Week 7 - Modern visualities, Readings: Mitchell & Dodge and Perkins

Question 1

What do we mean when discussing modern visualities?

Answer 1

Referring to the ways in which contemporary technologies and media shape and mediate our visual experience of the world.

Question 2

What are contemporary examples of modern visualities?

Answer 2

• drones
• google earth

Question 3

What is it about drones that are of interest for critical geographers?

Answer 3

• They offer a unique view from above (civilian and military)
• They shape warfare creating abstract spaces and targets that disregard lived experiences (Gregory)
• Develops a ‘virtual’ battlespace, drone operations as having a PlayStation mentality - a form of militainment.

Question 4

What consequences does the visuality of drone footage offer?

Answer 4

• Drones have blind spots
• Drone operators interpret the image
• Drones can be loud
• People can hide from drones
• Financial and Military blockade - a ‘threshold of perception’

Question 5

What visuality is permitted by Google Earth, GIS and Panopticism?

Answer 5

• A “digital Earth” starting from the 1990s.

Question 6

From what conditions has the digital earth surfaced from?

Answer 6

• computational science
• mass storage
• satellite imagery
• broadband networks
• interoperability (data compatability)
• geo-reference data

Question 7

What are the potential applications of a “digital earth”?

Answer 7

• various technocratic solutions to resolving issues like preserving biodiversity, predicting climate change, conducting virtual diplomacy, fighting crime.

Question 8

What are some critical reflections on a “digital Earth”?

Answer 8

• A utopian narrative of possibility (a global consensus)
• Who experiences the ‘digital’ Earth (inclusion?)
• Tensions between its democratic and environmental promise, and its corporate-panoptic utility

Question 9

What is the history of Google Earth?

Answer 9

Bought by Google in 2004 from Keyhole Inc., Google Earth provides a voyeuristic view of the world with commercial and educational value.

Question 10

How has Google Earth’s technology developed images of the earth? from what context?

Answer 10

As a digital earth, Google Earth has situated images of the Earth within a broader historical context. It has arguably revolutionised/evolved representations.

Question 11

How has the naturalism of the earth been influenced by Google Earth’s imagery?

Answer 11

From a critical cartographic perspective, Dodge and Perkins (2009) outline how Google Earth, like other digital maps is beginning to replace traditional world maps, representing the world for visual consumption. Here, the naturalism offered by Google Earth exists as an extension of Western traditions that aim to represent the world through visual means.

Question 12

What concerns do Dodge and Perkins (2009) raise?

Answer 12

Dodge and Perkins (2009) argue that a digital world is raising concerns over the politics of privacy, especially for non-western nation-states.

Question 13

What link can be made with Google Earth to earlier areas of the course?

Answer 13

The role of Google Earth as having military, corporate, or as fluid technology with social uses remains contested. It can be seen as an Apollonian tool for order and surveillance, or as a Dionysian platform for disorder and play with implications for privacy.

Question 14

What ethical questions does Google Earth raise?

Answer 14

As a digital ‘peep-box? - replacing world/reality. The google car capturing street-view imagery faster than forms of privacy (e.g, fencing)

Question 14

How can Google Earth be connected to Apollonian and Dionysian view of the world?

Answer 14

Apollonian View: represents calm, reasoned, and structured.
Dionysian View: deeply emotional and ecstatic.

Question 15

What does Mitchell (1989) argue, and what does thought does this stem from?

Answer 15

Mitchell argues that the geographies of imperialism have adapted to modern visualities. It has adopted forms of new items of visual culture in imperialistic practice. (e.g., satellite technology, online platforms –> visual content globally).

Question 16

How does Mitchell (1989) argue that geographies of imperialism have adapted to new forms of visual culture? What thought is this rooted in?

Answer 16

• Mitchell’s analysis is rooted in the concept of iconology (study of visual imagery and symbolic meaning), and the developed geographical imaginaries as a result.
• Examines the ‘pictorial turn’ in contemporary culture, where the visual has become a dominant form of communication and representation in modern society.

Question 17

How does Mitchell (1989) engage with exhibitions?

Answer 17

Mitchell writes how 19th century World Exhibitions like Brussels in 1897, were not just displays of the world, but attributed to the world as classifiable taxonomic order.

Question 18

How can Mitchell’s (1989) argument regarding the nineteenth century exhibitions of the world be connected to contemporary digital imagery?

Answer 18

Mitchell (1989) stresses how via iconography, the pictorial turn in representation and understanding has shaped meaning and understanding of culture developing distinct geographical imaginaries. In particular, Mitchell looks at the role of exhibitions, and how during the 19th century, they contributed to imperial pursuits by rendering the world as a Eurocentric scientific project to be ordered, and aided out. This connects to Kearns (2009) idea of imperial vision which stem from Mackinder’s thoughts on geopolitical landscape