Do you know the Little Prince?
Yes, it was that kid
that went from planet to planet
and that one day I reach the sixth planet
and he met a geographer.
He was a wise old man
that was surrounded by books and maps,
A bit like me when I was little.
I used them to fly with the imagination
but without leaving home.
Who has not ever used a map in their life?
We have all done it
because everything happens somewhere.
We always move
between two dimensions.
The time and the space.
Although there are people who do not even know where it is.
But the maps
They have changed, the world has changed.
The old maps can be romantic,
beautiful,
they can be pretty
but they do not serve to navigate
through the ocean of the Internet.
The old maps
They do not serve to explore a new world.
That’s what we’ll talk about, how everything has changed.
For example,
the paper has been replaced
by the mobile.
The maps
of the National Geographic Institute
we have changed them to Google Maps.
Now everything is connected.
We will see it through five steps.
Before, maps were a representation of reality.
They took reality and reduced it,
represented and interpreted.
Now the maps
they are reality itself.
It is what appears before our eyes.
Before the maps were simple.
We reduced that reality in points, lines and polygons.
Nowadays the maps are very complex.
To the reality itself
we increase it with layers and layers and more layers of information.
Before the maps were general:
rivers, mountains, shops.
Now they are particular maps.
Before we had 200 things to see around.
Nowadays, it depends on where we are
we see only what interests us.
Before the maps were official,
made by big companies,
large corporations, administrations
with big budgets.
Today, they are collaborative.
They are free, open maps,
like OpenStreetMap, the wikipedia of the free world.
You can share geographic information
for free on the Internet.
In the end,
before the maps were something rational, something objective,
much more mathematical.
Now they are something more emotional.
They are subjective.
We have gone from making maps
to feel, to live the maps.
Maps and new technologies have changed everything,
Above all, our perception and way of seeing the world.
There are 17,817 objects
spinning around the Earth,
of which 3,500 are active satellites,
and that are controlled.
We can see the Earth from space.
We can go down and see our city with the maps.
Then we can walk through our streets.
We can enter the stores and with 360 views
see what is inside.
And all that without leaving home.
That has changed, that perception of the world.
Do you know the story of a young Indian
that with 5 years was lost?
It was later adopted by an Australian family
and 25 years later he found his house
Searching and searching through Google Earth.
There is a movie about this story,
is in the movies with the movie Lion.
To know what you want, you have to know where you come from.
Even the maps changed in the way they were done.
Before they were made in ink.
The ink and the Rotring 0.5 were used.
Who does not remember the Rotring 0.5?
Today, maps
they are made with bits,
with the computer mouse.
Before the maps were made in two dimensions,
with complex shapes, with topographers.
Nowadays,
Can be made in three or more dimensions
and in a much simpler way.
And the scale,
the maps have a regional scale at 1: 200,000,
district to 1: 50,000, and a city to 1: 20,000;
but the scale has disappeared.
Today, with the plus and minus of the zoom, or with the fingers
we get closer and away from the map without needing to know
to what scale we are.
And the symbols,
before the maps had color symbols
They told us what everything was.
Today, those symbols are interrelated,
They are dynamic.
They are built around layers of information
that overlap each other.
Maybe the most important thing
is that we lost the north.
The north used to go up on the western maps.
Today the north has disappeared.
We are around,
in 360 degrees.
In the end, we can make maps
in two dimensions, three dimensions,
with augmented reality, virtual reality, 360 degrees.
And we can see them
in mobile phones, tablets, watches, bracelets,
in glasses, sand surfaces.
Anywhere you can see a map.
Do you remember Minority Report?
That is already a reality,
With our hands we can now build maps.
At the end,
of those objective, rational maps
more mathematicians,
we have moved to much more vivid maps,
subjective, emotional.
From a general map, useful for all,
we move to a map
independent for each one of the people.
That for a geographer like me,
It is fascinating.
It is very nice to see how it has changed.
Let’s see an example,
you have all been, in some way, explorers,
you have all gone on a trip and used a map
to find those untamed lands.
We do it normally through three steps:
Before travelling.
But the before has changed
Before traveling we can put on our glasses
in 360 degrees
and we can see what we are going to find.
With that we reduce the uncertainty.
We are calmer because we recognize space.
And we feel the space that we are going to visit.
When we arrived at the site, we connected.
We connect the mobile, the geolocation
and information begins to appear
of trades, scores,
opinions, traffic, time.
But all that information
is linked with our social network, with our friends.
Each one has a different map depending on the people
with which it relates.
The after.
The after has become
in a present.
The future is a continuous present.
Now we go to a restaurant
and the first thing we do is, when the first course comes out,
photo to Instagram to give envy.
That’s what a lot of social networks are based on.
We share that
and we influence our travelers
whether they want to go to that restaurant or not.
With which, the information no longer depends on the destination, the restaurant,
It depends on people.
We have the power and control over the maps.
In the end, belonging to a site
It does not define where we are from.
As Genís Roca says, I am from where I participate.
And that’s what matters,
that we are all connected in some way.
The wonderful thing is that if the maps disappear
borders disappear.
And that connection, that connection of all
where we love, we live, we suffer, we feel,
we fly, we dream,
It is the planet Earth.
Although paradoxically, we do it from the cloud.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
”
Be First to Comment