| Description |
1 online resource (228 pages) : illustrations, maps |
| Contents |
Mapping considered as a problem of theory and practice -- Representation and the necessity of interpretation -- From military surveillance to the public sphere -- You are here -- Kuwait : image mapping -- Cape Town, South Africa, 1968 : search or surveillance? -- Kosovo 1999 : SPOT 083-264 -- New York, September 11, 2001 -- Around ground zero -- Monochrome landscapes -- Global clock -- Million-dollar blocks |
| Summary |
"The past two decades have seen revolutionary shifts in our ability to navigate, inhabit, and define the spatial realm. The data flows that condition much of our lives now regularly include Global Positioning System (GPS) readings and satellite images of a quality once reserved for a few militaries and intelligence agencies, and powerful geographic information system (GIS) software is now commonplace. These new technologies have raised fundamental questions about the intersection between physical space and its representation, virtual space and its realization. In Close Up at a Distance, Laura Kurgan offers a theoretical account of these new digital technologies of location and a series of practical experiments in making maps and images with spatial data. Neither simply useful tools nor objects of wonder or anxiety, the technologies of GPS, GIS, and satellite imagery become, in this book, the subject and the medium of a critical exploration |
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Close Up at a Distance records situations of intense conflict and struggle, on the one hand, and fundamental transformations in our ways of seeing and of experiencing space, on the other. Kurgan maps and theorizes mass graves, incarceration patterns, disappearing forests, and currency flows in a series of cases that range from Kuwait (1991) to Kosovo (1999), New York (2001) to Indonesia (2010). Using digital spatial hardware and software designed for military and governmental use in reconnaissance, secrecy, monitoring, ballistics, the census, and national security, Kurgan engages and confronts the politics and complexities of these technologies and their uses. At the intersection of art, architecture, activism, and geography, she uncovers, in her essays and projects, the opacities inherent in the recording of information and data and reimagines the spaces they have opened up."--Pub. desc |
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"The maps in this book are drawn with satellites, assembled with pixels radioed from outer space, and constructed from statistics; they record situations of intense conflict and express fundamental transformations in our ways of seeing and of experiencing space. These maps are built with Global Positioning Systems (GPS), remote sensing satellites, or Geographic Information Systems (GIS): digital spatial hardware and software designed for such military and governmental uses as reconnaissance, secrecy, monitoring, ballistics, the census, and national security. Rather than shying away from the politics and complexities of their intended uses, in Close Up at a Distance Laura Kurgan attempts to illuminate them. Poised at the intersection of art, architecture, activism, and geography, her analysis uncovers the implicit biases of the new views, the means of recording information they present, and the new spaces they have opened up. Her presentation of these maps reclaims, repurposes, and discovers new and even inadvertent uses for them, including documentary, memorial, preservation, interpretation, political, or simply aesthetic. GPS has been available to both civilians and the military since 1991; the World Wide Web democratized the distribution of data in 1992; Google Earth has captured global bird's-eye views since 2005. Technology has brought about a revolutionary shift in our ability to navigate, inhabit, and define the spatial realm. The traces of interactions, both physical and virtual, charted by the maps in Close Up at a Distance define this shift." |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Satellite image maps
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Remote-sensing images -- Political aspects
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Global Positioning System -- Social aspects
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Aerial photography.
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aerial photography.
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SCIENCE -- Earth Sciences -- Geography.
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TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Cartography.
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SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Sociology -- Urban.
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Aerial photography
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
2012040173 |
| ISBN |
9781935408413 |
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1935408410 |
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