ABSTRACT
Starting with a consideration of the distinction between map interfaces and map surfaces in digital and predigital cartography, I opt for a surficial, imaginative and contemplative approach. The chapter makes reference to the sensibility favouring the raw materials of maps which is typical of map historians and suggests a focus on contemporary map surfaces by engaging with both object-oriented and geographical ‘surficial thought’. According to the approach of critical deconstructionist cartography, the surface of a map should be seen as something that must be scratched to reach the deep, hidden meaning and ideological foundation of the cartographic representation. From a more-than-critical perspective, the overemphasis on the surface is somehow legitimised by the aim to balance the vehemence with which maps have been lacerated to dissect their internal powers. In the light of OOO, the surface is a revealing figure for the paradox of the simultaneous accessibility and non-accessibility of objects. This chapter is an invitation to rest on map surfaces as spaces where we do not exhaust or fuse with maps, as spaces from which we can acknowledge that something lies in reserve, that there is a degree of surprise and some ‘resistance’ from the map object.
