Author, Author

Thinking a little more about Harley. Any cultural artifact is a text that can be interrogated. But a novel or film is different from a map because of the idea of authorship and a mediating consciousness standing between the user and whatever reality is being represented or rendered. We assume authorship of works of art. However, with a map, I don't normally think in terms of authorship. I expect a closer relation between reality and its representation in a map. So textual analysis of work of art occurs in a different analytic context than of an object where authorship is not claimed.