Tumblr: la vie d'un cyber flâneur

It takes many different eyes to see it all, and many different maps to show it (Abramms, Kaiser and Wood, p. 4, 2006). Or you could just join tumblr.

Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website. In this me-centric era of post-modernity where ‘you are the centre of maps’, ‘you’ the user have the power to illustrate how you see yourself and virtually represent your own power relationships (Petray, 2013). With tumblr, you chose to follow the blogs that interest you and ‘follow whatever fascinating cues found within [tumblr’s cyber] space’ (Barnes, 1997).

It is through the act of dérive and the embodiment of the flâneur that one can attempt to ‘map out’ the alternate geography that is cyberspace; Tumblr was made to be ‘seen, witnessed and experienced’ (Barnes, 1997). The initial exploration of this labyrinth of ‘non-space’ was a little like Derek and Hansel in the film Zoolander when dealing with a computer. Once armed with the freedom of anonymity via a user-name, one’s computer mouse is transformed into a turtle (Prouty, 2009), that slowly yet surely meanders through the countless tumblr pages that ‘intoxifying the gaze with an endless succession of spectacles’ (Barnes, 1997). It is from this process one can elect to follow the blogs they like or chose not to follow by the click of a mouse. If only the Australian federal election were that simple.  

On the notion of maps and power, a tumblr blog posted by Becky Cooper caught my attention. In an almost modern re-take of the mappa mundi (Petray, 2013), this cartographer-turned-artist has created a book featuring the ‘memory maps’ by 75 New Yorkers. She argues that ‘maps are not about their makers’, in this instance herself, but rather ‘map[s] who you are’ (Cooper, 2013). It offers an intriguing perspective of human spatial cognition via the ‘internalized reflection and reconstruction of space (or Manhattan) in thought’ and on paper (Barnes, 1997). It’s fascinating to even consider a map of our own cyber memories.

  

APA Reference List:

 Abramms, B; Kaiser, W. I. & Wood, D. (2006). Introduction: Lost Geographies. Seeing through Maps: Many Ways to See the World (p. 4). UK: New Internationalist Publications.

Barnes, G. (1997). Passage of the Cyber-Flanuer. Retrieved from:                    http://www.raynbird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html

Cooper, B. (2013). Mapping Manhattan: a love (sometimes hate) story in maps by 75 New Yorkers. New York: Abrams Image.

Petray, T. (2013). Lecture Notes via LearnJCU.

Prouty, R. (2009). One-Way Street. Retrieved from:

          http://www.onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html

Video Source:

Jensen, C. (2012). Youtube. Retrieved from:

              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGX3J6DAGw

Image Source:

Image 1: bonne-nuit-minuit. (2013). Tumblr: cyber-flâneur’s best friend. Retrieved from:

               http://tumblr.com/bonne-nuit-minuit