Making Art From Maps: Inspiration, Techniques, and an International Gallery of Artists

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It has sparked a bit of debate and conversation with my family about the places I’ve chosen to feature. I use a close reading of a selected area of Targets to open out questions of map interpretation in light of the recognition of maps as irreducibly both graphic images and texts. That is, it is not conceptually inhabitable by a body, but still maintains the notion of being a consciousness, in that it is able to cognise, to view, and to know (the viewed subject). The viewing position formed in the artwork offers an identification with an imagined viewing position of the United States, conspicuous by its non-depiction in this re-worked ‘world map’.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I have a terrible sense of direction, so if I can make a map that works for me, I feel confident it can do the job for others. Never will the earth appear to the eye of a satellite or the aerial observer as something covered with toponyms. A hemispherical dividing line corresponds to the equator, and top-to-bottom linear divisions correspond to meridians, though fewer than we might find on a globe, such that curved trapezoidal panels are formed. The map captures the spirit and landmarks of the breathtaking moorland landscape with its quaint towns and villages.This viewpoint denotes the contemporary and historical phenomenon of remote viewing, through a range of technological practices, carried out by means of remotely piloted military aircraft. In this way, no shadows fall on the painted map surfaces, and the notion of time implicit in the physical relation between the sun and the earth is suppressed, or not selected for depiction, in the composite map that Targets presents. Remember, if you don’t want to cut up a particular map but want to include it in this project, you can always use a photocopy. This sparked discussions about whether people are happier with modern technology and whether the island’s inhabitants have been affected by COVID-19.

For Wood, to transhistoricise map production and use is to mistake the map for the spatial cognitive abilities that it extends and develops. In terms of embodiment and positionality, the god’s eye view is de-embodied, while still figuring the ‘position’ of a consciousness. Now, as an art teacher, I realize that the possibilities for mapmaking in the classroom are limitless. This is absolutely stunning, this is beautiful," Ed Fairburn remarked as he flipped through maps in his studio Southampton, on England's south coast. Masks (2004-6) is a large series of works, one strand of which is formed of Venetian full-face masks painted with maps of Mediterranean islands, and Knowledge (1998-2000) is a cycle of frescoes and decorated globes depicting changing conceptions of the form and extent of the terrestrial globe through history.

and Derek Gregory (2011) pays close attention to the material practices through which drone viewing is produced, based on the live interaction that takes place among operators, other pilots in the battle-space, analysts, and particularly the video feeds which are analysed and used to inform operational decisions immediately. Some approaches emphasise the map as a graphic representation first and foremost, troubling the inclusion of ‘maps’ that also display three-dimensionality, or that rely on gesture and ephemeral materials, or what Fredric Jameson has influentially termed cognitive mapping [iv]; other definitions foreground the map’s common function as a navigational device, causing difficulty with how to classify images commonly regarded as maps but without a navigational function, such as medieval world maps, mappaemundi. Panoptic viewing enacts a disciplinary power on the viewed subject, such that the subject comes to internalise the function of the apparatus and use ‘their own’ agency to shape their conduct in conformity with the requirements of the ‘guard’, or the apparatus itself. I see this in effect in Targets’ staging of a viewing position that opens out relations of engagement and complicity as against control and domination of the viewed. Last time I talked about how maps aren’t just about roads and rivers, they can also celebrate memories and stories.