I can grasp the idea 'it needn't be a Eurocentric world', and I think Upsidedown maps are the result of a fantabulous type of near-objective-thinking that - when it pays off - makes great things happen.
But the above image is - let's face it - too bottom-heavy.
Some might say it's just the cropping, but I think composition is the real issue here, and I'm afraid I'm siding with the Europeans. So - a big, phoney-faced 'Sorry guys' goes out to all the 'non-Westerns' in the house.
Your issues with the Magnetic North sure have made for one crappy-looking map!
Posted by ÿ at May 26, 2003 08:06 PMBuckminster Fuller designed a globe that was composed of a series of triangles (natch) in some wizzo arrangement so that, when the globe was unfolded and flat, all the continents looked like some weird landmass string and all the oceans looked like these blue disruptive hangy-off bits. Beyond being mathematic and geometric and neat in a typically nerdy fashion, the way Fuller arranged the continents somehow managed to convey some holistic, touchy-feely sense that we (the people in the world) are all a lot closer together than we think. I wish I could find a picture but I'm not especially internet-savvy. Anyway, Buckminster Fuller rendered eurocentric maps obsolete a long time ago, I guess is what I mean. A long time ago, like before the shitty internet and its shitty upside-down maps.
Posted by: TheDiscourse on May 26, 2003 10:39 PM .