November 16, 2004
The cartographic eye
I'm on the road. So postig will be light. I came across a book called The Cartographic Eye by Simon Ryan. It was written nearly a decade ago.
Glancing through it I saw that it was about how the early explorers saw Australia. They saw the space of Australia in terms of Empire: space was a universal, measureable and divisible entity that is out there as a natural state. This space was seen by the authoritative and knowledgeable observer.
The explorer, as the authoritative and knowledgeable observer, is seeing the new land for the first time. The explore accurately describes the new land that he sees.
Sir Thomas Mitchell, General View of Sandstone Districts from the summit of Jellore, in Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2.
The explorer's eye is a solar eye, an elevated eye looking down on the space before him. The explorative gaze is a mastery of space that is within the colonial enterprise of finding suitable land for grazing and cultivation.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at November 16, 2004 04:45 PM | TrackBack