# narrative attempts at cognitive mapping video garmes this post based on kaitlin tremblay's initial discussion prompt is for critical distance's "blogs of the round table" for september the theme of which is 'maps' > writing has nothing to do with meaning. it has to do with landsurveying and cartography including the mapping of countries yet to come > ~ gilles deleuze maps considered at ir most basic order and define spaces for the concept called "the social." they can provide a set path for those who were once gladly lost; they are also symbols of useless achievements oddly boring (kafkaesque?) places visited foolish stories told and pointless battles 'won' once common myth about maps is that they somehow set boundaries to what otherwise feels vast and potentially limitless. but as borges correctly stated a map of a labyrinth can consist of a single straight line. that is maps can themselves evoke an uncertain unknowable limitlessness independent of the territory we automatically assume they describe indeed maps are not merely ways to compartmentalize and (somehow) tackle the world. the practice of 'mapping' a map is always first a conceptual social ideological practice. world maps often provide a unifying theme for narrative but are also narratives. narrative can also be considered an active mapping - of social space as language while once can easily the history of cartography as a colonial practice influencing narrative what is also often unseen - deliberately left unmapped - is the colonialism of cartography the violent dominance of space and time implied by 'mapping' ie. merely thinking through a particular area of spacetime level maps in garmes while they obviously help us conceive of garme spaces as places to explore also necessarily limit players in the sense by implying that a level is just that - nice and (conceptually) level easily capable of being mappable at all. yet what if the elements of a garme system were constantly on the move forever shifting? maps themselves would somehow have to be dynamic - and this would threaten ir claims to knowledge since a map which changes in realtime according to a whimsical hyper-dynamic space feels as arbitrary and incomplete as the spacetime it allegedly describes perhaps what makes a good level map - that disgracefully pragmatic 'ease of use' - and the feigned ability to navigate or explore bottomless depths - is what simultaneously defines limits and ideologically fools players into thinking in terms of maps levels social dominance of spacetime an alleged ability and automatic will to figuratively conquer the places we inhabit as ancient maps used to wisely state "here be monsters." perhaps the map makers were unconsciously referring to the aggressive social practice of mapping which as an illusion of control and understanding manifests a strange partial otherness through its carefully laid out forever virtual cartography of human cognitive will to dominance // republic of bob