Abstract
In this article I examine instances of imaginative worldmaking through artist Agnes Denes’ studies of maps made between 1973 and 1979, Isometric Systems in Isotropic Space: Map Projections, the legacy of the Earthrise and Blue Marble photographs and recent speculative propositions for new approaches to global interconnectedness. Impacted by the rise of big science and the technologically induced global reach of militarized power, Denes writes of a condition of massive destabilization, and also pictures an accompanying destabilization of the global imaginary. Denes’ work with maps speaks to an ongoing process of narrating the relationship of the self to the global. Coeval with the first photos of Earth from space, rhetoric regarding universal brotherhood, whole earth or one world are instead products of a totalizing discourse and western quest for dominance, according to historical geographer Denis Cosgrove. Bruno Latour’s proposition to cohere a logic of ethics for living interconnectedly on a globalized planet with unequal geopolitical histories suggests a pragmatic approach. The work of Denes, Latour and others reminds us of the necessity of examining cultural and epistemological impositions embedded in the global imaginary, which must be subject to critical reanalysis alongside the need to imagine new relations and narratives for ethical futures. Agnes Denes y el imaginario sobre la esfera terrestre: miradas visionarias de la imagen del mundo a la interdependencia