Geometry Within the Landscape and its Representations

Geometry Within the Landscape and its Representations Eleni Maragaki Central Saint Martins, UAL

December 2021 1

Geometry Within the Landscape and its Representations Introduction Geometry is a fundamental language, offering an innate and intrinsic way to grasp the world around us; manifesting in a set of rules that derive from antiquity and have been expanded on throughout history becoming the scaffolding to both systemise the urban environment and provide a means of comprehending the natural one. Geometry is revealed to be present in both the landscape and representations of it, specifically in its application in cartography and architecture.

My own artistic practice lies between sculpture and printmaking and has a strong connection to these ideas. I am often interested in the fragmentation and deconstruction of the landscape by the strict geometric precision of the grid, examining how these two elements can coexist or contradict each other. In this paper, I will explore how three artists have interacted with mapmaking, urban planning and the landscape and I will trace their methods and ideas discovering a range of affects and different forms of knowledge.

Fig 1: Maragaki E. (2021) The Cosmic Landscape Puzzle, linocut, MDF, 100x100x3cm 2

M. C. Escher’s work has a strong bond to geometry as the structure of the world by often merging natural elements with geometric shapes. The theme of “metamorphosis”, the transformation of one shape or object into something completely different, has been central for Escher, combining the abstract with the representational. Another artist who engages with the human perception and mapping of the natural is Hamish Fulton, whose work is in a dialogue with the landscape in a physical way. As a self-identified “walking artist”, he states: “The physical involvement of walking creates a receptiveness to the landscape. I walk on the land to be woven into nature” (Reynolds, 2016). This pivotal need of humankind to place and establish itself within the natural environment is unveiled in the process of building a city. In Tomas Saraceno’s work the structure, system and materiality of the city become something that strives to outlive the mortal nature of the human. The urban environment as an artificial entity is in a constant dialogue with nature. Both Saraceno and Fulton urge us to consider how connected we are with our environment.

What can these three artists tell us about the role of cartography and geometry in relation to our perception of the landscape?

Before critically reviewing and taking a closer look at the works of these three artists, it is important to situate them in relation to a broader understanding of mapping and human perception of the world.

INTRODUCING DIFFERENT MAPPING CATEGORIES Subjectivity of the map As it is stated in Dennis Cosgrove’s Geography and Vision (2008), our imagination, expectations and background are determinant in perceiving and depicting an environment, even for scientific purposes. We create maps, not as an accurate representation of reality, but according to our own unique intentions and needs with the purpose of reproducing different world views and not the world itself. The first Martian map created by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli is such an example (Carr, 2011). As the astronomer studied the surface of Mars, he detected an intricate network of canal structures initially thought to be artificial, indicating a Martian civilisation. This hypothesis was eventually disproved, as the canals were merely optical illusions. Therefore, Schiaparelli’s map is not real, but imaginative. Despite of its detailed examination and categorisation of Mars’s continents and seas it fails to represent accurately the surface of the planet, but instead it provides a description of what the astronomer perceived these optical elements to be, or 3

what they appeared to be, the exact moment they were observed. Maps are by nature characterised by the element of interactivity as they are interpretations, not imitations, expressing the mortal and restricted range of the human perception (Higgins, 2009 p. 81).

Fig 2: Schiaparelli G. (1988) Map of Mars

Projection inaccuracies The map is an object of questioning, as by being an interpretation of a three-dimensional terrain into a flat plane, it entails a process of subtraction and misrepresentation. Hence distances, positioning and relative dimensions of land masses become distorted. There have been multiple attempts of projecting the sphericity of the world. The Globe of Crates of Mallus is the earliest known representation of earth through the shape of the globe divided according to the climate zones (Smith W.). At around 220 BC, Eratosthenes was the first to devise a longitude and latitude system and calculate the circumference of the earth. His rectangular projection took place in the orthogonal grid created as an extension of the equator (MAPS ETC, 2009). This is considered to be the predecessor of the Mercator projection which is widely used in the present day in world maps and many online street mapping services, such as Bing and Google. Although this system is optimal for navigation it tends to distort and increase the shape of objects moving away from the equator.

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Fig 3: Eratosthenes (BC 220), World Map

Eurocentricity The Dymaxion map of Buckminster Fuller, first published in 1943 is a different kind of projection. Instead of using a flat rectangular plane, Fuller projected the world map on a net of an icosahedron decreasing the element of distortion. However, there is an excessive disruption in the final result, as well as the absence of north, south, west and east.

According to Fuller these divisions are cultural biases indicating the superiority of the north and the inferiority of the south (Dezeen, 2013). Indeed, Dymaxion is a more democratic map that can be unfolded in multiple ways providing different points of view.

Building on Buckminster Fuller’s concept, Hajime Narukawa’s AuthaGraph is a rectangular world map which derives from the division of the sphere into 96 triangles. This is considered to be the most accurate projection in terms of sizes, distances and shapes (AuthaGraph, 2010). It has been argued that the standard world map shows a particularly Eurocentric viewpoint, based on assumption rather than objective reality. In a way, the spaces placed on the edges on the map are the ones more likely to fade away practically and symbolically. German journalist Arno Peters argued that the Mercator Map, by stretching out the land masses of Europe and Northern America, contributes to the false 5

impression of dominance of white nations. As part of this opposition, he created the GallPeters projection, a map which is accurate in terms of sizes but not shapes (Oxford Cartographers). Once again, maps seem to be a kind of liminal space which is filtered through human subjectivity, bias and imagination.

Fig 4: Fuller B. (1944) Dymaxion Map, patent design 6

Examples of different kinds of cartography The field of chorographic mapping attempts to approach a different idea, which diverges from geography as it does not focus on the precise mathematical depiction relating to scale and location, but in the impression of how a particular region or terrain is perceived by the human eye (Cosgrove, 2008, p. 17). This can be linked to topography as it focuses on the depiction of individual terrains rather than the earth as a whole. Geography and cosmography are scientific fields aiming to construct representational models of the earth through the use of mathematics and geometry. On the contrary, Chorography focusing on depicting the qualities of a localised region is the domain of the artist (Smith K., 2016, p.

187).

Similarly, in Dutch Renaissance landscape painting the concept of the “world landscape” is a type of panoramic landscape observed from an elevated viewpoint which was invented

by Flemish painter Joachim Patinir. Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting The Fall of Icarus is also such an example, showing the main theme from a great distance (Pioch, 2002). This kind of depiction enables the viewer to observe the landscape through a bird eye-view field of vision, sacrificing precision in favour of impression. In these cases, the map encompasses deliberate flaws and a rawness closer to nature rather than calculated accuracy. It is an appreciation of the authentic embracing that the human made will be imperfect.

Fig 5: Leonardo Da Vinci. (1503-6) Chorographic Map of Valdichiana

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The element of extension in the grid and the landscape The landscape, as well as the grid, are distinguished by a continuous and infinite extension towards all directions. For nature this extension is varied and cosmic. For the grid it is monotonous, uninterrupted and flat. By virtue of this extension, the map is showing a fragment of visual reality, operating centrifugally and evoking our acceptance of the world beyond its limits. The invention of A – Z Maps by Phyllis Pearsall in 1935 is an example of a net that expands beyond the boundaries of the map. The London A – Z is an urban atlas with an index of every street address of the city. As the whole city cannot be fitted into one flat surface, at the end of each page the reader is guided in order to find another continuation of the grid. Pearsall had to walk 23,000 streets in order to create this uninterrupted coded surface in the form of a book (Cosgrove, 2009, p. 118). In a similar way as artist Hamish Fulton focuses on the act of walking, Pearsall is bringing back the thing that is being pushed out of the view of the map; the person creating it, the physical human being.

The garden and island enclosure As the ontology of the world is multiple, the element of limitless extension of the grid that we find in city maps is not always present. There are spaces strongly characterised by their own borders. The garden and the island are archetypal sites similar to one another as they represent microcosms embodying the variety of life, functioning as a mirror of the macrocosm (A. Smith, 2016, p. 187). The lines between ground and sea, refined and unrefined land, artificial and natural, order and chaos are regarded as a first step in comprehending and domesticating the environment. The garden is a site manufactured and cultivated by humans through a lot of effort. On the opposite, the island is spontaneous existence, a natural version of the humanised landscapes found in gardens.

However, they both enclose the bountiful collectivity of creation.

Cartography in the past and present For the modern point of view the map is a means of representing the whole world at once, with precision in dimensions, shapes and distances. However, in the past times, this consolidated geographical demonstration was not always in the centre of cartography, as for then, the “world” did not mean the whole planet but only the known and inhabited parts 8

of it. If we consider that modern cartography strives to draw the world as it really is, then on the opposite medieval and ancient maps lay between art and geometry, with these two units combined in multiple ways. Mapmaking required the skills of varied fields such as mathematics, geometry, printing and drawing. It was the accumulation of different types of presentations each connected to a particular purpose. This augmented perception of mapmaking often merged Chorography and Geography, as it incorporated not only the location of a site, but also whatever this site enclosed. As a result, mapmaking was both mathematical and pictorial. In addition, as maps were of high cost and aesthetics, they were placed in the field of the arts rather than science (Podossinov, 2014, p. 32).

Schematic Maps A very common map structure in the Middle Ages was the circular T-O maps functioning as symbolic and abstract representation of the three then known continents: Europe, Asia and Africa. This rational simplicity makes the T-O map more accurate in some ways compared to modern maps, as its purpose is only to depict a comparative magnitude of the three continents rather than striving and often failing to calculate the exact shapes and sizes.

Another simple and schematic map is Cosmas Indicopleustes’s Ephoros, whose rectangular, diagrammatic space represents in an abstract way the inhabited world (Podossinov, 2014, p. 43).

Fig 6: Cosmas’s Flat Earth Scheme

Fig 7: T-O Map Scheme

Error as a departure point It becomes apparent that a representation of the landscape and what it entails, such as life, nature or human made constructions, does not express the world in in terms of an objective truth, but through a mediated filter incorporating all kinds of subjectivities and via 9

different representational types outlined above. Throughout history, maps were either scientific or artistic, symbolic or practical. This diversity does not derive from different perceptions but rather from different purposes. Cartography will never express an objective reality and maybe it should not. This idea of failure of the map is a constructive departure point. It is place where the apparently disconnected combine and juxtapose to create a new synthesis. This honest inadequacy indicates humility in the face of the larger transcendent scheme of the natural. Creative resilience, reshaping and the idea of defect are valuable factors to embrace the human element in representing the world. Error is of creative importance and its acceptance is an opportunity that leads on re-evaluation. If the flaw is pre-determined it is no longer a flaw. This way, we become free of the burden of representation and focus on interpretation attempting to bridge the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial. Maps are eventually methodically read in opposition to one another with the purpose to integrate their antithetical information. Ultimately, they come to interact in such compelling dynamics that they end up shaping the world instead of representing it.

ARTISTIC USES OF CARTOGRAPHY, ARCHITECTURE AND THE LANDSCAPE Analysis of Hamish Fulton’s work ‘Seven Days Walking and Seven Days Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985’ When discussing the correlation between scientific accuracy and human perception in cartography, case studies from the fine arts can be instructive. Conceptual artist Hamish Fulton untangles the reality that the map shows facts for the one who makes it, but fiction for the one who reads it. The artist is mostly known for his solitary long walks characterised by a meditative state. He often uses photographs and texts, not as a means of replicating the landscape, but as a way to commemorate his journeys and capture the perplexing notion of the momentary. Walking as an experience and form of art, is emotionally satisfying and possesses fulfilling qualities deriving from its contemplative nature and organised movement (Slyce, 2002, p. 22-23). It becomes a method of acquiring a profound understanding and appreciation of the natural environment. Although a common act of every day life, ‘the walk’ in Hamish Fulton’s work evokes intentionality and becomes separated from the ordinary. The artist often follows tactics such as dictating time restrictions that prolong the walk beyond its usual duration, the element of repetition or

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association of the walk with lunar or calendrical cycles. Walking becomes a ritual of physical and mental perseverance (Macperson, 2017, p. 17).

Fig 8: Fulton H. (1985) Seven Days Walking and Seven Days Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985

‘Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985’ is a screen print on paper created in 1985, with dimensions of 614 x 947 mm (Tate Britain).

The text at the top of the image simply discloses the duration, date and location of the walk. This specificity becomes a reference to the immediate and ephemeral act of walking.

The simplicity, sincerity and spontaneity of this sentence aims to reveal the landscape as the unsophisticated, mortal entity it really is. Instead of pursuing to recreate the experience of the walk, Fulton lists only a selection of words and short sentences. The fluidity of this text relates to the forever irretrievable character of the act of walking. The short sentences, the repetition and isolation imposed from the dashes in between them create a form of pacing and regularity that can be linked to the rhythmic nature of a walk (Macperson, 2017, p. 24). The work is an abstract map, an index of everything the artist encounters in

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his journey. These direct descriptions are a composition of temporalities and mementos, isolated from one another, but at the same time interconnected.

Text in Fulton’s work The inadequacy of words and pictures used in maps as descriptive systems of the landscape reveals the permanently flawed relation between the experience and its representation (Slyce, 2002, p. 22). However ‘Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985’ is not to be correlated with the inability to communicate the 'experience of the walk’, as for Hamish Fulton walking is the essence; images and texts are merely records. His simple, impartial and humble encounters with the elements of the landscape are revealed to be sincere and objective in relation to the representations of the map which are too burdened, too exposing. As the artist has stated: ’An object cannot compete with an experience' (Slyce, 2002, p. 23). However, the act of walking itself is mediated by the artist’s physicality, expectations and cultural location. Both objects and experiences are intervened through different filters. Fulton invites us to open up to a method of perception that is not superior but unconventional, which unlike regular maps often do, it privileges the walker and not the record.

Mapmaking in relation to geometry and nature The concept of mapping and human observation of the landscape is an example of the paradox between the natural and the artificial. Similarly to Fulton’s work, cartography relying on physical involvement, examination and tracing, reveals a pattern of lands and seas exploring the relationship between the physical and the ideal, organic forms and the strict perfection and precision of geometry. In the map, the placement of a strict geometric net on top of a natural landscape raises questions on how these two components can coexist or contradict each other. The grid as a human construction, is anti-natural and antireal, hostile to narrative and representation (Krauss, 1979, p 50). However, mapping is the process nature has to go through, in order to become comprehensible to the human eye.

An example of that would be the net created in the surface of the map by the latitude and longitude lines functioning as an indication of our precise location. This way, the grid becomes a window through which we perceive the world. It is a meeting between nature and geometry in a moment of observation.

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Questioning the map through examining unmeasurable elements of nature The map is a controlled form of observation, at the same time scientific and imaginative.

Vision entails not only perception, but also abstraction and distortion. As a mental construction, it has the purpose to arrive at an abstract point of interpretation, assuming that nature is not a mystery but a computation. It is common to give more importance in the representation of nature rather than in nature itself. However, the landscape does not only have a mathematical dimension but an existential one as well. ‘Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985’ detects this notion of the humanised and empirically perceived landscape. As it is mentioned in Norberg-Schulz’s Genius Loci (1979), ‘Place is evidently an integral part of existence’. The map is impossible to depict nature in all its richness. The landscape is characterised at the same time by immobility and transformation, stability and plasticity as nature’s creative forces become an ever-evolving and ever-lasting field of evolution. There is the density and perpetuation found in mountains and rocks, but at the same time, the outline created between sea and land is in constant transformation. The map demonstrates an illusion of permanence, making us forget that we are transient beings and the material world around us is in the process of decay. Nature’s cycles of growth and depletion are not something to be represented in cartography. However, Fulton’s work embraces this kind of ephemerality that the map strives to avoid. It focuses on the human experience of walking by depicting the landscape at a certain point of time. And as this landscape itself is temporal so it is its representation.

Analysis of Tomas Saraceno’s work ‘Cloud Cities’

Fig 9: Saraceno T. (2011), Cloud Cities, exhibited Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany 13

Fulton strives to receive influences from the wild but to influence it as little as possible, leaving no traces behind. However, this idea can be ambiguous as the dominance of the human presence often throws into question the boundaries between nature and culture.

Berlin based artist Tomas Saraceno is in a constant exploration of the meeting points between urban construction and the natural environment. As a response to the densely manufactured urban space, he is often inspired by the delicacy found in the system of natural structures, including chemical elements, clouds and bubbles. An example of that is the artist's studies on the intricate webs created by the cyrtophora citricola spiders (Malone, 2014, p 26). His immersive installations serve the purpose of creating a habitat, an ideal self-sufficient urban system with is in dialogue with the natural space that surrounds it. This utopian archetype in Saraceno’s art has a critical disposition; it does not provide solutions but reflections, leading to more questions and less answers.

‘Cloud Cities’ (2001–present) is part of the artist’s ongoing investigation on the theme of the ‘ ying city’. Clouds are situated between the material and the immaterial and are regarded as symbols of the everlasting transformation of the natural environment. This large scale installation consists of numerous complex in ated polyhedra suspended in the air on various heights. The visitors were urged to enter and explore some of these city cells experiencing themselves feeling intertwined while inhabiting this perplexing web system (Malone, 2014, p 25). Floating in the air entails uncertainty and unfamiliarity, provoking us to discover just how dependent we are on the rigid structure of the modern city, an arti cial environment. In this visionary proposal of an ecologically sustainable urban landscape, there is also a reference to the garden as a median place between the natural and the arti cial. Some of the oating bubbles are inhabited by the moss species Tillandsia. This type of plant is self-suf cient due to its ability to retain water and trap nutrients from the air (Studio Tomas Saraceno, 2011).

Similarly to Hamish Fulton’s ‘no trace’ policy, these self-contained structures promote the notion of leaving minimum in uence on the earth. For Saraceno, an unstable correlation with the natural environment entails the possibility of general imbalance. This can be seen in a line with Saraceno’s prior works experimenting with webs woven by different species of spiders (Wattolik, 2019, p 8). Likewise, in ‘Cloud City’ the exible strings that connect the city bubbles with one another, vibrate with each touch of a passerby. This becomes a demonstration of the connectivity and intimacy established between nature, the city and the human.

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Geometry as the structure of the world For Saraceno, the connecting thread between the city and the landscape is the obvious or underlying structure. These two units, although initially appear to be opposed to one another, both originate from the purity and simplicity of geometry. This fundamental connection is not always obvious to the human eye. Geometry is the hidden order, the underlying grid that establishes the way in which the elements of our world confront one another. It is not a human fabrication, but a human observation, a discovery of something so elemental, that the loss of it is equal to the loss of structure. This notion, that the universe itself provides evidence of order and structure is stated clearly in platonic philosophy. Similarly to ‘Cloud City’, Cosmographic mapmaking aims to approach this dynamic, as it is the mathematical study of the geocentric universe, examining its spatial form through geometry and its elemental character through physics (Cosgrove, 2008, p 17).

The city and the landscape The modern city that develops over hundreds of years, where a variety of shapes, forms and structures are combined, becomes a human-made social environment that derives from a geometry of randomness. Despite this seeming lack of order, architecture is in constant dialogue with the landscape. In the process of building culture and society, humankind interprets the landscape in various manners. The natural elements are synthesised in a different way, according to human needs and functional demands (Norberg-Schulz, 1979, p. 50). Therefore, all human-made places depart from a natural origin.

Humankind observes the landscape not so much in its organic unity but as a network that provides space for settlement. The notion of nature becomes inseparable from the element of interpretation and order. Humankind’s relation to the natural environment is fragmentary as it needs to identify itself with human-made things. This knowledge is always limited, oblique and partial. A lot of what we think as being nature is actually a human creation.

The English countryside is in fact mostly artificially made and even farmlands, parks and gardens are unnatural. These tend to be a kind of anthropomorphic nature, an intermediate space between the purely organic and the artificial.

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Analysis of M. C. Escher’s work ‘Metamorphosis II’

Fig 10: M.C. Escher. (1939-1940), Metamorphosis II

This dialogue between structure and nature, observation and interpretation becomes elaborated in M. C. Escher’s work by testing out the dynamics created between plants, animals and people and various repetitive and complex geometrical nets, through the creation of monohedral tessellations. Through this creation patterns of identical shapes that seamlessly interlock and can be repeated endlessly, geometry appears to oppose to the natural element, causing its fragmentation. However, for the artist these two elements are always interdependent. Most of his works created after 1937 have a strong mathematical flavour and become a manifestation of the simultaneous existence of art and science. The idea of finding new ways of depicting the notion of infinite space through repetition and equal divisions of the plane is a reoccurring theme in Escher’s work (Math Explorer Club, Cornell).

‘Metamorphosis II’ is an example of an image morphing into a tessellated pattern only for a different image to emerge again from this abstract geometric net. The print is a woodcut in black, olive and ochre, printed from twenty blocks on three combined sheets, with dimensions of 28.58 x 397.83 cm and created between 1939 and 1940 (National Gallery of Art). Compartmentalisation, seriality, close observation and categorisation are integral to the methodology of this work. The transformation sequence begins with the word 16

“metamorphose” repeated multiple times and forming a grid, which is converted to a chess board. This is followed by an alternation between geometric and organic patterns showing either abstract shapes, architectural structures or animals such as, lizards, insects, fish and birds using the tessellation technique. This constant transformation is eventually leading back to the word “metamorphose”, creating a never-ending cycle.

‘Metamorphosis II’ creates an immaterial and imaginary space, serving the purpose of symbolic representation. It establishes a meeting point between the mechanical order of the grid and a different kind of order, that of nature. In a similar way, Fuller’s Dymaxion map projects the elements of continuity and order that are fundamental to geometry, on top of an unrefined and chaotic landscape. This desire to reveal geometric order across the natural, is part of our effort on critically understanding ourselves within it. This way, humans strive to become part of nature’s broad totality. The fundamental and universal need to identify ourselves in relation to our surroundings becomes a selective cultural process. Consequently, ‘Metamorphosis II’, as well as ‘Cloud City’ are nets that bring together the organic and the structural, becoming a way of perceiving nature, a preexisting entity that seems so different after human observation and research.

Plato’s ‘Timaeus’ in relation to M.C. Escher’s ‘Metamorphosis’ This opposition between the natural and the artificial is being elaborated thoroughly in Plato’s Timaeus through a detailed description of the stages of the creation of our world and an explanation of its impressive order and beauty. The shape of the universe is described as a perfect sphere, which embodies all matter and the five platonic solids are presented as symbols of the elements of nature. According to Plato, a divine being is the one responsible for the existence of the universe and in Timaeus we picture the beautiful orderliness of this creation.

‘Metamorphosis II' reflects this approach with the combination of the earthy and rigid geometry of patterns and living beings, emphasising the element of gravity and physicality, with a world of alliteration, vastness and boundlessness, that is associated with the notion of an ideal eternity. Definite structures and shapes are combined with an expansive world of repetition, that takes form through the fragments created by tessellations. Escher is revealing the simultaneous existence of the platonic notions of the Physical and the Ideal , while exposing the essence of how we interact with these indispensable parts of the world.

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Conclusion In this paper I have explored the methods of artistic uses of the landscape, geometry and architecture in relation to various types of mapmaking throughout history. Hamish Fulton’s mapping aims to show us the ephemeral aspect of the human engagement with the natural. While examining the work of Saraceno I found that he reveals the porousness of ‘borders’ between natural elements and human cities. Both these artists invite us to blend with the natural instead of dominating it. Contrary to the performative aspect that their methods have, Escher’s ‘Metamorphosis’ is a clear and explicit visual representation of our experience of the world and of geometry as its structure.

Returning to the idea of the island and garden as enclosures and its histories of ‘comprehension and domestication’ these artists have been found to use mapmaking and geometry in relation to architecture and the natural to both critically examine our representations of these elements and to envision other types of knowledge through creative and imaginative mapping.

The world itself is multilayered, which means that the basis of attempting to understand it needs to rest on different methods as well. The purpose of researching and juxtaposing various ways of comprehending and displaying the world is not to nd aws in the way we perceive it. On the contrary, by viewing the natural, human and arti cial in all their complexity we challenge and expand our perceiving notions. At one time we might be mechanical or physical, real or fake, material or ideal. All these possibilities and contradicting ideas form a fragmental landscape, inviting us to observe intensely the world around us and view geometry, nature and humanity as interconnected and interdependent.

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-Studio Tomas Saraceno (2011). Cloud Cities. Available at: https:// studiotomassaraceno.org/cloud-cities-hamburger-bahnhof/ (Accessed: 12 July 2021)

-Tate Britain. Hamish Fulton, Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fultonseven-days-walking-and-seven-nights-camping-in-a-wood-scotland-march-1985p77618 (Accessed: 10 July 2021)

-Tupitsyn, M. (Autumn 2009) The Grid as a Checkpoint of Modernity. London, available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/12/the-grid-as-acheckpoint-of-modernity (Accessed: 29 January 2021)

-University of Oxford, Mathematical institute (2 September 2014) Roger Penrose talks about his relationship with the Art of M C Escher. Available at: http://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/875 (Accessed: 11 February 2021)

-Wattolik, E. (2019) Tomás Saraceno’s Art Work “In Orbit” (2013) against the Backdrop of Space Architecture. Arts 2019, 8, 13. Germany: Institut für Kunstgeschichte

List of illustrations Fig 1:

E. Maragaki (2021) The Cosmic Landscape Puzzle, author’s own image

Fig 2: Carr, M. (09 February 2011) Astronomy: Martian Illusions. Available at: https:// www.nature.com/articles/470172a (Accessed: 08 February 2021) Fig 3: MAPS ETC (2009) The World according to Eratosthenes. Available at: https:// etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/10400/10489/10489.htm (Accessed: 07 May 2021) Fig 4: Google Patents, F. R. Buckminster (1944) Cartography, US2393676A. Available at: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2393676A/en (Accessed: 05 July 2021) Fig 5: Royal Collection Trust. A Map of the Valdichiana. Available at: https://www.rct.uk/ collection/912278/a-map-of-the-valdichiana (Accessed: 09 May 2021) Fig 6:

(2021) Cosmas’s Flat Earth Scheme, diagram by author

Fig 7:

(2021) T-O Map Scheme, diagram by author 20

Fig 8: Tate Britain. Hamish Fulton, Seven Days Walking and Seven Nights Camping in a Wood Scotland March 1985. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/fultonseven-days-walking-and-seven-nights-camping-in-a-wood-scotland-march-1985-p77618 (Accessed: 10 July 2021) Fig 9: Studio Tomas Saraceno (2011). Cloud Cities. Available at: https:// studiotomassaraceno.org/cloud-cities-hamburger-bahnhof/ (Accessed: 12 July 2021) Fig 10: National Gallery of Art. M.C. Escher — Life and Work. Available at: https:// www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/mc-escher-life-and-work.html#slide_1 (Accessed: 30 July 2021)

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