Over the weekend Strange Maps
posted an
inverted map of the world. The imaginary map was designed by Vlad Gerasimov who made it as
desktop wallpaper available at
Vladlabs.
Aside from the Grand Inversion, the map symbols would suggest
that the climate, landforms, coastlines, flora, and fauna are more or less in
tact. In that case, I suppose I’d be most at home just north and east of Bermuda City. Or somewhere within a canoe ride of the Great Islands.
Cool. The thing I think I like best about this image is how it foregrounds the conventionality of maps: it’s hard to force myself to perceive what are normally land masses as water, and vice versa. It reminds us that so much of what we “see” on maps is actually, and largely unconsciously, supplied by our own imaginations.
Yeah, I also like the way this image puts inversion to work so the map contrasts with the usual ways of seeing (and perhaps identify with) common projections of the globe. I, too, find it hard to see the land as water and vice versa. It seems to amplify some sort of precognitive selection–whatever stamp the conventional projection has made on us that certain forms are always land and certain forms are always water.