GPS
Purple mountain majesties, amber waves of grain threatened by artificial navigation systems
We are all Uber drivers now
Tiny metal bugs, traversing the grid
The great French philosopher of the quotidian, Michel de Certeau, argued that “space is practiced place.” What he meant by this is that while places are given spatio-temporal locations, commonly assented to, space is the particular way we choose — both as individuals and groups — to inhabit or otherwise traverse them. Private ownership and other property titles and exclusions on land use necessarily impede some people’s ability to “practice place,” while enhancing others. But really, the means we’ve commonly employed to practice place for a long time now were already grossly circumscribing our personal space. Before we began sitting in the little metal cells we call cars, we were sitting in slightly larger ones called railway carriages. There’s an interesting coincidence (but maybe there’s really no coincidence at all) between the entirely novel view from the train experienced by 19th century travellers and the inception of photography as a specular technology. Early rail travellers …
