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Weltkarten – Change the Map

Ars Electronica exhibits current world map projections in which geography legitimated by the nation-state system is overlaid by the reciprocities and points of rupture in our modern Information Society—cyber-graphies of a world of data and information systems whose meridians are lines of economic, ecological and political power. Artists as cartographers.

Change the Map is a collection of exemplary artistic approaches that can be subsumed under the heading of world projections and that have in common a reference to cartography. But they also display an additional, methodological commonality—namely, projecting a 'world' out of specific processes. In this connection, reference to cartography means proceeding by means of a confrontation with topological world models to arrive at what is if not an explicitly formulated then certainly a clearly suggested critique of the topographic Weltanschauung and patterns of behavior on which it has had an impact.

'Cartography cannot simply be defined as a method of describing the world. Rather, from a historical perspective—for instance, in the context of how the new sea and land routes provided the grounds for European colonialism—it proved to be a means to an end: opening up a whole new world and determining its subsequent course. The very process of cartographic description itself was connected, to a certain extent, with the appropriation of this world, which, in turn, culminated in a national and/or transnational geography of the economy' (Heimo Ranzenbacher)

Change the Map thus features projects that call into question this world geography legitimated by the system of nation-states, and, by superimposing upon it the power games and power structures that are actually operative in it, relativize the reciprocities as well as the points of fracture and breakdown in our modern Information Society. This gives rise to topological models that constitute an alternative to (the) mere (politics of) geography—in the context of data and information systems, for instance, Cybergrafien<, whose meridians become the lines of economic, ecological and political force.

When, for example, Peter Fend slices up world maps, the pattern of his cuts is determined by water resources. The Fendian world map does not show direct national zones of influence but rather transnational ecological zones of dependence (and potential disputes, as Fend too draws causal connections between geopolitical sources of conflict and such watersheds). The critique that charges 'geographical thinking' with imagining a static world and therefore one that can be represented though clear-cut depictions becomes inflamed when confronted in concrete terms with, for example, the idiocy of investing money in a 'Star Wars' Strategic Defense Initiative in light of such real threats to the biosphere as the warming of the seas and rivers, the hole in the ozone layer, etc. In contrast, the world projections of this artist are based on a rather systematic way of thinking.

*Klimakonverter* (Jauk / Ranzenbacher) utilizes this way of thinking directly for the production of a climate on the basis of a blend of objective global weather data with 'talking about the weather,' the outcome of which is another climatically determined world map. Minitasking (schoenerwissen), ./logicaland (Aschauer, Deinhofer, Gusberti, Thönen) oder auch They Rule (Josh On, Futurefarmers) und Carnivore (Radical Software Group, RSG) create cybergraphs through the visualization of data flows, of political, economic and social relationships, and of decisions that support egotistical systems. The group named social impact, on the other hand, maps loopholes and gaps in the barricades surrounding 'Fortress Europe' and thus amends the cartographic record in line with its subversive agenda. *Net.flag* (Mark Napier) offers Internet users the opportunity to combine iconographic interchangeable components of the flags of actual countries with one another into individualized flags, and thus urges them to reflect on the distortions between territorial identity and the reality of a networked world.

Serving as an intentional model for the approach taken by this exhibition has been to a certain extent Buckminster Fuller’s 'Dymaxion Map' (which Ars Electronica 2002 is using as its logo) and the concepts informing Fuller’s depiction of the world according to the criteria of a global, non-centralized perspective that went into his design (never actually executed) for the US Pavilion at the 1967 World’s Fair in Montreal.

The exhibition Weltkarten – Change the Map will be presented September 8 to 12, from 10:00am to 7:00pm at the Brucknerhaus.

Space & Design Strategies: Elsa Prochazka/A






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