San Francisco Antarctic Survey
TLDR
This map depicts an expedition from San Francisco to Antarctica in search of reasonably-priced urban living space. Way down south in Antarctica, the expedition team is biding its time with analog hobbies and excellent beer as they wait for the completion of the MUNI subway extension line in 2038.
Juicy details
Bean Brew No.6 presented a fun mapping challenge since it's actually quite difficult to capture San Francisco (in the Northern Hemisphere) and Antartica (way down at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere) in anything resembling their proper dimensions. I decided it was more fun to place Antarctica at the center of the Western Hemisphere map with a projection that grotesquely enlarges North America in the same way that Greenland gets blown up on most world maps.
Format
- Format
- Silk Screen
- Size
- 18" by 24"
Prints available
Silk Screen · 18" by 24"
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The Bean Brew story
Bean Brew came about as a home brewing project transformed into a mapping project. It worked like this:
- I would brew a batch of beer (generally a Saison) into about 16 large format bottles.
- Every batch had a theme, which was almost always ridiculous, but just plausible enough to maybe be true? Accompanying this theme was a survey, which at first actually asked people about their Bean Brew beer drinking experience. However, these questions quickly went rogue.
- The 16 bottles of beer were given away at first. In later years they were actually sold in highly exclusive batches. The beer was drunk. Usually without too much hounding, every person who obtained a bottle returned their survey results to Bean Brew HQ.
- I analyzed these results with the help of my slide rule, then designed a map visualizing the Bean Brew experience.
- The Bean Brew designs were then dispatched to Texas, where my friend Rand used his mad crazy printmaking skills to transform them into four-color silkscreens. Rand was always very busy (or falling off of ladders) and the silkscreening process generally took many months to complete.
- On a happy day many months after the original beers were consumed, every person who participated in the experience received a beautiful map.