26th Sep2012

Emptiness and Blank Spots

by cassygriff

1. Like Avery, this week’s readings got me thinking about the ways in which we map things that are not strictly geographical. I’m thinking specifically about the ways we do (or don’t) map digital spaces, even though we call them spaces and think about them in terms of space and place. What would a map of Facebook look like? Reddit (Alyssa…)? Would these maps necessarily rely on the spatial locations of users (like the maps in Harpold’s piece) or would they look different? I’d be really interested to see or try to conceptualize a map of digital space, especially in terms of Paglen’s “blank spots.” What would be there? Where would the gaps be?

2.I’m really intrigued by Paglen’s discussion of the politics of emptiness and the particularly American desire to fill up space or to utilize emptiness as a rationale for land grabs and various colonial projects. However, I’d like to put this chapter in conversation with Andrea Smith’s Conquest (I know I’ve already done this once, but she provides a really great analytic for space/place) and argue that the idea of emptiness and empty space is not only “not just dead background or a neutral physical stage” but also “not just […] a gender neutral physical stage” (Soja 19). In other words, while Paglen beautifully comments on the creation (both in thought and practice) of wastelands, I think he misses a key point in the colonial process that writers like Smith and Anzaldua place at the fore: spaces occupied by women and/or feminized bodies are often deemed empty. This is compounded by a particular kind of gendered racism in which fullness can only mean fullness when a space (or a body) is occupied by white men.

3.My final question/comment revolves around the importance of the visual in map-making as well as the construction of “dark continents” and “blank spots” on maps. While Paglen gestures towards the “silence” of emptiness, the generall discussion throughout these readings is about that which has not yet been or cannot be seen. Hence, things are “dark” and “blank” and either able to be visualized or somehow hidden or invisible. While vision is obviously (in my experience, for example, as a sighted person) tantamount in creating maps, I do wonder how this reliance on the visual impacts the very work that maps do or can do. What would an auditory map sound like? What would the blank space be—silence? What about Braille maps and other maps that rely on touch? Would emptiness and secrecy function the same way in the visual wasn’t so primary?

Bodies: The physical means by which we interact with the world. While physical, these bodies must also be understood as constructs that both shape and are shaped by the spaces with which they interact.

Place: A space imbued with meanings that come both from the person inhabiting or considering that place, but also from outside, often larger institutional forces. Can be hidden or made secret. Would this be one of the ways that a place reverts back to a space?

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