ADAM ON REDEFINED SPACE

MAPS, SPACE & I

Ro’s latest topic, Redefining Space, got me thinking about maps. How they continually challenge my understanding and experience of space. How, curiously, I’m both attracted and put off by them. And how they seem to me to be an abstraction masquerading as facts.

For starters, I love the cautionary disclosure that’s often found on a map – “Map not drawn to scale”. Almost as much as I love the warning that’s ghosted on the side mirror of a car – “Objects are closer than they appear”. In both instances my bearings, which aren’t exactly that reliable to begin with, are put on notice - “Hey buddy, you know that thing that you think you know, well I got news for ya, it isn’t what you think it is.” Now, I’m very comfortable with these warnings. They help remind me that “not knowing” is ok, and actually can be part of a safe and sane outlook on life.

On the other hand, I’m a little put off when the wording on a map states that it’s been drawn to scale. It’s as if this information makes the map more real, more understandable, and more meaningful. Come on! Drawn to scale or not, I, for one, can easily find myself all-turned-around and feeling hopelessly lost using a map. Indeed, how often is it the case that the space that a map depicts has actually changed? Which reminds me that I often rationally know that something “is”, and yet, emotionally I’m still at a loss to fully recognize or deal with “it”. Indeed, emotions are never drawn to scale and almost invariably are closer than they appear.

Before the advent of MapQuest or Google Maps, which I now religiously use to find where something is located and how the heck to get there, I use to like to draw maps for folks to help explain how to get to my home. These maps tended to look a bit like a Saul Steinberg cartoon, where the representation of my home, typically an iconic box with a triangle on top, was always way out of proportion to anything else depicted. Streets, freeways, an important surrounding landmark, such as a nearby park or shopping center, all receded in stature. In effect, my home was the center of the world, the center of my world. I probably should have added these words at the bottom of my maps – “Map drawn to emotional scale”.

If you were to search for my home on GoogleMaps, you’ll find it’s presented entirely differently from “my home is where the heart is” map. The Google map has a little red pin-like icon pointing out where the house is located. Sure, it’s has been called out, but my home is certainly not the center of the world for GoogleMaps. It’s been homogenized. Redefined according to Google. Surprisingly, there’s also a photograph that accompanies the Google map. I believe it’s been put there to imbue it with a greater sense of “reality” and to confirm its “truth”. (There’s a bit of big brother going here. I wonder who actually took this photo? Kind of creepy. But that’s another topic for another day.)

As an exercise in exploring how maps can define or redefine “your space”, draw a map to your home from the airport to your doorstep. Compare that with GoogleMaps’ depiction. Then ask yourself, which one is more real? Or, which one do you prefer and why?