Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're back with part two of our series on horror
Speaker 1: vakawie or the fear of the void, the fear of emptiness,
Speaker 1: also sometimes paraphrased as the statement that nature abhors a vacuum. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a topic that has many different faces we're
Speaker 1: going to touch on in this series. It's uh of course,
Speaker 1: has manifestations in the world of physics and the physical sciences. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and figures into the history of how we conceptualize
Speaker 1: space in the vacuum, but it also has manifestations in
Speaker 1: the world of psychology and in the world of art.
Speaker 1: In the last episode we focus mainly on art, and
Speaker 1: we're going to pick up with talking about art today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, Joe, I don't know if this was the
Speaker 1: case with you, but I also found this to be
Speaker 1: This is a really fun topic to research, but also
Speaker 1: at times a slightly challenging one, do in part to
Speaker 1: just how frequently the term horror vakoee is invoked in papers,
Speaker 1: sometimes at the drop of a hat. Yes, this happens
Speaker 1: with us sometimes with with like you are searching for uh,
Speaker 1: writings about a concept, but instead what you will find
Speaker 1: is a lot of writings that use that concept as
Speaker 1: a metaphor for what they want to talk about, right right,
Speaker 1: So it seems to be the case that if you
Speaker 1: want to find something that has just the the the
Speaker 1: invocation of the term at least a tangential connection to
Speaker 1: horror vakoe, then you can find it. For instance, Uh,
Speaker 1: if you want a paper then invokes some horror vakoee
Speaker 1: and Spanish horror icon Paul Nashy, Well you can do it.
Speaker 1: I found three of them with just a feel a
Speaker 1: good search. Yeah. Um, and you know these are paper
Speaker 1: where there there's not it's not the core um thing
Speaker 1: they're going after. But at some point or another they're
Speaker 1: going to use this term to describe a particular artist
Speaker 1: or that artist's work, or perhaps even you know, counter
Speaker 1: examples to what a particular artist was doing. So it
Speaker 1: seems kind of unavoidable, especially given just how you know,
Speaker 1: how common this aspect seems to be to human perception
Speaker 1: and creation. The idea that you know, you have minimalism,
Speaker 1: you have maximalism and you know, the various spaces between. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is all true, and I at least encountered another
Speaker 1: difficulty with reading about horror akawee, which is that I've
Speaker 1: noticed the term is used very differently, uh, sometimes with
Speaker 1: the sort of pejorative connotation and sometimes without. And for
Speaker 1: an example of this, I was watching a lecture about
Speaker 1: horror akerwy in the history of map making by the
Speaker 1: historian of cartography chet van Douser, former guests on the show,
Speaker 1: by the way, and I'll talk about uh his writings
Speaker 1: on this subject later in this episode. But this lecture
Speaker 1: invoked a definition of horror akawee by a scholar named
Speaker 1: Braxton Solderman. And in this case, Solderman, I think would
Speaker 1: not use the term horror akawee to apply to in
Speaker 1: general works that are busy or highly decorated. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are tons of things that would be very busy,
Speaker 1: highly decorated, you know, densely detailed works of art that
Speaker 1: would not get this term. Instead, he would use it
Speaker 1: specifically to refer to the motivation driving cases where you
Speaker 1: would judge busy art or busy design to not be
Speaker 1: a thoughtful and effective design choice. So the quote goes horror.
Speaker 1: Akawee is the fear of empty space that results in
Speaker 1: the over marking of visual space, excessive decoration that threatens
Speaker 1: to overwhelm what is being decorated, the stuffing of gaps
Speaker 1: in say Jura with further representation. Uh So, it's not
Speaker 1: just anything that's busy or crowded, but it's things that
Speaker 1: are busy or crowded in a kind of compulsive, uncontrolled way. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so uh so what Sotoman is saying here then would
Speaker 1: be that's something like, Um, I don't know, the works
Speaker 1: of Irving Norman or one of these other artists we
Speaker 1: discussed in Part one who are trying to make some
Speaker 1: comment or create art that in some way invokes a
Speaker 1: sense of chaos or disorder. Um, it wouldn't necessarily apply
Speaker 1: to what they're doing, because it is a like a
Speaker 1: definite choice. But it might apply to the outsider art
Speaker 1: or folk card of say Howard Finster. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think he would necessarily apply the term to them. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know what he personally would apply to. I
Speaker 1: think he's just saying that whoever is using this term,
Speaker 1: however you're using it, it would be applying to things
Speaker 1: that you think are excessive or overmarked, whatever that means
Speaker 1: to you. Okay, okay, Yeah, So he's making a distinction
Speaker 1: then between uh and and of course vowing to um
Speaker 1: individual interpretation. That one view of an artist might be
Speaker 1: that they are thoughtfully invoking, say, a sense of chaos
Speaker 1: or disorder by filling you know, all the margins with
Speaker 1: with the images of such disorder, while on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there might be another artist out there where it is
Speaker 1: more of a compulsion. It is more of a situation
Speaker 1: where they have perhaps a lot to say, too much
Speaker 1: to say, and are trying to like fit it all in. Yeah. Possibly,
Speaker 1: Or of course, it wouldn't just have to be representing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, chaos or disorder, could also be representing richness
Speaker 1: or anything, you know, whatever the reason is for the
Speaker 1: infilling of detail. Uh, it would be something that is
Speaker 1: done on purpose or done for a reason, rather than
Speaker 1: something that has done compulsively, maybe driven by a kind
Speaker 1: of anxiety about leaving blank or uniform space. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and that latter, since the one driven by horror vakuy
Speaker 1: is in this definition, one that detracts from the effect
Speaker 1: of the piece. One that quote threatens to over elm
Speaker 1: what is being decorated. So again, I think this author
Speaker 1: would probably not use the term to refer to things
Speaker 1: that are busy or crowded as a result of a
Speaker 1: like well considered deliberate choice by the artist or designer.
Speaker 1: It would refer to things where the infilling seems haphazard
Speaker 1: or unwarranted or ineffective. So, while I am usually quite
Speaker 1: partial too busy detail rich artwork, uh, there are examples
Speaker 1: I can think of where I can look at an
Speaker 1: artwork or design choice and say, yeah, I think this
Speaker 1: just looks like compulsive behavior that seems driven by a
Speaker 1: kind of discomfort with blank space. And one example I
Speaker 1: would agree with characterizing this way is cited in the
Speaker 1: same lecture by chet van Deuser I mentioned a minute ago.
Speaker 1: It's the practice of line filling in medieval manuscripts, and
Speaker 1: so maybe this will help illustrate So uh, this is uh,
Speaker 1: This this page I want to show you rob is
Speaker 1: from a manuscript known as Walter's one thirteen, which is
Speaker 1: a late thirteenth century Latin Psalter Assaulter, meaning a book
Speaker 1: that contains the biblical Book of Psalms, and it's from
Speaker 1: the region of France that was then Flanders. Now you know,
Speaker 1: I love my medieval manuscripts with zany margins. I want
Speaker 1: donkeys playing trumpets. I want armored war rabbits locked in
Speaker 1: battle with naked men writing centipede dogs. I want it all.
Speaker 1: But even with that predisposition, I think I I would
Speaker 1: be critical of what we see in some of the
Speaker 1: pages of Walters one thirteen, such as the one sided
Speaker 1: by Van Duzer. And this is where there are illustrations
Speaker 1: intruding into the very lines of the text itself. So
Speaker 1: the issue is that when a line of text does
Speaker 1: not stretch all the way to the margin, when it
Speaker 1: does not fill out the column, uh, the artists here,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the copyist or the
Speaker 1: rubricator or somebody else, literally fills in the rest of
Speaker 1: the line with a rectangular illustration of some kind, so
Speaker 1: it might be a mouse head or just some vines
Speaker 1: with red and gold leaves, or big old p hen uh.
Speaker 1: I like these types of illustrations, but this does seem
Speaker 1: kind of excessive to me, like it would actually make
Speaker 1: the text harder to read and detract from its effect,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of makes the page feel cluttered.
Speaker 1: And like there's no space to breathe. Kind of going
Speaker 1: back to our episodes on the history of the paragraph
Speaker 1: and the the importance of blank space in prose text,
Speaker 1: I would agree with the caveat to our eyes reading
Speaker 1: across the centuries. Well, yeah, I'm talking about my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but yes too as a modern viewer looking
Speaker 1: at this, Uh, the p hens and the strange dog
Speaker 1: creatures are a bit distracting. Um not not that I
Speaker 1: can read the actual text anyway. Now right, well, well,
Speaker 1: to connect again with the paragraphs episode, I mean, here
Speaker 1: we see very little spacing between the parts of the
Speaker 1: text itself. Like the text is also very crammed and
Speaker 1: crowded in. Yeah yeah, so, I mean maybe to the
Speaker 1: original creators of this page and the original intended readers
Speaker 1: of this page, like this is opening things up. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you some space. That's what the dog is,
Speaker 1: That's what the the bird with the human head and
Speaker 1: the dunce cap is about. That is a good bird.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a bit um. And this is coming
Speaker 1: back to like, you know, cinematic u um examples and
Speaker 1: parody of cinematic examples. But there's an episode of Futurama
Speaker 1: where Zoidbird's uncle Harold Zoid an old timey uh cinema
Speaker 1: director who made like silent holographic pictures. Um, he's directing
Speaker 1: a new film and he's at one point he's he says, people, people, please,
Speaker 1: just because it's a dramatic scene doesn't mean you can't
Speaker 1: do a little comedy in the background. Um. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's referring to I guess the the you
Speaker 1: know to To modern viewers, they often busy nature and
Speaker 1: the frantic nature of say old silent films. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, on this, like Walter's one thirteen, a person
Speaker 1: might feel that this counts as horror akay in the
Speaker 1: critical sense, in the sense of overmarking or excessive decoration
Speaker 1: that sort of threatens to overwhelm that which is being decorated.
Speaker 1: But to come back to my point about usage, it
Speaker 1: seems that while some authors use the term exclusively in
Speaker 1: this sense, like a in some sense a critical statement
Speaker 1: or a critical statement about the motivation driving certain design choices,
Speaker 1: it's also sometimes used more generically without a spirit of
Speaker 1: criticism that I can detect, and would just be descriptive
Speaker 1: like it would refer to any ardor design without a
Speaker 1: lot of blank space, even if the author making the
Speaker 1: statement believes that such a design is effective or thoughtful,
Speaker 1: or well considered or beautiful. So I guess this can
Speaker 1: create confusion when the term is invoked about whether it's
Speaker 1: being used with a critical connotation or not. Is it
Speaker 1: just say it does horror aka we just describe and
Speaker 1: artwork that is busy and filled in with detail to
Speaker 1: all the edges, or is it a class of motivation
Speaker 1: to create certain artworks of this type, specifically artworks that
Speaker 1: are not as good as others? Now? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: discussing though the way that sometimes the term is used
Speaker 1: to depict, you know, like primitive impulse, or or to
Speaker 1: describe a quality of more ancient forms of art versus
Speaker 1: modern forms. Um. I do think it's helpful to look
Speaker 1: at at other examples from other parts of the world
Speaker 1: at other times, and I was trying to think of, like, well,
Speaker 1: what's a good one that's you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: different from from what we've we've looked at in the
Speaker 1: first episode, And I kept coming back to uh Tibetan art,
Speaker 1: particularly in Tibetan Buddhist art that I imagine when I
Speaker 1: even mentioned this, like certain images are coming to mind,
Speaker 1: and these image is that come to mind maybe indeed
Speaker 1: be like very full, very um complex pieces that indeed
Speaker 1: take up an entire given space. So if we're applying
Speaker 1: the term here, it would be in the descriptive sense,
Speaker 1: not in the critical sense, because I think you and
Speaker 1: I agree these artworks are amazing, right and and I
Speaker 1: and I, to be honest, I didn't find any sources
Speaker 1: out there that we're really invoking this term to describe
Speaker 1: Tibettan art, So I'm not I'm not attempting to jump
Speaker 1: to the defense of it or anything, because the attack
Speaker 1: would be I think entirely imaginary here. But um, but
Speaker 1: it's interesting, I think to look at at work that
Speaker 1: you might see as as you know, very full or
Speaker 1: even very busy and sort of described like why is
Speaker 1: it like that? And uh and and what does it
Speaker 1: have to do with the original purpose and context of
Speaker 1: a given work? So a little background. Um. A Tibetan
Speaker 1: style of art began to develop on the Tibetan Plateau
Speaker 1: during the tenth century, this following a formative era during
Speaker 1: which Buddhism took on a form in Tibet most in
Speaker 1: tune with religious needs of the people, their pre existing
Speaker 1: shamanistic traditions, and much more. Uh. And this is discussed
Speaker 1: in great detail and an excellent book that I have
Speaker 1: on the shelf here by Robert E. Fisher titled Art
Speaker 1: of Tibet. Now, I'm not going to get super into
Speaker 1: the different forms of Tibetan Buddhism or even the full
Speaker 1: variety of images, but suffice to say that while not
Speaker 1: all examples of Tibetan Buddhist aren't invoke a feeling of maximalism,
Speaker 1: some of the most famous examples of sculpture, and especially
Speaker 1: monastery wall paintings, do tend to kind of overpower you
Speaker 1: with a sense of cosmic abundance. Yes, and many of
Speaker 1: them seem to me like they are not only overflowing
Speaker 1: with detail, but overflowing with uh sort of different levels
Speaker 1: of focus. Like there's a lot of different layers of
Speaker 1: detail that you know, things that are kind of like
Speaker 1: zoomed out versus zoomed in, if that makes any sense. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do feel like there's a sense of zooming in
Speaker 1: and zooming out. Um. Many pieces will have like a
Speaker 1: kind of central focus and you can almost feel like
Speaker 1: some sort of of a map. It can almost feel
Speaker 1: like some sort of and this is where we get
Speaker 1: into some of the actual purpose here, some sort of
Speaker 1: educational document that indeed there is information that is being
Speaker 1: relayed here. Uh. And you know, this is one of
Speaker 1: two important factors to keep in mind regarding why these
Speaker 1: images are so again cosmically abundant. Uh. First of all,
Speaker 1: is Fisher points out esoteric Buddhism, like Vadriyana, Buddhism was
Speaker 1: andy as a complex system. One comparison that I've seen
Speaker 1: elsewhere is that you might think of these forms of
Speaker 1: Buddhism as a kind of Buddhist super science, a kind
Speaker 1: of advanced spiritual technology. Fisher points out that it essentially
Speaker 1: was was a means of accelerating the path toward enlightenment,
Speaker 1: condensing the work of eons into a single mortal lifespan.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, there was still like a
Speaker 1: sense of urgency to the practice, Fisher stresses, because ultimately
Speaker 1: you're dealing with like the trajectory of the human soul.
Speaker 1: So there was a great deal to be taught, a
Speaker 1: great deal to guide one through, a great deal as
Speaker 1: a learner to absorb and it was more than a
Speaker 1: written text or even a robust monastic tradition could do
Speaker 1: on its own. Fisher rights of the following quote. The
Speaker 1: need to harness the myriad powers and to organize the
Speaker 1: parts of this vast system into a manageable whole required
Speaker 1: a large and complex visual system of support and gave
Speaker 1: rise to the ritual instruments and images that have given
Speaker 1: the Adriana its distinctive flavor, as well as the huge
Speaker 1: array of deities representing the tremendous range of powers and practices. Okay,
Speaker 1: so in some sense, the detail rich nature of a
Speaker 1: lot of this artwork could be related to the sort
Speaker 1: of the vastness and complexity of the belief system underlying
Speaker 1: it exactly. Yeah, Yeah, we're dealing with various images and
Speaker 1: objects here that are not necessarily merely decoration but also
Speaker 1: ritualistic and instructional. So the image may be like full
Speaker 1: or abundant or or even uh, you know, considered busy,
Speaker 1: because there is a great deal of information to relate
Speaker 1: and support via the image, and I guess you know
Speaker 1: you can you can look at various examples and other systems.
Speaker 1: Like anytime, there's a lot of information to put in
Speaker 1: an image, be it a map, um or you know,
Speaker 1: to to sort of bring it into this realm of
Speaker 1: the unreal. I'm reminded of the maps, the many wonderful
Speaker 1: maps have been created over the years for Dante's Inferno
Speaker 1: and Um and uh and and the other books in
Speaker 1: the Divine Comedy, where there is a fantastic physical realm
Speaker 1: that has to be created there, but it's also just
Speaker 1: loaded with information and loaded with all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 1: and it can be very helpful when you're, say, reading
Speaker 1: The Inferno, but also if you try and fit everything
Speaker 1: into the map, it could conceivably be overwhelming. Thank thank
Speaker 1: thank now. Elsewhere in the book, Fisher makes a great
Speaker 1: point to about the role place has in all of
Speaker 1: this as well. So we're dealing with centuries of tradition
Speaker 1: here and and um and while I don't want to
Speaker 1: devalue the vast size of the Tibetan Plateau because it
Speaker 1: is enormous, or the biodiversity of the region because it
Speaker 1: contains numerous ecosystems, but individual works and monasteries are going
Speaker 1: to be generally tied to particular locations within it. As
Speaker 1: Fisher points out, the interior of the Tibetan monastery is
Speaker 1: elaborate with full wall paintings that quote transform those rooms
Speaker 1: into spiritual environments which surround and even overwhelmed the worshiper
Speaker 1: with large, expressive displays of the many Buddhist worlds. And
Speaker 1: he stresses that this is all in stark contrast to
Speaker 1: the world outside the monastery, typically defined by the quote
Speaker 1: often bear in wind swept Tibetan landsk um. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So he's saying that in many of these places, if
Speaker 1: you were to go outside the monastery, you'd be greeted
Speaker 1: with an image of the world that is quite beautiful,
Speaker 1: but maybe not busy with detail or busy with lots
Speaker 1: of little things populating it. It It would be often a
Speaker 1: very I don't know what the word is, A kind
Speaker 1: of smooth topography. I mean, I guess not smooth, because
Speaker 1: it would be mountainous, but you know, not a lot
Speaker 1: of uh forests and cities and so forth. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I included an image here of the Debatten Plateau,
Speaker 1: and it's particularly gorgeous view. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that one could probably find individual vistas uh
Speaker 1: that don't feel is open in the Debat Plateau but
Speaker 1: but I feel like this kind of I feel like
Speaker 1: this has a certain logic to it, like the idea that,
Speaker 1: first of all, going back to the previous comment, like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you have information encoded in the work,
Speaker 1: but also it has to do with this awe inspiring
Speaker 1: transition out of the mundane world and into the inner
Speaker 1: spiritual world of the monastery or the temple. So I think,
Speaker 1: on one hand, it's it's important to realize that the
Speaker 1: contrast between the empty and the full might be lost
Speaker 1: in an analysis of a work, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: just viewing it in isolation on a page, um, on
Speaker 1: a screen, or even in a you know, a museum setting.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: more of a tangent, but I wonder how we might
Speaker 1: think of this in terms of ancient versus modern, or
Speaker 1: even in just pre modern in general versus modern creations,
Speaker 1: because if the world outside of a particular experience is,
Speaker 1: by one definition or another minimalist, then perhaps it makes
Speaker 1: more sense for the work uh itself, the inner work
Speaker 1: to present a contrast of maximalism. Likewise, of the world
Speaker 1: outside the monastery is by one definition or another maximalist
Speaker 1: or busy, then perhaps we crave the quiet, the simple,
Speaker 1: and the minimal within the experience of place or painting
Speaker 1: or film or musical composition. That's very interesting, I could
Speaker 1: see that. So if yeah, if you may you live
Speaker 1: in a in a busy city center, the sacred space
Speaker 1: you retreat to, you would want to have a lot
Speaker 1: of empty or uniform space in it to give you
Speaker 1: a sense of of rest maybe, Whereas if you live
Speaker 1: in a more pastoral environment, you might want to retreat
Speaker 1: to a sacred space that is full of just a busy,
Speaker 1: rich detail and complexity. Yeah. And at the same time, though,
Speaker 1: I realize that it might still be entirely subjective, because
Speaker 1: I can easily imagine, say, you know, an individual living
Speaker 1: in the big city and they're going into a a
Speaker 1: sacred space or museum space, and like, what is their
Speaker 1: relationship to the world on the outside is is it
Speaker 1: is it busy and um an abundant or is it
Speaker 1: is there an emptiness to it? And therefore they want
Speaker 1: something more full on the inside, like the sacred space
Speaker 1: should give them an energy that they feel is lacking
Speaker 1: in the world outside. Uh, Like I, like I said,
Speaker 1: I guess it could go either way. Depending on what
Speaker 1: an individual's view of the mundane world is. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting observation, though, I wonder about that now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like take the various male wolf locations for example, those
Speaker 1: are those are certainly kind of maximalist experiences you don't
Speaker 1: go in. I mean, you know, it's it's it's not
Speaker 1: just an overabundance of images. There's you know, various artists,
Speaker 1: various styles and so forth. Um, it's not just wall
Speaker 1: to wall. But generally I have found when I when
Speaker 1: I in the one that I visited, I left feeling
Speaker 1: like I had experienced a lot. That's interesting because I
Speaker 1: when I went I found it kind of RESTful as well.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it has to do with the dim
Speaker 1: lighting in there or there there are plenty of lights,
Speaker 1: but they're not bright white light. Um, and uh in
Speaker 1: the kind of soothing sonic atmospheres. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, I bring all this up more
Speaker 1: or less just raise additional questions and bring up additional examples.
Speaker 1: But we'd obviously love to hear from folks out there
Speaker 1: who have thoughts on all of this related to their
Speaker 1: experiences in museums and sacred spaces, etcetera. Now, I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that I was going to come back to chet
Speaker 1: VanDuzer Uh, and this relates to fear of the void
Speaker 1: in art. I came across some work by previous show
Speaker 1: guest chet Van Duser on the role of horror vakawi
Speaker 1: in map making. So if you didn't hear that episode
Speaker 1: from a few years back, chet vand User is an
Speaker 1: American historian of cartography, and he came on the show
Speaker 1: several years back to talk about why and how cartographers
Speaker 1: of the past would so frequently add sea monsters to
Speaker 1: their maps, and one possible explanation for the proliferation of
Speaker 1: sirens and slyly marine serpent kings out in the deep
Speaker 1: water is horror vakaye on the part of the map maker.
Speaker 1: This would be the version that's not just merely descriptive
Speaker 1: of something that's filling in details, but a description of
Speaker 1: a motivation on the part of the artist or map maker.
Speaker 1: The uh. There's an abhorrence for blankness that goes in
Speaker 1: the case of maps, beyond just the creation of monsters,
Speaker 1: but to all kinds of extraneous infilling of stuff in
Speaker 1: the watery corners of the page. Or in the deep
Speaker 1: middles of continents on the page, and so I was
Speaker 1: looking at a digital curation of examples on the Stanford
Speaker 1: Libraries website. This is for the Barry Lawrence Rudermann Conference
Speaker 1: on Cartography, and there are some explanatory materials by Chet
Speaker 1: van Douser. So he writes that despite the fact that
Speaker 1: some previous scholars had had cast doubt on whether horror
Speaker 1: akawee was ever a major influence on map makers, he
Speaker 1: argues that whether you frame it as a positive desire
Speaker 1: for excess decoration or a negative aversion to blank space,
Speaker 1: it seems pretty clear that horror akawee of one kind
Speaker 1: or another was an important pressure in the design of
Speaker 1: European maps from the sixteenth to the early eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: at least four some cartographers. Because this was not universal,
Speaker 1: he also shows many examples of maps that were perfectly
Speaker 1: content to leave vast areas blank, often the the interiors
Speaker 1: of continental spaces unknown to the map maker, or vast
Speaker 1: ocean spaces. Now, rob I thought the first example vendors
Speaker 1: are selects that we would look at. Here is the
Speaker 1: typus aurarum mary timarum gin a a longren and this
Speaker 1: is a map created by the Dutch cartographer Young Hoygan
Speaker 1: von lynn Schoten, who lived fifteen sixty three to sixteen eleven.
Speaker 1: I believe this map is from fifte and it depicts
Speaker 1: the South Atlantic and the western coast of Africa. Now
Speaker 1: the ocean takes up it looks like at least three
Speaker 1: quarters of the map. But the ocean here is absolutely
Speaker 1: overflowing with stuff, to the point that it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny to look at. There are inset drawings of the
Speaker 1: mountains on St. Helena and a inshin island. There is
Speaker 1: a compass or multiple compasses. There is a drawing of
Speaker 1: three ships being visited by a sea monster. I can't
Speaker 1: tell if the c monster is attacking the ships or
Speaker 1: just saying hello, Rob. Maybe you can render a judgment
Speaker 1: on that illustration in a moment. But there is also
Speaker 1: lots of absurdly florid lettering on the names of places.
Speaker 1: Will you just look at this oceanus? Uh what? I
Speaker 1: can't even read the word it's so there's so much
Speaker 1: swirling on the letters. Get get, let's let the podcasts
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, there's a lot going on here. And
Speaker 1: the I mean, it almost looks like you've you've gotten
Speaker 1: you've got pop ups occurring on the map. You need
Speaker 1: to close out so you can see the rest of
Speaker 1: the ocean here. That's very yeah, yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: click the excess. Uh, but let's get a good look
Speaker 1: at this sea monster. Now, it looks kind of like
Speaker 1: it's a giant green fish with red fins and the
Speaker 1: head of I don't know, what would you call that,
Speaker 1: kind of like a pig calf head. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very mammalion. But it's got the angry eyes it's got
Speaker 1: it's got attack eyes. And is it attacking the ships
Speaker 1: or is it just kind of flopping around for them
Speaker 1: to look at? Not quite clear. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It looks it looks, I don't looks a little sweet
Speaker 1: to me, like it's just kind of mine in its
Speaker 1: own business. But maybe no, no, wait, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: It depends how you Okay, it depends how you look
Speaker 1: at it. At first, when I looked at this this
Speaker 1: particular monster, I thought its head was sort of to
Speaker 1: the side, And now I see it as it was intended. Yes,
Speaker 1: it does look angry and looks more like a pig.
Speaker 1: Whereas the way I was seeing it at first it
Speaker 1: looked more like an otter. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw that you were looking at the more zoomed out
Speaker 1: image that does look more otter like. Yeah, but when
Speaker 1: you you see a little closer, you can tell, yeah,
Speaker 1: it has this kind of still mammalion but angry and
Speaker 1: perhaps threatening the ships. But okay, this first example, there
Speaker 1: is just so much illustration in the ocean here, and
Speaker 1: just a lot inset text. The boxes boxes of text.
Speaker 1: I think they're called cartouches, maybe, just like elaborately decorated
Speaker 1: boxes with like those baroque museum frames illustrated around them
Speaker 1: that have you know, they say something in them. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: let's look at another map. This is one that of
Speaker 1: and user selects that is called a New Plane and
Speaker 1: Exact Map of America by Robert Walton who lived sixteen
Speaker 1: eighteen to sixty eight. I think this map is from
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty and uh, let me flag a little lall
Speaker 1: here at the word plane in its title, because again,
Speaker 1: it's just it's so much stuff. The oceans are filled
Speaker 1: with ships, sea monsters, random blocks of text. The border
Speaker 1: of the map is stuffed with illustrations of landmarks and
Speaker 1: explorers and what the map maker believed were the representations
Speaker 1: of clothing of various native people's. There is even sort
Speaker 1: of a guess at the coast of Antarctica, though I
Speaker 1: want to say Antarctica was not discovered until the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: This is just a random line of coasts south of
Speaker 1: Cape Horn that has labeled unknown lands. So it's just
Speaker 1: sort of a guess there's probably some land down here. Wow.
Speaker 1: This Yeah, this map is a lot to take in. UM.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that it's particularly pleasing to the eye.
Speaker 1: It has the feeling of a publication like UM in
Speaker 1: the sense that they said, well, we've got some extra
Speaker 1: space on here, let's get some more content on this map.
Speaker 1: You know what it looks. It kind of looks like
Speaker 1: do you ever have those highly informational place mats when
Speaker 1: you were a kid? Yep, yep, you're gonna eat your
Speaker 1: spaghetti on this new plane exact map of America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this would work great as a place matter. Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1: But Van dews Are, writing of Walton's map, says quote,
Speaker 1: it is tempting to think that the maps busy appearance
Speaker 1: attracted and held the is of his customers and thus
Speaker 1: helped increase sales. So that's an interesting consideration. It's possible
Speaker 1: that a desire to sell maps could have driven some
Speaker 1: horror vakay in cartographers, because maybe a map seems more
Speaker 1: valuable if it is filled with lots of illustrations and text.
Speaker 1: Maybe it seems less valuable if the places where you
Speaker 1: you know, you don't really have any geographical information to
Speaker 1: add or just blank Yeah. I can see. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like with the illuminated manuscripts. So we're discussing earlier.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you were paying for one of these
Speaker 1: or commissioning, when you might say, hey, I thought this
Speaker 1: thing was going to be illuminated. Where is the illumination
Speaker 1: I paid for? Um? Yeah, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: content added here. And yet at the same time, the
Speaker 1: north part of America has a fair amount of white space,
Speaker 1: trap white space in it here. Oh it does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's the the interior continent. In fact, some of
Speaker 1: the other examples elsewhere that VanDuzer sites to show cases
Speaker 1: where map makers were clearly not afraid to leave blank space.
Speaker 1: A lot of that blank spaces, like in the center
Speaker 1: of the Asian continent, so they'll represent you know, Europe
Speaker 1: and Africa, and like the southern coast of the Asian mainland,
Speaker 1: and then like all up inside there, it's just a
Speaker 1: vast blankness because they just didn't know what was there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looked like in this particular map they added some
Speaker 1: text under the north part of America, but they just
Speaker 1: didn't have even enough to fill. I have a few
Speaker 1: pictures of animals, but ultimately there's a clearly a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot that's unknown at the time of this
Speaker 1: naps making. Thankank, Thank alright, I want to look at
Speaker 1: one more of Van Duzer's examples. The next one is
Speaker 1: a map by Henri Abraham Chatelan called I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how to say this French, but I think it's like
Speaker 1: cart trey cure use de la mare de Sud. This
Speaker 1: is Amsterdam, seventeen nineteen. So this is more like an
Speaker 1: attempt to This is not quite a map of the
Speaker 1: entire world, but it is a map of a lot
Speaker 1: of the world. So it has North America, South America,
Speaker 1: half of Africa, half of Europe, and then the eastern
Speaker 1: part of the Asian continent. And then it's got a
Speaker 1: lot of ocean in it. So it's got the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 1: the Atlantic ocean, and once again there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff sort of crowding in from the edges. In fact, Rob,
Speaker 1: I would almost say this adheres to the exact inverse
Speaker 1: of your rule about about blank space in like type
Speaker 1: setting newspapers, where you know, white space was okay if
Speaker 1: it's sort of connected to the oceans at the outer
Speaker 1: edge of the page. You just don't want trapped white
Speaker 1: space here. All of the illustrations and boxes and Cartouchian
Speaker 1: seemed to be just pouring in from the edges of
Speaker 1: the map, if that makes sense. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting to look at. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure lot of this has to do with the
Speaker 1: clearly visible trade routes that are marked, like you don't
Speaker 1: want to throw your copious amounts of illustrations on top
Speaker 1: of that better, but they work well to fill in
Speaker 1: these areas where ships are not navigating between the continents. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I really like Vanduzer's observation about this map quote
Speaker 1: the great profusion of inset maps and scenes along the
Speaker 1: northern and southern edges of Andrichdalan seventeen nineteen very curious
Speaker 1: map of the Pacific show the cartographer's strong desire to
Speaker 1: avoid empty space, and more specifically, to conceal his ignorance
Speaker 1: of what lay in the extreme northern and southern reaches
Speaker 1: of the world. The south is essentially tiled over with
Speaker 1: inset maps that include ethnographic scenes in the north. Note
Speaker 1: that he conceals his ignorance of northwestern North America with
Speaker 1: a series of portraits of explorers. That's a very clever trick,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I don't know if I would have noticed
Speaker 1: it if induser hadn't pointed out. Sometimes an abundance of
Speaker 1: extraneous detail can be used to distract the audience from
Speaker 1: the absence of significant or useful detail. In other words,
Speaker 1: business can be used to hide emptiness. So on a map,
Speaker 1: this would mean that you might be less inclined to,
Speaker 1: you know, pipe up and say, hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what islands can be found in this region of the
Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean, Or wait a minute, what is the shape
Speaker 1: of the northwest coast of North America. You might not
Speaker 1: notice to ask that question because the map doesn't just
Speaker 1: sort of like go blank in these places. Instead, it
Speaker 1: is plastered with like Magellan and Vespucci heads and what
Speaker 1: appeared to be somewhat inaccurate drawings of Mesoamerican pyramids with
Speaker 1: human sacrifices happening all around them. So it's just adding
Speaker 1: in these illustrations in places where the author or or
Speaker 1: the map maker uh doesn't actually know what they should
Speaker 1: depict in an informational sense in the map itself. Yes,
Speaker 1: this close up that you included for me of the
Speaker 1: human sacrifice scene is quite ridiculous and monstrous. And I
Speaker 1: guess thee an individual with a face on his stomach
Speaker 1: in the background as well. Is that what it is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's confusing. I don't know what that means. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when he shows up? You know your illustration is
Speaker 1: is is well off the mark when it comes to
Speaker 1: realistic depiction of cultural practices. Is this going to help
Speaker 1: me navigate the Pacific? I'm not sure, but this will
Speaker 1: come back in a minute. Maybe that's not the point
Speaker 1: of a map like this, um though, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to to dwell in this for a second, because,
Speaker 1: of course, this technique of hiding the lack of significant
Speaker 1: or relevant detail by filling the void with irrelevant or
Speaker 1: extraneous detail is not just used in maps. This is
Speaker 1: actually something I notice in verbal rhetoric all the time.
Speaker 1: It is like a common trick of persuasion in an argumentation. Uh.
Speaker 1: For example, you can see see it in courtrooms if
Speaker 1: you don't have very good evidence to cite in support
Speaker 1: of your case. Instead, you just say a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: You just try to rapidly lay out a bunch of
Speaker 1: facts or claims that sound vaguely on topic. And if
Speaker 1: you say enough stuff fast enough, it could be hard
Speaker 1: for the jury or the audience to stop and analyze
Speaker 1: each thing you said and think, wait a minute, does
Speaker 1: this actually prove what you're trying to prove? Is? Does
Speaker 1: this lead to your conclusion? Instead, like you use a
Speaker 1: blizzard of statements to create the impression that you have
Speaker 1: made an argument, you hide the core vacuity of your
Speaker 1: case behind a hieronymous bosh painting of talk. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's kind of like with the map versus the painting.
Speaker 1: It's more detectable when there's like a definite purpose or
Speaker 1: intended purpose to the answer, because it's like one thing
Speaker 1: to come up to someone and say, hey, what is art?
Speaker 1: And then you might get a really rambling response, but
Speaker 1: you kind of should right, But if it's more like, hey, um,
Speaker 1: if you come to your boss and be like, what
Speaker 1: are my duties for the coming month or how is
Speaker 1: my performance over the last quarter, if there are a
Speaker 1: lot of add ons and pop ups in that particular answer,
Speaker 1: then yeah, it feels like you didn't really get a
Speaker 1: clear answer to the question. Yes. Yes, In that case,
Speaker 1: the boss would be papering over an actual problem in
Speaker 1: the workplace with a bunch of extraneous detail, essentially painting
Speaker 1: like Magellan heads and Christopher Columbus heads over the part
Speaker 1: of the map where you should be getting detail about
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do. Yeah, But anyway to come
Speaker 1: back to maps specifically, uh Van Duser argues that eventually
Speaker 1: the cartography of horror vakuwi fell out of fashion by
Speaker 1: the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. You start to
Speaker 1: see a decline in this impulse to fill every corner
Speaker 1: of the map with stuff, and that seems to coincide
Speaker 1: with a decline in decoration generally and an increasing trend
Speaker 1: of seeing maps purely as utilitarian scientific instruments, where it
Speaker 1: would just be you know, you just want the information necessary.
Speaker 1: These are the navigation lines you would use. These are
Speaker 1: the coastlines. So I look at all this and I
Speaker 1: sort of interpret it to mean that, you know, in
Speaker 1: in European maps of centuries prior, if you had a
Speaker 1: map of the coast of South America or something, it's
Speaker 1: maybe more likely that this would be a kind of decorative, educational,
Speaker 1: or status item to maybe to stimulate the imagination, or
Speaker 1: maybe in a more profane sense, to show off your
Speaker 1: wealth and worldliness or something like that. But by the
Speaker 1: early eighteenth century, c maps were increasingly viewed simply as
Speaker 1: tools for navigation, in which case you might not want
Speaker 1: a lot of extra decoration all over the place, kind
Speaker 1: of like you wouldn't want the marked face of a
Speaker 1: tape measure to be covered in all kinds of elaborate
Speaker 1: illustrations and words. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great
Speaker 1: It reminds me a bit of time pieces, particularly wrist watches,
Speaker 1: where you know you'll you'll see plenty of examples of
Speaker 1: very functional time pieces that are all about giving you
Speaker 1: the exact time, and in other cases the time piece
Speaker 1: might be a little more stylistic, sometimes so stylistic that
Speaker 1: it interferes with your ability to accurately read what time
Speaker 1: it is. Yes, and It's not to say that either
Speaker 1: approach is wrong. They just have different slightly different intentions
Speaker 1: and a different focus on the actual information that is
Speaker 1: being presented. So this makes me think that when there
Speaker 1: is a case of horror vakawy as a motivation, just
Speaker 1: like a desire to fill in blank spaces with stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, there can actually be a lot of uh,
Speaker 1: sort of sub motivations to that motivation. It might be
Speaker 1: because you are trying to make the thing you're creating
Speaker 1: appear more valuable. Maybe you're trying to attract the eye
Speaker 1: of a buyer. It might be because you literally just
Speaker 1: want to contain more information. It might be because you
Speaker 1: want to disguise a lack of information of a significant sort.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's just because you enjoy being artistically expressive
Speaker 1: and you want to fill lots of things in with
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of exciting detail to stimulate the imagination,
Speaker 1: all of which could essentially manifest as the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how about you personally, Joe, do you think maps
Speaker 1: today should have more monsters on them? I think Google
Speaker 1: Maps specifically should have more monsters on it, uh, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, because that could be that could be filled
Speaker 1: in dynamically, right, you know the monsters are roaming around.
Speaker 1: That would add an interesting level of puzzle and obstacles
Speaker 1: here your daily boring navigation tasks. I gotta get to
Speaker 1: so and so's house or the post office or whatever,
Speaker 1: but there is a Leviathan in the way, and uh,
Speaker 1: maybe I gotta take a new route. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just speaking of routes. Yeah, we have we we use
Speaker 1: these various GPS powered mapping devices when we drive around,
Speaker 1: and I often find that if I stop at a
Speaker 1: light or a traffic sign. Uh, that's when the pop
Speaker 1: ups come for make pop ups for like sub sandwich
Speaker 1: shops and so forth. Uh. Maybe if I could pay
Speaker 1: just a little bit each month instead of getting the
Speaker 1: sub the submarine sandwich pop up, I could just get
Speaker 1: a random monster from uh from from the history of maps,
Speaker 1: some sort of strange, pig faced, shrek eared monstrosity rising
Speaker 1: up out of the highway. Yeah. Why go to the
Speaker 1: sub shop when you could go be devoured by a cockatrice? Yeah,
Speaker 1: or at least giving the ability to report it. If
Speaker 1: enough people are reporting the thing, then there must be
Speaker 1: something going on. Okay, does that do it for today?
Speaker 1: For Part two, I believe. So yeah, I think we've
Speaker 1: we've we've filled this one into the margins here, but
Speaker 1: we'll be back with a third episode on the topic,
Speaker 1: so hey, check back with us. Then. Just a reminder
Speaker 1: that core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind air
Speaker 1: and Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays. On Monday's we do listener mail, on Wednesday's
Speaker 1: we do a short form amster fact or artifact episode,
Speaker 1: and on Friday's we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Pauseway. If
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Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
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