From Postmodern Temptations by Claudio Minca:
This critical vision (a modern analysis of geography), however, has found itself, for the most part, hard pressed to overcome that exquisitely modern habit of reasoning in dualistic terms: that is, of envisioning the map and the territory as two rigorously and necessarily distinct objets; of considering society and space as two dimensions - associated, perhaps, but clearly distinguishable one from the other; of seeing the representations of the world and the world itself as two cleanly/clearly separate realms.
the question: how do we separate our actual experience of the world from its mappings, or its representations? what can we learn from our obsession with the 'microcosm', the notion of a model that can be extrapolated to a larger 'truth'? wendy said in our last meeting that mapping might be overdetermined. i think that tendency is in part due to our sense of empowerment (and this is coming from minca) that we are gaining access to some metaphysical or greater 'truth' by observing maps, that the maps merely *represent* a greater space, when, in reality, our experience is limited to the map. the map represents itself.
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Mapping our trash
a cool map of the garbage patch, but with its own limitations as well
a little dorky, but a nice slideshow of contingent moments on google maps (about halfway through)
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