¿Cómo se dibuja el mapa de un mapa? Del arte de resistencia al arte de la orientación

Abstract

The city has been built and is constructed by decantation and overlap. And what prevails on its depiction is the floor plan; neither the city in which we live nor its history are understandable without its overhead view. This prioritization of the overhead comes from the habits of cartography: the cartographer assumed the essence of his craft long time ago and became “ planner “, we mean literally: “one who makes possible the space control”, flattening it . And his work is closer to a “topological vision“ than to a geometric one. Planning itself generates an image of the city characterized by a normalizing vision that simplifies the “real” space ignoring the contradictions, disagreements and ambiguities; relying on economic, statistical criteria, etc. All of them are “thick end tools”, suitable for roughing , for sketching , ideal for matching or leveling, but useless to create nuances. Planning inevitably becomes an totalitarian exercise of power, in such an insistent and prolonged way that the city left its metaphors to absorb the image that dominates it in the continuous process of its planning that gives now a look to our world of life. We have certainly left the city to live the map. The city and life are organized by overlapping translucent layers that form its material layers and even its power relations, sublimated in a Geographic Information System (GIS ) and guided by the infallibility of a Geographical Positioning System (GPS ). A sanitized and homogenized territory, a map built under the “order” alibi and whose vocation is domina­tion. Inhabiting the map, being aware of its predetermination implies the necessity of drawing our own map, but how do you draw a map of a map?