Close Up at a Distance

The maps in this book are drawn with satellites, assembled with pixelsradioed fromouter space, and constructed from statistics; they record situationsof intense conflict and expressfundamental transformations in ourways of seeing and of experiencing space. These maps are builtwithGlobal Positioning Systems (GPS), remote sensing satellites, or GeographicInformation Systems(GIS): digital spatial hardware and software designedfor such military and governmental uses asreconnaissance, secrecy, monitoring,ballistics, the census, and national security. Rather thanshying awayfrom the politics and complexities of their intended uses, in Close Up ataDistance Laura Kurgan attempts to illuminate them. Poised at the intersectionof art,architecture, activism, and geography, her analysis uncovers theimplicit biases of the new views,the means of recording information theypresent, and the new spaces they have openedup. Her presentation of these maps reclaims, repurposes, and discovers newand eveninadvertent uses for them, including documentary, memorial,preservation, interpretation, political,or simply aesthetic. GPS has beenavailable to both civilians and the military since 1991; the WorldWideWeb democratized the distribution of data in 1992; Google Earth has capturedglobal bird's-eyeviews since 2005. Technology has brought about arevolutionary shift in our ability to navigate,inhabit, and define the spatialrealm. The traces of interactions, both physical and virtual, chartedby themaps in Close Up at a Distance define this shift.