Carto-City to Surface-City: un-mapping and re-mapping the urban emotion of missing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on a fascination with Denis Cosgrove’s term ‘Carto-City’ that encompasses the concept that ‘Urban space and cartographic space are inseparable’ [Cosgrove, D. (2006). Carto-City. In J. Abrams, & P. Hall (Eds.), Else/where: Mapping New cartographies of networks and territories (pp. 148–157). University of Minnesota], this essay applies the idea to a conceptualisation of ‘city’ as urbaness – as a connected state of mind or urban emotion. Through a visual methodology of ‘unmapping’ and ‘re-mapping’ of Carto-City as Surface-City, this artistic research practice aims to contribute to how we understand and map the connected cartographies of contemporary urban consciousness. Cosgroves “seeing, imagining and representing” (2008) is re-interpreted to map a specific emotion within urbaness emerging out of the restricted transience of a world-wide pandemic – the emotion of missing. As physical city spaces across the world stood still, digital connection expanded creating a focused space for critical reflection on how interconnected layers of urban emotion might be mapped. My response to this, Surface-City, is grounded in my ongoing body of research into urban consciousness and its mapping through academic writing and visual practice.