Conference: Weaving Worlds: Between Affect and Evidence

In recent years, mapping and modelling have become key tools through which we understand spatial situations and are often also central to forms of intervention. While the practice of mapping has been thoroughly deconstructed, as can be discerned in the use of terms such as counter/radical cartography, counter mapping etc., within the realm of the digital many familiar problems have returned in a different guise, such as externalised reference points, immutable base maps, or simply our own unacknowledged presence. The digital realm also produces representations of worlds that are all encompassing, where paradigms of existence beyond the statistical, capitalist and imperial logic of the model are difficult to imagine (Galloway, 2014). Such technologies have enabled new forms of colonisation and are complicit in the ending of many lifeworlds. If we were to learn from indigenous thinkers that we live in ‘a world of many worlds’ (Cadena & Blaser, 2018) that are deeply entangled, how might this transform our practices of mapping and modelling to apprehend heterogeneous, material and situated worlds? What would an intensive practice of mapping look like? What might it mean to know the world through multiple reference points? If maps are tools that conceptualise ways of knowing and aid navigation, how might we produce them differently to help us place ourselves within multiple constellations?

Initial list (to be confirmed): Shannon Mattern, Rania Ghosn, Renata Tyszczuk

More information

This conference is organised by Borders & Territories from the Department of Architecture, Delft University of Technology, in cooperation with Topological Atlas (UCL Urban Lab) and Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. 

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Find more information about the exhibition "Weaving Worlds: Between Affect and Evidence" here.