Cartographic Abstraction in Contemporary Art Seeing with Maps Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies Series

In this book, Claire Reddleman introduces her theoretical innovation "cartographic abstraction" ? a material modality of thought and experience that is produced through cartographic techniques of depiction. Reddleman closely engages with selected artworks (by contemporary artists such as Joyce Kozloff, Layla Curtis, and Bill Fontana) and theories in each chapter. Reconfiguring the Foucauldian underpinning of critical cartography towards a materialist theory of abstraction, cartographic viewpoints are theorised as concrete abstractions. This research is positioned at the intersection of art theory, critical cartography and materialist philosophy.

Table of contents:

Introduction - From critical cartography to cartographic abstraction: rethinking the production of cartographic viewing through contemporary artworks

Chapter One – Reconfiguring the view from nowhere: collage and complicity in Targets by Joyce Kozloff

Chapter Two – The drone’s eye view: networked vision and visibility in works by James Bridle and Trevor Paglen

Chapter Three – Remote viewing, cartographic abstraction and the antipodes: three works by Layla Curtis

Chapter Four – Signification in the soundscape: Bill Fontana’s River Sounding

Chapter Five – Cartographic abstraction: a material modality of thought and experience

Claire Reddleman received her PhD in cultural studies from Goldsmiths, University of London.