Notes from meeting on 10/4

At the meeting on Sat. for the Disorientation Guide project, we had low attendance but a great discussion.  The next meeting will be this Saturday, 10/11, 12:30-2pm, in the same room (Blegen 115).  

We talked about some cool maps (see the UNC Disorientation Guide, a Sound Map of NYC , and Strange Maps), and we went through a short online lecture – “maps and human understanding”.

Then, we brainstormed about possible projects.  In our first attempt at this class over the summer, we had lots of great ideas but we had trouble focusing them into a doable project.  So, this time, we’re going to try to pick something doable, at least for a start.  In our brainstorming this time, we suggested lots of good ideas, and hopefully next time, we’ll pick a certain mapping project and start working on it.  

Here are some of our ideas:

- our intended audience is mainly students at the U and Macalester 

- mapping the areas around the U of M and Macalester for demographics, corporate chains, history of gentrification, alternative/progressive locations that students don’t usually know about

- thinking about mapping the body as a type of space (e.g., clothing, tattoos, how we present ourselves)

- green spaces on the campuses and in surrounding areas

- separateness of the campus from the surrounding communities – strictness of access to campus facilities (gym, library, buildings, etc.) – can connect this with issue of educational access (e.g., w/ statistics from high schools, w/ history of access struggles) – (possibly could theorize this with ideas of the “enclosure of the educational commons”)

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If you have more ideas, please post them as comments here. (You can also see the older blog posts for the many ideas from earlier in the summer.)

I hope you can make it to the next meeting this Saturday.  Please let me know if you have any questions.