ABSTRACT
Counter-cartographies are understood as maps and practices that challenge the normative maps and break with the scientific, military and specialized tradition of cartography. A counter-cartography is less of a visual object that accumulates information and more of an opportunity of going beyond the representation in traditional maps in order to create dialogues and discoveries. The artistic and activist appropriation of cartographies can transform them into 'political machines that work on power relations', thus supplying alternative interpretations of history and spaces, as pointed out by the collective Institute for Applied Autonomy. For Sandro Mezzadra and B. Neilson, borders are 'complex social institutions, which are marked by tensions between practices of border reinforcement and border crossing'. Tensions over borders are becoming bigger and more constant in an unstable cartography of the world; 'biopoetics' wishes to transgress its limits – both Bureau d'Etudes and Counter-Cartographies Collective are constantly reminding of the social issues.
