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Puerto Argentino, inhabited by the pirates and drunkards of the royalty
Mlynarčík, Štefan ; Mrva, Jozef (referee) ; Rathouský, Luděk (advisor)
Objectivity and neutrality of current makers of online maps is hampered by the fact that the most important of them who form the public opinion are largely commercial giants. Sensitivity of approaches is desirable especially in specific situations involving territorial disputes. The textual part of the thesis brings theoretical insights to the problematics of map makers policies and their preservation or violation. At the same time is describes critical cartography as a current opposition against governmental and cooperative mapping, of which counter-mapping processes are regularly used in art, too. Practical outcome attempts to reflect specific approaches of map makers depending on particular territorial disputes. It takes place mostly in online environment, using the functions of Google Street View or Google Earth and forms of counter-mapping on the OSM platform. The goal is to bring alternative realities complicating map makers policies and governing apparatus to map projects with the international coverage.
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SocialMaps Manifesto
Škobrtal, Petr ; Leitgeb, Šimon (referee) ; Kubíková, Zuzana (advisor)
In the past two decades, a digital copy of the world has been created with perfect precision. It is an unprecedented achievement of the third modernity, and the speed of its creation is fascinating. We walk through it daily and are a part of it without reflecting on its existence, its nature and its unclear transactional relationship. We have come to see the various mapping services and applications as obvious innovations. A simple fragment of the quantum of functionalities of our devices. Calculator, clock, email, maps. But a digital copy of the world was not easy to build. And it was certainly expensive. Yet it is offered to us for our use without any restraints. The central motivation of the companies that have created this virtual space — in which the dramas of humanity are notionally played out — is to monitor it continuously and carefully. Our behaviour, activities and interactions are the desired compensation. They are constantly analysed and interpreted into data that can be traded. The loss of privacy is a tax we pay. An unspoken transactional relationship has been sealed without our knowing its exact terms and consequences; and the corporations that formulate them are rapaciously avoiding legislative-legal framework. Map applications, which are today the most important product of cartography, are the sneaking hegemony that reduces the world to a few categories whose primary imperative is profit. Many of them use the map as a platform in which places are inserted to represent a simple reflection of the capitalist perception of the world. Shops, hotels, bars, restaurants, businesses. Such maps manipulate our view of the world by how they portray it and what they present to us in a bounded way. And by our conformity, we unwittingly accede to these practices and help to preserve their status quo. We can easily decide not to use the digital map services and applications in place, but they are only the symbolic tip of an ambitious project of monitoring our privacy. Maps are hopelessly caught up in a tangled web of Big Tech, software and the Internet of Things. They are drained of their influence and limitless potential to serve a single purpose. It is therefore necessary to seek a ways forward for a paradigm shift affecting the form, nature and function of digital web maps. This manifesto offers some of them.
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Puerto Argentino, inhabited by the pirates and drunkards of the royalty
Mlynarčík, Štefan ; Mrva, Jozef (referee) ; Rathouský, Luděk (advisor)
Objectivity and neutrality of current makers of online maps is hampered by the fact that the most important of them who form the public opinion are largely commercial giants. Sensitivity of approaches is desirable especially in specific situations involving territorial disputes. The textual part of the thesis brings theoretical insights to the problematics of map makers policies and their preservation or violation. At the same time is describes critical cartography as a current opposition against governmental and cooperative mapping, of which counter-mapping processes are regularly used in art, too. Practical outcome attempts to reflect specific approaches of map makers depending on particular territorial disputes. It takes place mostly in online environment, using the functions of Google Street View or Google Earth and forms of counter-mapping on the OSM platform. The goal is to bring alternative realities complicating map makers policies and governing apparatus to map projects with the international coverage.
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