The Digital Globe as Climatic Coming Attraction: From Theatrical Release to Theatre of War

Abstract

This article considers the politics of representation inherent in the emergence of the digital globe. It begins with a consideration of early Renaissance globes as separate and distinct cultural objects from the two-dimensional forms of cartography they followed. The article then considers the emergence of the digital globe as an object symptomatic of the multiple cultural factors that form its foundation. Crucially, beyond occidental perspectives that have structured many dominant cartographic accounts of the Earth since the Renaissance, this article argues that a multipolar environment of online digital globes is emerging to contest Western forms of representation that were intertwined with notions of technoscopic superiority during the twentieth century. Instead what is now emerging is a multiplicity of digital globes that function as spectacular theatrical platforms for different and diverse agencies.