the organization is taking a "wait and see" approach instead of applying for a license.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger, a prominent digital map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
in the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
, a vegetarian, and a civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activist who lives in Washington, DC. He is primarily known for developing Geospatial
Geospatial
Geospatial analysis is an approach to applying statistical analysis and other informational techniques to geographically based data. Such analysis employs spatial software and analytical methods with terrestrial or geographic datasets, including geographic information systems and...
Art, which is the name he has given to his collection of abstract fantasy map
Fantasy map
A fantasy map is type of map design that is a visual representation of an imaginary or fictional geography. While some fantasy maps accompany works of fiction and are considered fictional maps, fantasy maps are created to show imaginary places and are not necessarily included in works of literary...
s created from kaleidoscopic
Kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope is a circle of mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors...
aerial photographs.
Biography
He was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. In 1999 he moved to Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
to study geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
at the George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
. In 2004 he created a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
called The Daily Render and unlike many people at the time, chose to prevent search engines from accessing the content. Over the next 1000 days he developed and published a unique type of map composed of kaleidescopic aerial photographs. In the lead up to the second inauguration of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, he developed one of the first on-line maps of the planned events to use aerial photography. In May 2007 he created a site for image macro
Image macro
In Internet culture, an image macro is a picture captioned with superimposed text for humorous effect.-Internet forums:On Internet forums and imageboards, image macros are used to emphasize a certain phrase by superimposing it over a related picture.-Formats:Although they come in many forms, the...
s of his maps in the vein of the popular LOLcats meme
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
with his website LOLMaps. During the summer of 2007 he created website showing a simulated I.E.D.
Improvised explosive device
An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...
experience using a "drive" down a street constructed with Google Streetview. At that time he also discovered that the aerial and satellite imagery
Satellite imagery
Satellite imagery consists of photographs of Earth or other planets made by means of artificial satellites.- History :The first images from space were taken on sub-orbital flights. The U.S-launched V-2 flight on October 24, 1946 took one image every 1.5 seconds...
of downtown Washington, D.C. was purposely out-dated for national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
concerns. In the fall of 2007 he designed the record cover for Thievery Corporation
Thievery Corporation
Thievery Corporation is a Washington, D.C. based recording artist and DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza, Eric Hilton, and their supporting artists, including current drummer Jeff Franca...
's 12" single Supreme Illusion (ESL110), which features aerial photography
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
and the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
. In March 2008 he removed the robots exclusion protocols from his blog, which now allows his website to be accessed from all major search engines. In July 2008 he was assaulted on his doorstep by three men, but survived with only a bloody lip. As a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger, he has worked with writers at Wonkette
Wonkette
Wonkette is a left-leaning American online magazine of topical satire and political gossip, established in 2004 by Gawker Media and founding editor Ana Marie Cox, and edited by Ken Layne from 2006 to 2011...
and the Huffington Post. He currently resides in the Shaw
Shaw, Washington, D.C.
Shaw is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is roughly bounded by M Street, NW or Massachusetts Avenue NW to the south; New Jersey Avenue, NW to the east; Florida Avenue, NW to the north; and 11th Street, NW to the west...
neighborhood of Washington, DC.
Activism
Since the beginning of 2004 he has been involved with the DC statehood movement. He was served on the steering committee of the DC Statehood Green Party from 2005 to 2007 and was a delegate to the Green Party of the United States from 2006 to 2007. He has been a vocal critic of DC voting rightsDistrict of Columbia voting rights
Voting rights of citizens in the District of Columbia differ from those of United States citizens in each of the fifty states. District of Columbia residents do not have voting representation in the United States Senate, but D.C. is entitled to three electoral votes for President. In the U.S...
legislation that would give residents of the District of Columbia only one vote in the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. He has created a DC Flag
and a DC license plate to express the concept of taxation with one-third representation. He has been known to attend voting rights
District of Columbia voting rights
Voting rights of citizens in the District of Columbia differ from those of United States citizens in each of the fifty states. District of Columbia residents do not have voting representation in the United States Senate, but D.C. is entitled to three electoral votes for President. In the U.S...
demonstrations wearing colonial outfits to emphasize the fact that District resident are colonists who suffer from Taxation Without Representation.
In February 2009, under the motto “The United States government operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so should Metro
Washington Metro
The Washington Metro, commonly called Metro, and unofficially Metrorail, is the rapid transit system in Washington, D.C., United States, and its surrounding suburbs. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority , which also operates Metrobus service under the Metro name...
,” he created a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Group called "Washington Metropolitan Area Residents for a 24 Hour Metro" to help lobby for expanded operating hours.
In July 2009 he put up a sign on a street lamp outside of MTV's
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
The Real World
The Real World
The Real World is a reality television program on MTV originally produced by Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray. First broadcast in 1992, the show, which was inspired by the 1973 PBS documentary series An American Family, is the longest-running program in MTV history and one of the...
house in the Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle
Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW...
neighborhood of Washington, DC that said IN THE REAL WORLD ALL AMERICANS DESERVE FULL REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS. In November 2009, while dressed in colonial attire, he was asked to take off his tricorn hat during a Congressional hearing on budget autonomy for the District of Columbia and was briefly detained by the U.S. Capitol Police, but was allowed to return to the hearing after promising to not put the hat back on. As an antiwar activist, he once arranged bricks on the rooftop of his home to spell out NO WAR so that his message would show up on Google Maps
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
.
In January 2010, he co-founded a non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
called the DC Patients' Cooperative, which he hopes will become a licensed medical cannabis
Medical cannabis
Medical cannabis refers to the use of parts of the herb cannabis as a physician-recommended form of medicine or herbal therapy, or to synthetic forms of specific cannabinoids such as THC as a physician-recommended form of medicine...
dispensary
Dispensary
A dispensary is an office in a school, hospital or other organization that dispenses medications and medical supplies. In a traditional dispensary set-up a pharmacist dispenses medication as per prescription or order form....
in the District of Columbia. In May 2010, after the Council of the District of Columbia
Council of the District of Columbia
The Council of the District of Columbia is the legislative branch of the local government of the District of Columbia. As permitted in the United States Constitution, the District is not part of any U.S. state and is instead overseen directly by the federal government...
passed legislation to regulate the medical cannabis program, he went on record advocating for more employment protections for qualified patients. In February 2011, he helped organize a town hall meeting
Town hall meeting
A town hall meeting is an American English term given to an informal public meeting. Everybody in a town community is invited to attend, not always to voice their opinions, but to hear the responses from public figures and elected officials about shared subjects of interest. Attendees rarely voted...
to educate the public on the medical cannabis program's regulations. On the one year anniversary of Congress approving the legislation, he helped organize a press conference to call on the District of Columbia government to fully implement the program, allow patients to grow their own medicine, and to establish an affirmative defense
Affirmative defense
A defendant offers an affirmative defense when responding to a plaintiff's claim in common law jurisdictions, or, more familiarly, in criminal law. Essentially, the defendant affirms that the condition is occurring or has occurred but offers a defense that bars, or prevents, the plaintiff's claim. ...
for patients. Due to the "glacial pace" and a requirement to sign a legal waiver concerning federal prosecution for participation in the program, he said that the organization is taking a "wait and see" approach instead of applying for a license.
Selected works
- Album coverAlbum coverAn album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...
for Thievery CorporationThievery CorporationThievery Corporation is a Washington, D.C. based recording artist and DJ duo consisting of Rob Garza, Eric Hilton, and their supporting artists, including current drummer Jeff Franca...
's 12" single Supreme Illusion (ESL110) - Antique map overlays for The Walters Art Museum exhibition Maps: Finding Our Place in the World for Google Earth
- Book coverBook coverA book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older forms such as the nineteenth-century "paper-boards" and...
for Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities by Kazim AliKazim AliKazim Ali is an American poet, novelist, essayist and professor. His most recent books are The Disappearance of Seth and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities . His honors include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council... - Book coverBook coverA book cover is any protective covering used to bind together the pages of a book. Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older forms such as the nineteenth-century "paper-boards" and...
for Cities and Nature by Lisa Benton-Short and John Rennie Short - Geospatial Art - ArabesqueArabesqueThe arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements...
aerial photographyAerial photographyAerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
of urban areas - LOLMaps - Features 51 mapsMAPSMaps is the plural of map, a visual representation of an area.As an acronym, MAPS may refer to:* Mail Abuse Prevention System, an organisation that provides anti-spam support...
and aerial photographs with LOLcatLolcatA lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat with text intended to contribute humour. The text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and its use in this way is known as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin"....
text written on top - Pentagon Quilt #3 is featured in the We Are Here map archive organized by Daniel Tucker for the Experimental Geography touring exhibition
- Streetview I.E.D. - Animation that simulates a car driving down Bush Street in San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
using the Google MapsGoogle MapsGoogle Maps is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, free , that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API...
Streetview feature. - The Modern GeographerGeographerA geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
was featured as the cover artwork for the Association of American GeographersAssociation of American GeographersThe Association of American Geographers is a non-profit scientific and educational society founded in 1904 and aimed at advancing the understanding, study, and importance of geography and related fields...
Geography & the Humanities Symposium program