What it is

Cartography of Knowledge is a conceptualization technique I developed within my cognitive implant, derived from Suely Rolnik’s work — especially Cartografia Sentimental [Sentimental Cartography] (1989/2006), Micropolítica [Micropolitics] (with Guattari, 1986), and Esferas da Insurreição [Spheres of Insurrection] (2018/2019).

It starts from the body before reason. From forces before forms. From the mark before thought.

Why it exists

In my work, the process of thinking through an idea is as important as executing it. An immersive installation doesn’t begin with a technical brief — it begins with an intuition, a force that doesn’t yet have a name. For years, this process happened in conversations. Conversation was the method.

The problem: conversations have limitations — availability, energy, attention, the social weight of “needing something.” The right interlocutor isn’t always available when the idea is alive.

Cartography of Knowledge solves this: it’s a structured process that allows me to elaborate concepts with the same depth as a conversation, but without depending on someone else’s availability. It doesn’t produce answers. It produces the right questions — and right questions are rarer and more valuable than answers.

The seven phases

1. Convocation — name what is asking for passage. Not what “should” be thought about, but what insists.

2. Body listening — before the mind formulates, the body has already responded. What does the body say? Pride, fear, protection, excitement, discomfort?

3. Field of forces — map the forces at play. Not the facts — the tensions. What pulls where? Where is there friction?

4. The unnameable — what doesn’t yet have a name. The strange-familiar: something that should be recognized but escapes naming. Here lives the most fertile material.

5. Lines of force — of everything that emerged, which lines have direction? Which repeat? Where do they converge?

6. Provisional form — give body to what emerged. Don’t crystallize — make provisional. A name, a phrase, a diagram, a gesture.

7. Minimal gesture — what is the smallest gesture that materializes what was elaborated? Not an action plan — a gesture. An email, a conversation, a drawing, a decision.

What it produces

The output of a cartography is a Living Map — not a plan, not a report. A shareable microuniverse that captures the state of forces at a specific moment. The map is alive because it changes when reread. It’s a navigation instrument, not a destination.

Knowledge agents

Cartography operates with knowledge agents — auditing systems based on real thinkers, each with their own question and a corpus of reference:

• Casey Reas asks: does the form express the behavior that originated it?
• Suely Rolnik asks: is the body alive here? Is life thriving?
• Vilém Flusser asks: was this informed or did it merely simulate materialization?
• Nicolas Bourriaud asks: what happens to the artifact after it’s created?
• Zygmunt Bauman asks: does the environment sustain the form being created?
• Wilfred Bion asks: was this elaborated or just registered?

The triangulation between two or more agents reveals what none alone would reveal. Casey sees through form, Suely through the body. The tension between the two readings is the fertile territory.

Relation to artistic practice

Cartography is not an academic method applied to art. It’s an artistic method that emerged from practice. Just as I use Grasshopper for parametric design or Max/MSP for laser control, I use cartography to elaborate concepts that don’t yet have form.

The difference: Grasshopper operates on geometry. Cartography operates on forces. Both are design systems — one for space, the other for thought.

Technique developed within szt.link — Felipe Sztutman’s cognitive implant. Derived from Suely Rolnik’s work, operationalized in computational system.