Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The Stone Age mapmaker incises his map based on visual observations
only. Yet he must translate the lines of fences, paths and outlines of build-
We can not know but is not improbable that the emotional experience
of the surrounding landscape inspired him to make the map also, perhaps
initiated it. Most certainly that incised map inspire the fantasy of the reader
of today - even when we meets it only in reproduction. The fine-tuned col-
ouring of the old Swedish topographic map - not visible in this simplified
copy shown in
figure 2B
- certainly mirrors the emotional experience of
the landscape of the cartographic officer working in the field. A modern
mathematical cartographer who calculates a new global projection grid
works with pure mathematical abstractions - yet in his mind the Earth
must be present as something he not only has seen on maps or globes but
also envisioned in a not quite scientific way.
A reasonable interpretation of the three examples above is then that ex-
periencing any cartographic product - either as creator or onlooker - most
probably contains all the three components presented on the diagram.
Hence when we depict such an experience in the diagram the representa-
tive point will always lay
inside
the three axes, never
on
them.
That because all the three elements are present both in the creational proc-
ess and in experiencing all true cartographic products.
Figure 6:
Reading maps activates the human imagination. The interpretation of their ab-
stract contents recalls also memories, associations etc and transforms the reading of maps
to experiencing them. The same happens even when creating the maps.
