A life long GPS track would provide information about where we have been every minute, the geographical coordinates of the places we have been living in, places we have travelled to. But we wouldn’t know whether, at that particular time we were in a creative mood, or on the contrary, crossing spaces of routine following the crowd, enjoying leisure or enduring hard work, interested in projects or bored, happy or depressed. Those would be coordinates to locate in a vital or emotional geography. It could be something like this:
1. Following the crowd
2.Doped with entertainment
3.the plain of boredom
4.a deep hole of depression
5.carrying a heavy load up a steep hill, like Sisyphus
6.moving the waterwheel of routine
7.the delightful garden of love
8.the room of arts, science and literature
9.the creativity workshop, building projects
10.exploring wonders, landscapes, cultures
11.the yard of leisure, play and relax
12.on the cloud of ecstasy
Those poor scribbles have illustre precedents, most of them can be seen at the superb site strangemaps.
The german map of the Empire of Love (Reich der Liebe) de 1777, depicts trips from the Land of Youth, where there are the forest of love or the river of Wish, to other territories such as the Land of Rest, the Land of Mourning Love, with the Flood of Tears and Whim Mountain; the Land of Lust with Illness Valley, the wonderful Land of Happy Love where we can find “Pleasant View” or the fountain of Joy; Bachelor Country or the dangerous Land of Obsessions with the City of Dreams. Who can deny having visited some of those lands?
There is also the french “Carte de Tendre”, with the geography of love, measured in “lieues d’amitié” (love miles). We follow the course of “Inclination River” from the “New Friendship” village to the city of Tendre-sur-Reconnaissance, crossing the towns of “Petits soins” or “Great Favours”, avoiding other places like the fortress of Pride, or the Village of Oblivion that could lead us to the Sea of Enmity or the Lac of Indifferance. Don’t you know someone that lost his way because of orientation difficulties?
And more recently, in 2004, by Grayson Perry, “Every englishman is an island” a geography of mind depicted as an island with the seas of mental disorders around. There regions such as Posh (where we find Classic FM, Chardonnay, Ioga), Sex, Romance and Love, Cliche, Dreams (motorbikes, sixties), Wishes or Fear. How would our map look like?
