In 1570 the Flemish mapmaker, Abraham Ortelius published a series of maps of the world he titled, ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ or The Theatre of the World. In adopting the word theatrum, Ortelius linked his maps to the Greek word ‘theatron’, the auditorium from where spectators view a theatrical performance. As a theatre, a map offers the viewer a spectacle, an assemblage of signs and symbols that creates fictional representations of space. Presenting in this programme are four filmmakers who explore how the theatre and spectacle of mapmaking has mediated representations of space, reflecting on their use as instruments of colonialism and military control.

In Basma Alsharif We Began by Measuring Distance follows an anonymous group who spend their time making seemingly innocent measurements. that unfold into political narratives. Alaa Mansour’ Badlands (the second time as a farce) explores archival material of the US Fort Irwin National Training Center - a training centre where the US Army tests battle tactics and the readiness of troops before their deployment to real combat zones. Hannah Jayanti and Alexander Porter’s Missile Command follows the story of a 1980’s Atari developer who makes a map in a video game about nuclear war. In Onset, Anna Engelhardt and Mark Cinkevich explore the covert tactics of the Russian military and their parasitic attachments to electricity infrastructure.