The Hidden Meanings of Maps - The Projection Choice | Geoawesomeness
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JUST LIKE THE PHOTOGRAPHER OR THE PAINTER, THE MAP MAKER TURNS INTO A MESSENGER BRINGING BACK DATA “FROM ABOVE” TO THE PEOPLE “ON THE GROUND”. IT IS NOT MEANINGLESS, AND IT IS CERTAINLY NEVER PURELY OBJECTIVE.
First maps were used more to conquest lands and assess resources than for anything else. There is something very powerful about being the one to draw others lands, to trace borders, to delimit people’s possessions. The one looking from above has more visibility. He gets the “big picture” of things. When human beings began to map their world, they started to act like “planet managers” and not just as passive creatures.
Humanity shifted then from the scale of immediacy (what you see everyday around you) to the regional & global scale of media (what you can now conceive above your every day world, thanks to media relating others knowledge, meaning you can access to things and places you haven’t experienced yourself).
