ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the idea of ‘the antipodes’ can be newly understood as a form of cartographic abstraction. It aims to put forward a conception of the cartographic and cultural figure of the antipodes as a cartographic abstraction and to show how this joins with other forms of cartographic viewing to enable us to ‘see’ with maps. Landscape photography, including seascapes and cityscapes, emerges as a central concern in both 78 Degrees North and Antipodes. The chapter argues for an understanding of the antipodes as a cartographic abstraction and, as such, as forming the further abstraction of the remote (webcam) view, or ‘cartographic remote viewing’. Message in a Bottle from Ramsgate to the Chatham Islands (2004) is a multi-media artwork in which messages from residents of Ramsgate, Kent, UK and GPS tracking devices were released in bottles from off the south-east coast of England. Through deploying this strategy, Curtis subverts the archetypical cartographer’s technique of instrumentalised visualisation.
