“it is common to assume that geometrical space is the objective reality, and that personal and cultural spaces are distortions.”
yi-fu tuan, “space and place”

“in time, those unconscionable maps no longer satisfied, and the cartographers guilds struck a map of the empire whose size was that of the empire, and which coincided point for point with it.”
jorge luis borges, “on exactitude in science”

“personal observation is better than the exactest description, especially when, as here, the subject of investigation is an analysis of sensations themselves, which are always extremely difficult to describe to those who have not experienced them.”
hermann helmholtz, on the sensations of tone

this is a recording of a group of five friends playing music for an hour. they are navigating two charts. one charts things that change and do not return while the other charts things that change but do return. the former has only one path while the latter has infinite. while the charts are things that i made, the paths are things the people playing the music made.