Chapter A5

The Stack's users are not limited
to this planet. An ever-increasing number of satellites orbit above our heads, watching, collecting, and communicating an infinite amount of data. They spy on earth, recording high resolution images and video, modelling and mapping terrain. On behalf of governments and private corporations, they monitor the weather, atmosphere, climate change, gravitational fields, agriculture, the oceans, urban environments, and all of Earth's citizens. Satellites connect all users of the stack, human and non-human alike, via radio, television, phone, and broadband internet, making almost no place inaccessible.

Since the first satellite was successfully launched into orbit by Russia in October 1957, more than 11,000 satellites have been reached orbit. There were 3,372 active satellites orbiting the Earth when 2021 began, and by the end of April — only 119 days later — there were 7,389. Every object larger than 10cm in orbit is assigned a 9-digit Satellite Catalog Number, of which there are currently over 48,000, and their location is live and accessible to anyone who wishes to follow along online.

GeoGraphics Introduction

Our world is increasingly technologically mediated through an interconnected web of cameras, microphones, avatars, keyboards, algorithms, and emojis. People, places, and our interactions are undergoing radical virtualisation on an industrial scale, terraforming the planet into digital copy.

Google ghost-writes this accidental plan — "To organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." When the world itself is seen as literal information, the task of organising all the information is the same as organising all the world.

GeoGraphics, a 56-page book highlights the graphic design byproducts of this planetary reorganisation. From the phantom vibration in your pocket, a dark search history, to Siri's watchful gaze, Turing tests, virtual models, the NFT's tulip craze, rare earth
and more.