(no subject)
“Trust me. That’s what maps are saying. Trust me. Never mind that early metal globes were cut in half and used for pots by hungry sailors. Never mind that all forests and mountains on maps throw their shadows to the east, because draughtsmen usually work with the light on their left, which means that on a map it is always a sunny afternoon. Where you find yourself is always afternoon. Never mind that the most common method for projecting the world, the Mercator projection, flattens the round earth and alters the spatial perspective, thus making Greenland nine to twenty-two times its actual size. Europe becomes the centre of the world. Africa is smaller, so too South America, slipping down the side. Making something round into something flat, to sail off the edge of the world, again.
Distance. Position. How to find your way back when where you are depends on where everything else is. Here we are. Here is everything else. A compass of the human body - head as North, feet South, right arm East, left arm West. North as up. The top of the page. Up more important than down. Look up. Stars, the dark night sky screening eternity.
This is where you are. This is what it looks like. Never mind that you don’t recognize anything.
Trust me.”
[afterimage, Helen Humpreys]
Distance. Position. How to find your way back when where you are depends on where everything else is. Here we are. Here is everything else. A compass of the human body - head as North, feet South, right arm East, left arm West. North as up. The top of the page. Up more important than down. Look up. Stars, the dark night sky screening eternity.
This is where you are. This is what it looks like. Never mind that you don’t recognize anything.
Trust me.”
[afterimage, Helen Humpreys]