Online maps can help us navigate the city, but in mapping regions and assigning borders, multinational companies have great power in feeding us with political narrations of territories and shape our perception of geographical realities.

Border lies, developed with Digby Usher for the Lates at Science Museum, offers visitors the opportunity to investigate how Google Maps’ alters borders based on the user’s location. The interactive installation, programmed with Arduino, allows for comparision between two maps provided during the same online search to better understand how governments make use of these powerful tools to reinforce dominance.

What’s the real-world impact of these online maps?

In November 2010, Nicaraguan troops reportedly entered Costa Rican territory as they followed Google Maps, which showed the border between the two countries to be in the wrong location. The border dispute is historic but was fuelled by the tech giant, leading to further tensions between the two countries. Costa Rica accused Nicaragua of violating its sovereignty, while Nicaragua claimed that the disputed territory belonged to them. The conflict was eventually resolved in 2015, when the International Court of Justice ruled that the disputed territory belonged to Costa Rica.

^{#physicalcomputing #data #hacktivism #arduino}