hasty thoughts on maps
maps are fascinating things. for one, they're both science and art: the precision and rigour of geography and navigation, but the license of illustration. more importantly, they're a physical manifestation of the relationship our minds have with the world.
we thrust our minds onto the world around us. that's why there are so many different types of maps: political territories, altitude maps, population density maps, weather maps; each map summoned forth to service a certain need. we can't look at a blank map; we're compelled to order it and harness it to subjective meaning (like we do with life). we carve out nation states, eke out timezones, impose latitudes and longitudes, name the bodies of water (the greatest conceit, I feel). we designate north. we draw lines of trade, lines of ocean currents; we colour in spaces for countries affected with AIDS; we label cities, rivers, climates, empires. we structure. and below this tangled weave of lines, colours and labels; beneath the cacophony of multitudinous perceptions, the landmasses themselves remain stoic. blank.
each map testifies to a certain view of the world; it incriminates our paradigms, condemns us to subjectivity.
when I was much younger I was frustrated with how all the maps I saw in my geography textbooks never quite contained all the information I wanted. I remember desperately craving a map of the roman empire juxtaposed on a map of modern political borders, juxtaposed on a map of the ancient world. which, short of making one myself, I never found. I wanted a supermap, a map that showed everything. but if we tried to use one map to represent everything, the page would be an illegible labyrinth of lines. it would be like trying to read hamlet when all the words have been written one on top of the other. for maps, like for minds, totality is chaos.
each map gravitates towards coherence at the expense of totality; it divulges both the failure and the necessity of representation.
the third problem I have with maps is the endless frustration of time: the stasis of maps versus the dynamism of our worldview structures. 2D versus 4D. names of places change. empires rise and fall. population density maps can only ever be temporarily accurate. states dispute territory.
that's why I was so delighted to discover this today. dynamic maps! -- the instigator for this post, my new favourite webtoy, and the direction in which all maps, despite their other more intractable shortcomings, should totally be headed.
so, maps are fun! here are some of my recent favourites.
