Re: <nettime> concerning these minutes

[Brian Holmes <brian.holmes@wanadoo.fr>]

Gabriel Pickard wrote:

>The whole issue of mapping - "Tactical Cartography" provoked my
>attention. Of course such maps (if you haven't seen one:
>http://www.universite-tangente.fr.st ) are at first glance intriguing,
>bewildering (and possibly aesthetically & epistemologically questionable -
>as some found), but Brian Holmes & Co are aiming at an even more
mind-boggling form of representing these relationships of power...

I must nip a potential misunderstanding in the bud: this should read 
"Bureau d'Etudes and Co.", 'cause they are the ones who do all the 
work on those maps. I have theorized the work and collaborated on 
several projects, and because I speak English well I have explained 
the projects to English-speaking audiences like at N5M, but the 
primary credit goes overwhelmingly to Bureau d'Etudes for a 
tremendous amount of meticulous research and graphic realization - 
which at the very least has the merit of visually asking the question 
whether a world government exists, and if so, what it consists of. If 
you read French you'll also find their texts at the 
Universite-tangente website, lots of interesting stuff there. The 
fact that they choose not to use their personal names is, imo, all 
the more to their credit...

As for the aesthetically and epistemologically questionable aspects, 
the comments at N5M were appreciated and hopefully some of them will 
be taken on board in future work, particularly the map generator if 
it ever does come into existence....

cheers, Brian

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