Representing Earth, actual places at actual moments, presents unique opportunities and challenges. Unlike fantasy places, Earth has a "ground truth" frame of reference, indexed by latitude, longitude, altitude, and time. Hence all potential Earth models can cross correlate into a singular unimaginably giant Earth model, containing as much detail as is chosen to add. The big players know it and the field is lively. Advances and new features spring up weekly - based on novel camera rigs, automated image morphing, crowd-sourced 3D modeling, live webcams and other sensors, and immersive displays. So have critical concerns - around access, control, privacy, and authenticity. The artist and activist communities know this as well.

My presentation is based on a visiting faculty seminar in Fall 2009 at NYU's Interactive Telecommunication Program, which attempted to make both pedagogical and practical sense out of this fast-moving and uncharted domain. http://itp.nyu.edu/RepresentingEarth/