Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (2008)

Marjolijn Dijkman

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum* is an ongoing worldwide investigation and an attempt to rethink existing representations of the world. The online publication gives the possibility to follow the process of the research besides public presentations in exhibitions and publications and will actively be brought up to date.

For this online presentation I developed special representations of the categories Refer and Speculate. These representations react on the many online photo archives that work for instance with geo-tagging and other navigation structures.

'Gestures' shows traces and effects of human interventions in our lifeworld. Besides a somehow objective view, the archive reveals a more subjective and expressive way of perceiving and interpreting the surroundings. The images can be taken anywhere; they all emphasize that people, regardless of their geographical location, have similar ways of organising and designing their daily environment.

‘References’, makes us understand how (garden) architecture, business and private interiors, institutes such as the museum and recreation parks express their respective views of less than familiar locations and cultures. In the navigation the images are to be found on the place they represent instead the place they were originally taken.

‘Speculations’ is made up of images of spaces that represent a specific era in the past. These spaces are reconstructed or conserved to explain, glorify or commemorate a certain period of time. The images are put on a timeline on the period in time they represent. All empty space in the timeline are periods that are not (yet) present in the archive.

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
Concept / photography: Marjolijn Dijkman
Developed by: Rekall Design
Published by the Jan van Eyck Academie

* Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre/Mirror of the World) is considered the first true atlas in the modern sense. It was published in 1570.