Maps. Late Holocenites had grown very proficient in the design and use of symbolic depictions that emphasized relationships between elements of space, known as maps. There were maps of several kinds and for several purposes. They may have been used to indicate elevation, temperature, rainfall, as well as localization of certain aspects to be studied.
The purpose of these maps determined their design. For istance, old maps show the imperial palace of the land of Oku at the top or at the center of the map, in such a way that one cannot properly read the map unless one puts the map above their head, thus indicating the absolute importance of this building over individuals in their culture[1].
The earliest Holocenite maps that have been found include cave paintings (it is thought that early Holocenites lived in caves). Following those, we have evidence of maps belonging to Ancient Holocenite Cultures. In their most simple form maps are two dimensional constructs, however at this time Holocenites started to experiment by projecting the maps onto three-dimensional spheres that would become later known as globes.
With later Holocenite developments in the fields of transportation and telecommunication engineering, late Holocenites were able to document areas that were previously uncharted. These developments seem to have been linked to the expansion of power from septentrional lands to other territories. As kingdoms became more ambitious, they invested in mapmaking, which contributed both to their access and to their further expansion.
It took Holocenites a while, as in eras, to figure out that, with their planet being round, they had to account its curvature for an accurate representation of larger regions. Projections on a sphere help with this problem, but this process always results in a distorsion of the surface. Different ways to approach this issue resulted in a multiplicity of representation methods, and these, in turn, lead to different accounts of the Holocenite world.
A writer of the time proposed a seemingly apocryphal text, which captured a testimony of an Empire where their mapmaking techniques were so sophisticated, that they were set to work on a map whose size was equal to the Empire and was exact point by point with it[2]. The map was unusable, so was later abandoned, allowing stray animals and people to live in it.
As a response, it was added that such a map would be impossible unless it is Transparent, Permeable, Extended and Adjustable [3]. But at any rate, such a map should either represent itself or else would not be faithful. These leads to three final corollaries:
Every 1:1 map always reproduces the territory unfaithfully.
At the moment the map is realized, the empire becomes unreproducible.
Every 1:1 map of the empire decrees the end of the empire as such and therefore is the map of a territory that is not an empire.
As empires grew more powerful, they got closer to achieving this goal. The Confederation of Republicsâ Department of Defense developed - and owned - a more detailed and accurate System of Navigation that relied on satellite technology. The Advanced Research Tasks Enforcement Bureau, belonging to the aforementioned Defense Department, also responsible for the creation of world-wide electronic Networks of Communication, was pivotal in shrinking the size of this new navigation tool, making it possible for Holocenites to use these technologies in a daily basis for their regular transportation.
At the peak of this technology, pocket sized devices allowed Holocenites to literally navigate a double of their physical space and find replications of physical objects or accurate representations of objects emerged in this replicated space. They found a strong duality between what they considered the physical world and the virtual world. Initially, their virtual world was just a replica of the physical world.
Later philosophers created the concept of territorialization[4] to explain the processes by which systems of power instill a sense of identity that is alien to the individual. But they propose processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization to counter this and create multiple, subversive identities. In this vein, small, transgressive mapping practices appear, establishing diverse relationships between map and territory.
Deep Maps borrow the concept from Least Heath Moon to convey the idea of multiple, often collective layers that explain the intrinsic and underlaying forces and contradictions that exist in a space: âInhabiting a Deep Map is a social process, a pedagogical tool, and a way of tuning yourself to the complexities of being in any placeâ[5]. In this way, they reinscribe social practices into the space that are thus recoded into the individual experience.
