Drawing up landscapes of understanding

Text and drawings by Frits Ahlefeldt, Hiking.org

For more than 30 years I have been both walking, drawing up understandings and also researching how we try to grasp reality... My theory so far ( 2019) is that in many ways we still understand reality as if we were still nomads hiking through landscapes

But today most of us walk less and less, and many of these landscapes exist mostly in our minds and in our understandings as metaphors we live by ( yes big fan of the books by Lakoff and Johnson)

Examples of landscape metaphors

A few examples: We still talk about the paths of life, the uphill battles, the gaps between us, the bridges we need to build - and the walls, forests, mountains, rivers and oceans we have to cross... If not stopping on the edge, or falling into a black hole... Even the weather is still with us, looking for a bit of sunshine or facing a storm, being flooded by things, or getting hit by lightning

All places and experiences explained as real, but taking place in the imaginative landscapes we navigate after and tend to consider to be real in our understandings.

Technology

But something new has also happened - with new technology we are starting to build virtual landscapes mirroring our understandings in new ways ( our storytelling has done it for thousand of years)

We are still only starting to understand where these new digital landscapes can take our understandings, but so far it seems like we are entering what could be all new ways of seeing and understanding both our surroundings and ourselves