In Search of Lost Landscapes: Mt. Anchesmos in Athens and the Shift from Performative Perception to Official Cartography

The paper studies the shifts in the perception of spatiality resulting from the gradual institutionalization of Official Cartography as the dominant medium for describing landscapes and cities in modernity. Using Mt. Anchesmos as a case study—an ancient mountain identified by geographers in the landscape of Attica, whose exact location remains unclear today—the paper highlights how this ambiguity reveals two ontologically distinct modes of landscape articulation: one rooted in performative relations and the other in abstract, supposedly objective representations conveyed by maps. The study explores how the landscape of Athens was perceived and articulated in antiquity, prior to its representation within a continuous mapped space. It then provides a brief analysis of historical maps from the 18th century onward, documenting the agency of mapping in shaping our perception of space. Drawing on Karen Barad's concept of apparatus, the paper challenges the assumed predominance and objectivity of certain mapping practices since purposive questioning and focusing on aspects of interest are inevitable in any representation. Instead, it proposes perceiving every map as the performing space where the world re-presents itself in diverse, dynamic and equally robust ways.