... This trend towards standardization goes hand in hand with the imagined shrinking of the planet, which is accompanied by technical improvements in representing it. Thus satellite images have made it possible to fill in the last empty spaces on the map of the world; there are no longer any unknown lands. We are living in the era of Google Earth, which allows us to zoom in on any point on the planet from our computers. Across the divided-up planet, a globalized cultural stratum is developing with stunning rapidity, nourished by the internet and the networking of major media outlets, while local or national particularisms find themselves sentenced to "protected status" like those Tanzanian rhinoceroses on the path to extinction.

from THE RADICANT by Nicolas Bourriaud



(although, as Bill Murray knows, the depth and detail of our experience of one pin point on the map cannot be distilled down to a satellite zoom macro-perception)