Category: Catherine D’Ignazio

Terra Incognita was a Latin term used on maps from the Age of Discovery to denote unexplored territories. It's a perspectival term. Because, of course, there were people like the Tupinambá actually living in those seemingly unexplored lands on Martin Waldseemüller's map. The places the Tupinambá knew intimately -- where they fished or hunted or celebrated or slept -- were not Terra Incognita to them. But to the Europeans embarking on their voyages each new cove and settlement was a curve or mark to be made on a map. It was a matter of perspective. A matter of technology. Some small matter of hubris. It remains a question of all of these things in the Information Age. The optimism and hubris of Big Data appear to be unrivaled - What don't we know in the age of Big Data? By tapping mystic rhythms with our fingers and staring into squares of light we traverse great oceans of distance. As we...