An Atlas for Upending the World

There is something beautifully intriguing in the sensation of travelling places without actually going there… reading of it, seeing pictures of it—and through the simple gesture of placing a finger on a map. In that sense, the map can be a rich backdrop for explorations, an activator of imagination as much as means of investigation. What can mapping, scientifically and artistically, represent in today’s rapidly transforming world of intensified data exchange and rising existential threats? As part of the Cross-Disciplinary Strategies study area Politics, Economics, and Global Change, the seminar “An Atlas for Upending the World” prompted students to explore urban areas as main drivers of global change, places of concentrated challenges yet home to the majority of people. Their contributions on “Hotspot Cities”, those growing fastest in the most critical biological areas, go beyond traditional space-bound investigation and upend (twist, overturn, flip, …) carefully researched data into essays, maps, and artworks. The unconventional atlas is an attempt to question data classes, statistical thresholds, graphic code, and info hierarchy, reinventing the map as device between freedom and constraint.