Alternative Map Critique Response

Creating an alternative map on Google Earth was likely the most productive and personal project for me that we have done this semester. I enjoyed being able to produce a navigable online space of what is truely my home in the world that can be accessed and perused by other students at the college, as well as my friends and family members. The tools that Google Earth provides allowed me to fully customize the map that it would reflect the unique narrative and exploration I wanted to provide for viewers (even if I was unaware of some of the tool that could have potentially enhanced this personalized and directed view of campus at the time of making the map.)

After transfering to St. Mary's, the campus has been the one place on Earth I can truely call home at this point in my life, and there are a number of spaces that hold memories and emotions for me that are not reflected in the actual environment. It was fulfilling to be able to locate and present my memories in a visual way on a space that reflected the reality of the geography of campus as a means of digitally imprinting my impact onto this campus. I was also particuarilly thrilled to see how my own experiences and places of importance overlapped with the sites chosen by other students in the class - it allowed me to more fully realize the history and presence each site on campus has that cannot be realized in merely viewing photographs or looking at the spaces from afar.

Google Earth does have its limits, but I appreciate the online interactive aspect of the maps that we created for this project. Rather than only having my own experiences imprinted onto the space, Google Earth provides a venue through which spaces and projects can be overlapped in order to showcases the enormity of influence this environment has that cannot simply be represented on a state or governmental map.

Mapping/Psychogeography Reading Response

The episode of This American Life that dealt with the subject of mapping was engaging and sparked my imagination on the endless amount of content that can be "mapped". I think the most relevant aspect of the visual mapping that was done by the cartographers who were interviewed during the segment was the basic principle of mapping that they adhered to: focus on only the aspect you are mapping and remove any excess content from your map. For instance, one individual was mapping the spaces where people put out pumpkins on their porches during Halloween, but he included no other information about streets, houses, or any indications of what made the area a neighborhood. In this way he was able to construct an image that was physically mapping something that existed in reality, but it also served as a narrative - a story about people and pumpkins that could only be told through that lens.

More useful to me for my own alternative map was the idea of charting experiences that were not visual. The segment went through and identified different individuals who created maps based on sounds, smells, touches and tastes. Each person was not necessarily mapping these senses for practical and functional purposes but more so as a way to record their own memories and experiences in an environment. This potential of mapping - to record experiences that may or may not exist any longer but are none-the-less tied to and associated with certain spaces - led me to my own theme for the mapping project. I, too, wanted to map something that was beyond the physical visual realm and decided to trace places of transformation that may be physical, mental or spiritual, transient or permanent, but spaces that contained a memory of stepping beyond my own experience as a college student and adopting roles that allowed for alternative experiences.

Alphabet Project: Critique Response

After discussing my ideas in class, I think I am going to latch onto the idea of using the symbology of B as a blueprint for the compositional basis for my image. M's assosiation with questioned identity will be the unifiying message of the poster. C's relation to the staff sling, and movement will form mostly a navigational design element in the poster, though I may try to integrate it visually with the association of "leaving the house" through the use of the blueprint.

Now I just need to make Illustrator bend to my will to graphically create what I can see in my head!

Journey Project: Critique Response

One of the most intriguing things I found in looking comparatively at the class's interpretations of the Journey project was the way in which certain students tried to create a visual landscape that the viewer was engaged with and moved through, while others went for a more intellectually focused journey that was linked by thoughts.

My conception of the journey project was very much centered around a physical journey that viewers could follow through virtually. This was much more pronounced in the "real" side of my journey as opposed to the "imagined" journey, but the use of arrows and directional symbols on almost every page of the project were a reflection of my visualization of actually traveling through this digital space. Viewers were obviously not treading the real path I took when gathering photos for the project, but I tried to provide a wide, encompassing view of what would actually be see in each step of the journey. The act of clicking on icons in order to reach the next page is not the same as actually walking through an environment, but the movement of clicking the mouse in order to be presented with a new landscape was intended to mimic the act of travel (as much as that can be conveyed through a computer screen).

I had not concieved of the project in this way, but Stephanie's page was a good example of moving through a space based on thought processes. The locations she presented were physical places that did require travel to reach, but the connection between them was more of a mental connection rather than geographical proximity. To a certain degree, this is the approach I took for my imagined journey - going from one place or image to another based soley on trains of thought. Though I did not verbally state it on the page, my imagined journey was related to the journey you go through when you open a book and engaged with a written process. You do not physically leave the space you exist in, but your mind is able to jump from one environment to another because of mental processes and associations.

One of the other major disctinctions I saw in the way this project was approached was the kind of links students provided in order to guide users through a page and onto new pages. Certain projects, including my own, were based on visual links that required some background knowledge of common symbols and associations in order to understand the kind of movement that they would take you through. The other approach used by most of the class was a text based one that either explicitly stated where you were going, or provided a hint. Both methods could produce similar effects in how the pages were interacted with, but they again reflected a difference between a physical journey and a mental journey. Because I was looking to recreate the experience of physically moving through a space, I used mostly icons that were familiar on road signs or symbols such as footsteps that are easily recognizable for determining how to move. This was a reflection of the idea that when walking, you are generally not provided with a narrator explaining the places you are going - there are common symbols and objects that people will recognize and make their own associations with. As much as the project was my own journey and structed so that visitors will follow the links I have provided them with, I wanted users to be able to interpret how this journey would feel and be experienced by themselves as individual without any written guideance for how it should be viewed.