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September 06, 2005
El Dorado, Colonisation, my first metaphor
I've had this old biscuit box sitting on a shelf behind me for about a year now, Anna gave it to me last year with a collection of smaller 'presents' inside. I've been looking at old maps, one 'The World by John Speed, 1627' I'd scanned in and planned to use because I thought I'd bought it from a second hand store with Anna when we first met. Apparently I was wrong though, it must have been the girl I was seeing previously? Anyway obviously the El Dorado biscuit box took on some new resonance for me in relation to my current research (tangent) . . . old maps, sea monsters, conquistadors . . . (maybe I'll also mention that I had a Spanish girlfriend for a long time, and when we lived in Spain together I was quite fascinated by the Conquistadors). Subsequently I've remembered my first trip to Melbourne, and when Keith, Neal, and I went out for dinner with Lisa and she asked us (over a few drinks) to suggest metaphors that we thought described our practices. I was really stumped and didn't give it a shot until the drive back from the restaurant, but my answer was something about ships, travelling by sea, and colonising foreign countries? I think I vaguely remember saying something about enjoying loading the ships to leave, or maybe it was that I felt like I was 'packing' to leave then . . . I can't quite remember, but I'm always slightly spooked by that kind of realisation. You think you've moved so far away, but you're still there . . .
I think El Dorado's quite significant here. Searching for something that doesn't exist?
Also I'm really interested in exaggeration in relation to monstrosity, and the aspirational name of this assortment of biscuits is just too good.
Posted by Luke Wood at September 6, 2005 12:50 PM
Comments
Maps, conquistadors, monsters and nostalgia.
It¥s just hitting me now how much your blog makes sense. I'll try and explain. I love maps, so do my brothers and my dad, especially old inacurate maps, maps without names, maps with monsters, foreign maps that are hard to understand, maps to nowhere, imaginary maps. I started believing this love for maps is linked to nostalgia, to this time in life where the world is full: full of monsters, pirates, adventures, treasures, El Dorado, unknown, this time where you get panicked at night when the wind blows in branches. But the thrill is gone and we've been beatten into thinking this is just the wind, in buying travel guide that will tell us what to see, where to stop, where to eat. There is no map back to childhood and most of us just carry the nostalgic disease around... So now it makes sense (to me at least) that on one page we have the El Dorado, the monsters, the maps. I'm now wondering if maybe, just maybe creating monsters is not the remedy, a way to beat nostalgia, to make nostalgia creative... Ok I guess I should go back to bed.
PS: Happy birthday!
Posted by: E. at September 7, 2005 05:02 AM
Wow that's great to hear this blog makes sense! Yeah you're on the money with the maps . . . what a horrible thing it is that we've mapped the world = the shrinking world. Mapping shrinks things! No more mystery, no more "Ye Unknowne Lands", and no more monsters.
It's interesting getting this message from you today as I had a big freak out lastnight about this research topic, and lay awake all night . . . actually I'm going to put a post on here about that . . . I'm thinking about a major shift of focus in my topic? It's very late to be doing that, but it relates to everything I've been actually 'doing' since I began this early last year . . .
Posted by: Luke at September 7, 2005 11:35 AM