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Location-aware Futures and the Map

Humans have never been more capable of identifying their individualized location upon the surface of the Earth. A dazzling mesh of wired and wireless infrastructure permeates the planet and reaches far into the atmosphere. These materials are most recent manifestations within a long continuum of retentional techniques for the reproduction of humanity itself. The map stretches the lengths of this continuum, albeit with differing rhythms and volumes of use. Beyond identifying with the land, humanity inscribes upon the land with the broadest and most minute forces and movements ? all resolved through the mechanic assembly of our location-aware society. The map is therefore both a guide for and record of these processes of inscription. However, if the map is not simply understood as a window onto spatial phenomena, as over a century of radical engagements with and upon the map have made evident, then what might be the benefit of treating the map instead as an agar, that material of microbiological inquiry ? a substance upon and within which cultures and acculturation is produced? Perhaps the map is more an artifact of the times and spaces of map-use than a clarified vision of reality. Thought in this way, the map becomes an externalization of human culture, memory, and action, and we can register the reverbera­tions of the power geometries that produced such maps and allowed them to persist.

Autor / Author: Wilson, Matthew W.
Institution / Institution: University of Kentucky and Harvard University, USA
Seitenzahl / Pages: 2
Sprache / Language: Englisch
Veröffentlichung / Publication: Peer Reviewed Proceedings of Digital Landscape Architecture 2015 at Anhalt University of Applied Sciences
Tagung / Conference: Digital Landscape Architecture 2015 – Landscape Architecture and Planning
Veranstaltungsort, -datum / Venue, Date: Dessau, Germany 04-06-15 - 06-06-15
Schlüsselwörter (de):
Keywords (en): Geodesign, mapping
Paper review type: Invited contribution
DOI:
1842 -