The map becomes the territory - Street 3.0

30. Jänner 2024, 10.15 Uhr Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, Lecture Room

Interface Cultures lädt zum Gastvortrag von Simon Weckert. 

Platforms like Google Maps have become crucial gateways for understanding the world. However, they harbor significant gaps and biases, often resulting from processes of exclusion. As a result, their digital augmentations act more like distortions than reflections, illuminating only certain facets of the world at the expense of others. This doesn't necessarily mean fairer futures are impossible, but it does reinforce existing power dynamics.
As the digital becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, the idea of what the internet was and could be turns out to be a mere wishful thinking. The geography of the internet now encompasses more than just mapping virtual realities and digital worlds. In fact, the cities we live in are much more than just their physical presence. Take the place where you live as an example: you are surrounded by buildings and streets, concrete, bricks, and glass, houses, and shops. But you are also surrounded by information and code, invisible to the naked eye, yet fundamentally changing how the city functions and how we interact with it. This means we are all now digital geographers. The cities we live in are shaped by a digital framework, by digital infrastructure and architecture, and by the digital media and platforms that influence a large part of our social relationships.