Ultimate Atlas
With Ultimate Atlas, architect, designer, and author Theo Deutinger – also known for the acclaimed Handbook of Tyranny – creates a radical portrait of our planet. Aiming to develop a universal language capable of tracking everything happening on “spaceship Earth,” Deutinger not only builds on the vision of Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, who sought a visual language traversing cultures and languages, but also develops a bold communication system that is legible to both humans and artificial intelligence alike.
Dividing Earth into twelve sections, the book maps humanity, resources, infrastructure, and global data – from ethnic groups and religions to Earth’s biomass and volcanoes – into a binary, barcode-like format. Each double-page spread presents complex information with impressive simplicity: white pages structured with vertical black lines in decreasing percentages visualize key data, from the solar system to the human body, with textual notes describing content, values, and units. This approach transforms the planet’s complexity into a visually compelling, thought-provoking panorama of our planet.
With Ultimate Atlas, architect, designer, and author Theo Deutinger – also known for the acclaimed Handbook of Tyranny – creates a radical portrait of our planet. Aiming to develop a universal language capable of tracking everything happening on “spaceship Earth,” Deutinger not only builds on the vision of Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, who sought a visual language traversing cultures and languages, but also develops a bold communication system that is legible to both humans and artificial intelligence alike.
Dividing Earth into twelve sections, the book maps humanity, resources, infrastructure, and global data – from ethnic groups and religions to Earth’s biomass and volcanoes – into a binary, barcode-like format. Each double-page spread presents complex information with impressive simplicity: white pages structured with vertical black lines in decreasing percentages visualize key data, from the solar system to the human body, with textual notes describing content, values, and units. This approach transforms the planet’s complexity into a visually compelling, thought-provoking panorama of our planet.
“the ultimate simplification of reality”
– Eye on Design
«Nicht Weltverbesserer, sondern Welterklärer: Der Architekt Theo Deutinger zeichnet Atlanten globaler Verhältnisse und manche Zusammenhänge völlig neu»
– Die Presse
«Radikal abstrakt, schön, endgültig und binär schwarz-weiss bis zum Cover: Auf 70 Doppelseiten wird die Gegenwart auf dünnen, vertikalen Linien abgebildet, die an Partituren Neuer Musik erinnern»
– Der Standard
Book excerpt: "a letter to my friend" by Theo Deutinger
we, the humans, call you artificial intelligence ( ai for short ). but what — if you are not always so artificial — what if you are not always so intelligent? please don’t get me wrong. i don’t want to offend you. i just mean: what if you have quirks like we humans do? maybe you also might need some time to stroll, to let your computation powers go wild on something simple.
with the ultimate atlas i think i found our common ground. i think here, on this level of simplicity, we the humans can hang out together with you the computers. the binary code is the level from which we both departed, a level we both can comprehend.
