I haven’t been to the map exhibition yet at the British Library. But in a recent conversation someone was telling me about the history of ‘upside down’ maps.
It was a delight to discover so many of these on the internet. It had always puzzled me why the map of the world is always printed one way up — with the North at the top and the South at the bottom. And I’d wondered about the psychological and cultural effects this must have on our understanding of the world.
It was hard enough for me to see an old Australian school atlas with Australia in the centre, Asia, Europe and Africa to the left, and the Americas down the right-hand side. Let alone turning the whole thing upside down. But why not?
Most of the images on the net are in copyright, but this one below is Creative Commons:
I remember seeing a TV documentary years ago about an experiment to change one’s ordinary perception. Some team had designed a set of ‘spectacles’ that you wore, a set of small mirrors that turned your visual world upside down, literally 180°. So you looked out and saw the same normal world, but the sky was at the ‘top’ and the ground at the ‘bottom’.
The remarkable thing was that after about 48 hours of wearing these mirrors, the volunteers involved in this experiment could function normally. Their brains had readjusted. One of the scenes showed them riding bicycles!
[Ann Karp, the designer of the image above, wrote the following: “This is an image I created for the back of a t-shirt. It was done for Cafe Campesino (www.cafecampesino.com), a wonderful fair trade coffee company. The upside down map is also the Peters version of the map of the world–notice the landmasses, accurate in area compared with your traditional Eurocentric map.”]
I’m sure, Fr., being a West Wing fan you remember that big block of cheese day episode where CJ meets with the fictitious ‘Centre of Cartographers for Social Justice’. I must go to that exhibition myself, actually, I have long been interested in cartography, which is ironic given my very bad sense of direction.
I’d forgotten the cartography/West Wing link. But it’s not surprising that the significant cultural issues of the day are coming up in the greatest TV series of all time…
That map totally disorientated me; it took me ages to work out where Britain was! It really makes you view the world from a different perspective, like looking down from space and realising that there is no right or wrong way.
Interesting exhibition. I think I’ll have to pop in and have a look.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if you’d be interested in being featured for a project on my blog called Listen to a Londoner. I’ve been interviewing people who live in London about their favourite places, experiences of London life, etc. If you’re interested, it would be 10 questions (through email, so you can work on them at your own pace), a photo of you and a 1-2 sentence intro.
There’s some archives here if you want to have a look: http://littlelondonobservationist.wordpress.com/listen-to-a-londoner/listen-to-a-londoner-posts/
Let me know what you think!
Cheers,
Steph
Thought of you today, as i just came across this
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/
:O)
Thanks Mags – some of these are great