INBTWN    *    IMPERIAL RO(O/U)T(E)S
   ir_01    ir_02    ir_03    ir_04    ir_05    ir_06
ir_05_methods+sources            

        methods
Imperial ro(o/u)t(e)s is built from public cable maps and historical shipping records rather than invented routes. The subsea cable animations draw on aggregated industry maps that show where contemporary fiber‑optic lines travel across seabeds and where they land on shore. Those maps are translated into coordinates and redrawn as fields of digits and labels so that cables appear as overlapping traces rather than single, clean lines.
                       The ship‑route animations use positions and dates taken from historical voyage data, including digitized logs and catalogues produced under imperial and commercial regimes. Those records are treated less as neutral measurements and more as evidence of how certain sea lanes were repeatedly enforced. By compressing many voyages into a single image field, the work aims to show how today's internet routes extend earlier shipping patterns, especially at specific landing points where colonial ports become network hubs.

          data-collection+processing
Two primary geographic datasets were combined to visualize the overlap between historical colonial maritime trade routes and contemporary submarine cable infrastructure.
          historical-route-data
                       Ship route data was sourced from the CLIWOC (Climatological Database for the World's Oceans) project, specifically the "CLIWOC Slim and Routes" derivative dataset compiled by Arribas-Bel (2020). This dataset transforms individual ship logbook entries from European colonial powers (primarily 17th-19th centuries) into continuous route linestrings with temporal metadata, including start and end dates, country codes, voyage length in days, and record counts.
          contemporary-cable-data
                       Submarine cable infrastructure data was obtained from TeleGeography's Submarine Cable Map API in GeoJSON format, including both cable route geometries (cable-geo.json) and landing point coordinates (landing-point-geo.json). The datasets provide cable names, geographic coordinates, and MultiLineString coordinate arrays representing cable paths across ocean floors and landing station locations.
           processing
                       The datasets were processed using custom code to convert geographic coordinates into animated typographic fields. Cable routes and ship tracks were rendered as overlapping letterforms, numerals, and cable names rather than traditional cartographic lines. This approach transforms precise infrastructure data into dense, visually unstable marks that emphasize congestion, overlap, and pattern repetition across historical and contemporary timeframes.

         analytical approach
The project uses custom code to convert maps and tables into moving letterforms and numerals, but the goal is not to offer a definitive visualization. Instead, each field stages a tension between precision and illegibility: exact coordinates generate dense, unstable marks that are easier to feel than to read, echoing how imperial infrastructures are both everywhere and hard to see.
                       Where possible, care is taken to avoid reproducing sensitive or identifying information beyond what is necessary to show broad patterns. The focus is on routes, not individuals. Any errors in transcription, interpretation or emphasis are part of the project's argument that archives and infrastructures are always partial and shaped by the conditions under which they are made.
                       The work consists of multiple interactive sketches that isolate different layers of infrastructure—contemporary cable maps, colonial shipping tracks, specific landing points—and pushes each until familiar web interfaces begin to read as extractive systems. Interactive elements allow viewers to hover over cable names to reveal specific routes, trace ship movements as bands of flag-state initials, and add gestural marks that accumulate rather than erase, transforming stable diagrams into records of repeated handling.

         bibliography
Arribas-Bel, Dani. "CLIWOC Slim and Routes." figshare, 2020. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.11941224.v1.

Historical Climatology. "CLIWOC Database and Documentation." Accessed December 2025. https://www.historicalclimatology.com/cliwoc.html.

TeleGeography. "Submarine Cable Map." Accessed December 2025. https://www.submarinecablemap.com/.

———. "Submarine Cable Map: Cable Geographic Data." Accessed December 2025. https://www.submarinecablemap.com/api/v3/cable/cable-geo.json.

———. "Submarine Cable Map: Landing Point Geographic Data." Accessed December 2025. https://www.submarinecablemap.com/api/v3/landing-point/landing-point-geo.json.

        colophon
This project is set in ABC Favorit by Dinamo Typefaces and Garabosse by Atelier National de Recherche Typographique (ANRT). This site was designed and developed by Alex Suppan for Generative Typography with Zeke Wattles at ArtCenter College of Design. It was built using JavaScript, p5.js and D3.js; hosted on Cargo; with coding assistance from Perplexity.
                       This is an educational project. CLIWOC data is used under a CC BY 4.0 license. TeleGeography Submarine Cable Map data is used for educational and non-commercial purposes in accordance with their terms of service.