This knowledge map is an experiment with colors. Based on color theory in physics of light and the biology of sight color can be described in distance. There are “long wavelength” cells that are most sensitive to orange-red light, “medium wavelength” cells that are most sensitive to yellow-green light, and “short wavelength” cells that are most sensitive in the blue.
I use a color-coding system to create a map of the authenticity of Vietnamese restaurants in the city. The most authentic restaurants are in blue, the shortest wavelength color, and the least authentic red, which has the longest wavelength. In between values are yellow, green and orange.
The restaurants are classified in a ranking of my own, which includes a list of significations of culture, ranked in color. My challenge was to make my own interpretation of “authenticity,” based on my upbringing and firsthand experience of being a Vietnamese native. I deviated from traditional cartographic map definitions, and used an infographic approach to “map” the levels of authenticity. The final result is a form of arbitrary interpretation rather than a visualization of actuality.
