Terra nullius, terra incognita and soft places

Progression of thought on the Australian desert landscape can be summarised in three terms. Terra nullius, terra incognita and soft places. All three address the issues of mapping, narrative buildings and defining a sense of place.

Terra Australis was null, a void. Europeans saw the whole country as empty, owned by no one, containing nothing. It was a vessel that was potentially not worth filling. This grew from an ignorance. A European eye cannot discern the complexity of the desert.

Terra incognita, similar to terra nullius, is an understanding that the desert holds mystery and ultimately is incomprehensible. There is an element of distain and awe in this view, as one would feel after the olive branch has been ripped from ones hand by a powerful figure. So how do we deal with a mysterious landscape? In the words of Robert Hughes " Australians fantasize about it, they dream about it, but they wouldn't dream of living here". We retreat into our heads, assuming the worst.

Walkabout - Lost

A soft place is an unclear landscape that coalesces reality and dreaming into a uninterupted experience. Via Paul Williams I quote Gaiman: 

'Time at the edge of the Dreaming is softer than elsewhere, and here in the soft places it loops and whorls on itself. In the soft places where the border between dreams and reality is eroded, or has not yet formed.... Here. In the soft places, where the geographies of dream intrude upon the real' 

Gaiman here is in touch with the Aboriginal idea of 'Dream time'. This is a unique experience of a fluid geography intertwined with stories and dreams. Cartography matters, but not too much. 

Mad Max: The Road Warrior - Apocalyptic dreaming somewhere in the desert

These three views are all current and as old as human settlement. An inhospitable void, an incomprehensible nature, and a space of bent reality.