I guess what resonated with me during this reading exercise was the idea that space is built by people and it is the phenomena that is caused by these spaces that we are trying to understand. By going to these spaces we are appropriating it. Either by choosing to go there, caring for it, creating or enhancing the space we appropriate it and it leaves an impression on us. How does this relate to mapping? Well, to my understanding of the project we are mapping and identifying spaces that have meaning or a connection within us (A Lived space). Which is desirable. I’ve learnt a lot about myself during this project and it feels great. It is also desirable in more formal education, rather than learning in conceived or perceived spaces (which are more dominant and are put in place to assert neoliberalism and this idea that certain knowledge has more value). These dominant spaces cause arrythmia for those who don’t wish or cannot adhere to the routine or rhythm that privatisation and standardisation spaces have implemented. within this neoliberalist regime there is less space for appropriation. I know for me personally the time away during lockdown has been difficult in some senses for education especially when it comes to technology and how useless it can be. But away from that I have thought how being away from the classroom and away from pedagogy we may have become more in tune with our nature and our own culture. How, without distractions and surveillance we have been able to be more Eurhythmic.
Rhythms, routes and routines
The evening of our mapping, I was reading Sue Middleton (2014) talking about Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm. In Critique of Everyday Life, Lefebvre says:
“rhythms are multiple and interfere with one another qualitatively: heart-beats, breathing, being awake and being asleep by turns, being hungry, being thirsty, and so on.”
Middleton goes on to say:
“Schools may be rhythmed by tides, seasons, storms and droughts. Children’s and teacher’s bodies rhythm school life – tiredness or hunger, physical growth rates, energy levels, illnesses; life-cycle events”
It prompted me to think about the micro-rhythm of Mark’s day: sunrise, routine walks, cycling, running. And the macro rhythm of covid. And the meso rhythm of the institution. How rhythms have been layered and the friction between rhythms imposed by school that disrupt and compete – a counter beat to Mark’s routine.
Lefebvre likes a triad and I like how a triad allows relationships to keep moving in multiple directions – rhythms, routes and routines.
Where we were.
Capturing physical positions during virtual mapping workshops.
The Here and Now noted as the red square was school, the black circles the participants in their relative working space; the kitchen table, bedroom desk.
Thickening the surface #2
The layering of independently structured conditions leads to a mosaic-like field of multiple orders, not unlike the combination of different coloured paint delineations for the playing of games superimposed on a gymnasium floor … the possibility of hybrid games becomes possible … but they also merge as a new event structure.
Corner 1999, p. 235
What relationships emerge?
Where is there friction? Where is there fusion?
Where are the glimpses of you?
Thickening the surface #1
When the separate layers are overlaid together, a stratified amalgam of relationships amongst parts appears. The resulting structure is a complex fabric, without centre, hierarchy or single organising principle.
Corner 1999, p.235
What relationships emerge?
Where is there friction? Where is there fusion?
Where are the glimpses of you?
The geography of alone-together
Soundscape Remixed
Lingering with Springgay & Truman
The Mapping Intergenerational Practices (tentative title) research relies on an article by Stephanie Springgay and Sarah Truman that sets out an agenda for approaching research methods. As such, there are some key terms and concepts to think about. Harriet, Mark and I have been talking about these terms, but in rereading the article on Sunday morning, I realise that I had to re/calibrate my thinking to prepare for our parallel events on Tuesday and Thursday. I know that Scarlett and Will are now on this thinking site with us, hence this morning post (which you should all read on Monday because it is the weekend – time to relax).
Harriet and Mark respectively will guide us through Tuesday and Thursday, but I want us to play/be/think with these terms and we should send Scarlett and Will the article to give some background for why we are doing this and trying to make sense of things right now, during the pandemic, by being in the middle of the muck.
- Speculative Middle – moving through life and how we engage with it.
- A dérive – unstructured walk (loose translation based on theory). I am thinking that a walk in Delft that follows recharges our walk a week ago? A walk in Bristol from Clifton to Redlands. I wonder if we need a sound element/soundscape. Maybe we listen to other people’s Spotify list as we walk?
- Any relations – human, non-human, memories, time, space
- Finding problems – not sure about this one (in article – someone else understand?)
- Affective ecologies – things that catalyse our senses
- Major and minor events – the lived things that are macro (pandemic) and that are minor (getting a coffee around the corner or tripping as you run?). I could have this wrong.
Two quotes I regard as central:
But a dérive inflected with minor gestures is infused with intimacy
where knowledge of place is not something grasped
from a distance but emerges through proximity; where
proximity is not a voyage of discovery, but where one bears
the consequences for the things that are not even known yet
(Springgay, 2008).
AND:
“[t]he virtual is never opposite to
the actual—it is how the actual resonates beyond the limits
of its actualization” (p. 29). Manning, 2008
The above quote relates to our movements in and out of digital and analogue spaces right now. That is all for now, enjoy your Sunday.
Mapping Sounds
Sunday at 2 PM, January 24th, 2021
No big surprise, I could not figure out seesaw, so trying my own key 🙂
Legend:
xx – neutral to nice
xxxx – nice
xxx – annoying
9:50 – Fridge xx
9:27 – Children laughing and running outside xxxxx
8:50 – Birds chirping xxx
8:15 – People talking outside xx
7:30 – Someone running, foot treads x
7:15 – Moving furniture upstairs xx
7:05 – Sanding machine xxxx
6:40 – Washing machine xxxx
6:15 – Sanding machine xxx
6:02 – Car driving by x
5:30 – More sanding and moving of furniture xxxxx
4:28 – Car door closing xxx
4:15 – Someone calling out “Simon” xxxx
4:01 – My jaw clicked xx
3:57 – Water in pipes x
2:52 – Sanding machine xxx
1:50 – More birds chirping xx
Mapping Alone-Together: The Travelling Archive 