Economical technological and political processes have been changing the way we perceive the world. These changes have been reflected upon by scholars from different disciplines as "the shrinking of the world" (Waldo Tobler), "the death of distance" (Frances Cairncross), and "flattening of the world" (Thomas Friedman). These metaphors reflect the growing distance between our perceived world, and the physical one.

The last decade we have witnessed the emergence of low cost flight industry. Companies such as Easyjet and Ryanair have substantially altered the way we perceive travel, mainly in Europe and the US. The emergence of online ticketing and the improvement of databases in the service of travel agents has also brought upon us new phenomena such as last minute vacation destinations. The traveler goes to the airport carrying a generic suitcase, without knowledge of the destination. The
destination is decided upon at the very last minute, at the travel agency's counter in the airport, taking this decision up to 1 hour before taking off, based on the availability of inexpensive vacation deals at that specific moment. These processes have affected the way we take our travel decisions. Decisions are becoming less site specific, and more "deal specific". We no longer wish to visit Paris or Rome, but instead we wish to go "somewhere-that-is- not-here" for 200 Euros, or somewhere that is close by enough to come back before Monday morning.

Roxana Torre's "Personal World Map" is an interactive world map, where the world is distorted according to the potential traveler's time/budget limitations. The user chooses a "center", and defines time and money boundaries. After processing that data against a database of commercial flight data, a new map is produced, a personal world map. This new map is a distorted map, as geography and physical distances are no longer relevant in face of those new limitations and the availability of flights and their cost distribution. Geographical distances are replaced by money or travel time distances. For example: in the "Money Space", Paris and London are closer to Amsterdam than Brussels. When traveling from Paris, Prague is almost as close as London. In the "Travel time Space" the distortion appears to be less striking, but Rome is definitely farther from Paris than Cairo is. In these custom created maps nothing looks the same anymore. Continents no longer look the same, their original shape is distorted in order to contain the same countries and cities. Boundaries between countries don't have any meaning.

In order to visualize these distortions Roxana uses a cartographical technique called Anamorphosis, as Roxana explains: "Anamorphic mapping aims to adapt the form of the map to the perceived reality instead of showing the physical reality. This spatial distortion can be performed through a mathematical model using real quantitative data. The map is not considered as a model of the geographical reality but as a communication document. (Patrice Langlois/Jean Charles Denain)".

The geographical distortion induced by the new laws of travel produces a strong visual effect, which serves to emphasize the artificiality of the timing and pricing policies of the contemporary flight travel industry. In her essay, Roxana cites John Urry's analysis of the reasons behind why people travel. He classifies people's travel choices into several categories: Legal, economic and familial obligations; Social obligations; Time obligations; Place obligations; Life obligations; and Object obligations (Urry, 2001).

According to Roxana's personal view, this classification has become incomplete, she explains "All these ideas are based on traveling to a fixed destination; in other words, on the fact of having a reason to travel to a certain place at a certain moment. However, I think that the idea of traveling is not always subjected to a fixed destination. One of the reasons why people want to travel is to (temporarily) escape from everyday life and therefore from the place where they live. In this case
people are not looking for a destination in particular but for a place which fulfills certain requirements: climate, culture, geography, etc."

Roxana's personal world map reflects these changes very accurately. Her Personal World Map is a visual metaphor of our custom created personal world.

Roxana Torre's work can be viewed online at:
http://www.personalworldmap.org
and from 5th November to 17th December as part of the exhibition
Maps, Notations and Explorations,
At the 66East: Centre for Urban Culture
Sumatrastraat 66, Amsterdam
http://www.66east.org