Close Up at a Distance: Mapping, Technology, and Politics
By Laura Kurgan
5/5
()
About this ebook
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.
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.
Related to Close Up at a Distance
Related ebooks
The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the Future of Humanities Scholarship Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Resilient Communities across Geographies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoad Ecology: Science and Solutions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Abstract Machine: Humanities GIS Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Before and After Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reflexive Cartography: A New Perspective in Mapping Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Methodologies of Mobility: Ethnography and Experiment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCities Made of Boundaries: Mapping Social Life in Urban Form Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrban Geomorphology: Landforms and Processes in Cities Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsValuing Place and Purpose: GIS for Land Administration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRetrofitting Sprawl: Addressing Seventy Years of Failed Urban Form Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhy Planning Does Not Work. Land Use Planning and Residents� Rights in Tanzania Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unearthed: The Landscapes of Hargreaves Associates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMapping Society: The Spatial Dimensions of Social Cartography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Developments in the Theory and Practice of Cybercartography: Applications and Indigenous Mapping Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Urban Development: The Logic Of Making Plans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sprawl: A Compact History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All Over the Map: Writing on Buildings and Cities Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Resilient Cities, Second Edition: Overcoming Fossil Fuel Dependence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tribal GIS: Supporting Native American Decision-Making Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Future of the Suburban City: Lessons from Sustaining Phoenix Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrban Planning for Disaster Recovery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrban Ecology: Emerging Patterns and Social-Ecological Systems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enhancing Disaster Preparedness: From Humanitarian Architecture to Community Resilience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCity Rules: How Regulations Affect Urban Form Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Urban Geography: An Introductory Analysis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Paradox of Preservation: Wilderness and Working Landscapes at Point Reyes National Seashore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUrban Biodiversity and Design Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Don't Owe You Pretty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Close Up at a Distance
1 rating0 reviews