ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some proposed relationships between the modes of cartographic abstraction at work in the formation of a complex range of viewpoints that are both deployed in, and problematise, modes of cartographic viewing. It argues for identifying cartographic abstraction in light of this account of real abstraction while not being directly an expression or production of real abstraction. The aim of the panopticon is to make the person who is being viewed internalise the fear that they might be being viewed at any given moment. Sohn-Rethel takes an unorthodox position in declining to identify abstract labour as the source of the abstractness found in the commodity. The theoretical framework of real abstraction in this study may be seen as a ‘materialist provocation’. The god’s eye view affords sight, in particular, of objects, actions or landscapes from a highly elevated and thoroughly abstracted position.
