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Mapping in Flusser, Deleuze and Digital Technology

Deleuze and Guattari understood Mapping as an unfolding of becoming and an all-encompassing and connecting event. Vilém Flusser on the other hand treats mapping as a creative yet private and isolated activity. The insistence on the primacy of holistic mapping over subjective tracing in Deleuze’s and Guattari’s account bears the danger of cutting off the subject from a physical environment, the possible results of which are illustrated in Flusser’s essay “My Atlas”: the loss or radical reduction of sensual impressions as well as the end of shared intersubjective experience. I compare both accounts of mapping to underline the active and passive implications of embodied experience in a physical environment. Building on these results I draw out the difficulties individuals are facing when engaging with digital technology, in particular Google Maps.

Mapping (PDF 821.67 KB)

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