12 September

Here's another way I think to describe why maps are actually pretty sinister, and define our culture. Before maps, there was no 'local' and no 'global'. Anywhere you lived was a whole world to itself, it wasn't 'part' of anything else. Look at that expression - You Are Here. Who occupies the viewpoint that says that? No person. The empire occupies that viewpoint, it produced the map by conquering territories and mapping them. Nobody actually *lives* in the viewpoint of a map, the viewpoint that says "You Are Here". It's about power, to define all the places people live as just 'local' parts of the no-place, a God's-eye-view created by empires.