Visuality and Geography

Abstract

The relationship between geography and visuality has always been closely intertwined—and at the same time controversial—to the point that many stated that geography is a visual discipline. After all, geo-graphy as “the writing of the earth” has always operated by means of images in the form of pictures, photographs, paintings, and of course, cartographies (Hughes, 2007). Indeed, it was precisely the alliance between cartography and colonialism that made Modernity The Age of the World Picture: “The fundamental event of modernity is the conquest of the world as picture. From now on the word ‘picture’ means: the collective image of representing production” (Heidegger, 1938 [2002], p. 72). Through the geographical explorations, that very soon became expeditions, the conquest of the globe coincided with the conquest of the map. Therefore, with the cartographic reason, a dominant visuality was established with a colonial Eurocentric representation of the world.