Resumen de La textura del lugar: los atlas imposibles, insondables e inagotables de Rebecca Solnit
- español
Entre 2010 y 2016, Rebecca Solnit publicó tres atlas sobre tres ciudades diferentes: San Francisco, Nueva Orleans y Nueva York, respectivamente. Además de ser ejemplos interesantes de la riqueza de las relaciones entre la cartografía, los estudios literarios y otras disciplinas, estos libros plantean una aparente paradoja vinculada a la decisión de hacer mapas desde la creencia de que se trata de una tarea imposible por infinita, insondable e inagotable. Este ensayo muestra cómo estos atlas son iconotextos que responden a dicha contradicción a partir de considerar que un lugar es un tejido que depende de las palabras, las imágenes, los afectos, los recuerdos, las percepciones asociadas al mismo, esto es, que es resultado tanto de relaciones humanas como de representaciones simbólicas. Además, el artículo revisa algunas de las estrategias utilizadas en estas colecciones para dar cuenta de dicho tejido, por ejemplo, la utilización de una retórica similar a la emblemática y metafórica, relacionada con su carácter intermedial y la presencia de elementos de distintas materialidades —literarios, cartográficos, fotográficos o pictóricos—; la bifurcación de perspectivas de diferentes autores, o la ventaja de narrativas anacrónicas, complejas e hipotéticas para conformar historias públicas. Los atlas de Solnit se apropian de la cartografía, estética y políticamente, y demuestran que también puede ser una práctica creativa, constructiva y restaurativa.
- English
From 2010 to 2016, Rebecca Solnit published three atlases of three different cities: San Francisco, New Orleans and New York. Apart from being interesting examples of the possibilities of the relations of Cartography, Literary Studies, and other disciplines, these books state an apparent paradox linked to the decision of making maps from the belief that it is an impossible task because it is infinite, unfathomable, and unstoppable. This article shows how these atlases are iconotexts that solve this contradiction considering that a place is a texture that depends of the words, the images, the affects, the memories, the perceptions associated to it, in other words, that it is a product both of human relations and symbolic representations. The article also shows some of the strategies used in these collections to account for this texture, for instance, the use of a rhetoric similar to that of metaphors, related to their intermedial character and the presence of different materials, such as, literary, cartographic, photographic and pictorial; the bifurcation of perspectives from several authors; or the advantage of anachronic, complex and hypothetical narratives to produce public histories. Solnit’s atlases appropriate Cartography, aesthetically and politically, and make evident that it is a creative, constructive, and restorative practice.First, the article explains notions such as space, place, texture of the place, iconotextuality, and intermediality, central to understanding these atlases. Then, it analyzes each one of them generally, from a selection of their maps and emphasizing their common features. Regarding the atlas of San Francisco, the essay underlines the advantage of being a collection of maps created by the collaboration of people coming from several fields, such as, Cartography, Literature, Photography, Botanic, and History. The notion of “anachronic public history” is presented to explain the temporal leaps of the different sections and the capacity of saving from oblivion certain life histories with what is called a “restorative epistemology”. Regarding the atlas of New Orleans, the fluidity of the city is emphasized along with the importance that cultural memory had to rescue it from hurricane Katrina. Special attention is payed to the materiality of the atlases as books. Solnit prefers maps on paper to the virtual materiality of the digital maps. The approach to the atlas of New York is done from its fragmental character and the importance that the conservation of languages has acquired there. It also underlines how fiction is able to present reality in clever and understandable ways, through a map that pictures New York as one of the Caribbean isles.The comparisons made throughout the essay show how Solnit’s atlases do not try to account for the totality of the places, their truth, but for the multiplicity of perspectives, times, topics and materials that conform their texture and complexity.
