Introduction

Abstract

This book addresses mapping and universal knowledge. Borges’s themes provide its motifs: “The Aleph” from which the entire universe could be apprehended, a map at the scale of the territory, the unlikely taxonomy of a Chinese encyclopedia, the curators of a library of all possible books, and an alternative world accessible through traces. Contributors refer to these stories, debating the relation between schemes that aim to assemble universal knowledge and the way these schemes work through techniques of production, design, and storytelling. Interests in digital and cartographic technologies, methods that make worlds as well as picture them, are central. Instead of simply lauding the capacities of accumulation and display, the authors wonder about relations of knowledge and power in techniques that proclaim their global scope.