(Virtual) Myths

Abstract

The historical emergence of time as it relates to capitalism and labor has been well documented and theorized, particularly in the Marxist tradition. The relationship between space, spatial representation and capitalism has only more recently received significant attention. Moving through a series of extended meditations, this essay inquires into the naturalization of space and its various representations as related to capitalism, colonization and the body. As evidenced in early modern maps of Europe and the Americas, techniques of spatial representation were central to both commerce and conquest, where cartographers effectively rendered disparate lands uniform, under the rubric of an objectifying gaze. Such a gaze allowed for the representation of space as existing outside the realm of human affairs, where land lay in wait of discovery. This myth of discovery, and the techniques which accompany it, have historical parallels in the mapping of the human body, where mapping renders space both “natural” and ultimately amenable to capitalism. In these parallels, the mapping of land and of the body have moved in the twenty-first century into the realm of digitized informatics, where space is discursively reduced (through speed) and expanded (through technology) in an ever emerging global market system. Reflecting on apparently quite disparate histories of spatial representation, the essay concludes with the naturalization of space in its current logic, cybernetics and the management of information, where the discourses of health and security meet the digital gaze of the human genome and the satellite.