Simon Weckert: The Map Becomes the Territory – Street 3.0
Channel: Aksioma
Date: 2024-03-12

Artist talk by Simon Weckert at ALUO - Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana
28 February 2024

Part of Tactics&Practice #15: (Un)real Data - Real Effects
https://aksioma.org/unrealdata

Platforms like Google Maps have become crucial gateways for understanding the world, yet they harbour significant gaps and biases that often result from processes of exclusion. As a consequence, their digital augmentations act more like distortions than reflections, illuminating only certain facets of the world at the expense of others. This doesn’t necessarily mean fairer futures are impossible, but it does reinforce the existing power dynamics.

As the digital becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, the idea of what the internet was and could be turns out to be mere wishful thinking. The geography of the internet now encompasses more than just mapping virtual realities and digital worlds. In fact, the cities we live in are much more than just their physical presence. Take the place where you live as an example: you are surrounded by buildings and streets, concrete, bricks and glass, houses and shops. But you are also surrounded by information and code, invisible to the naked eye, yet fundamentally changing how the city functions and how we interact with it. This means all of us are now digital geographers. The cities we live in are shaped by a digital framework, by digital infrastructure and architecture, and by the digital media and platforms that influence a large part of our social relationships.