Walk 5/28- I walk in your name

For this walk I asked my mom to chose who/what I should walk for and how I should proceed on my walk.  She decided that I should walk in memory of my friend Jake who passed away from melanoma almost exactly six years ago.  I wasn't surprised that she chose for me to walk in his memory because it was a great loss for both of us.  For me it was losing a friend that I had grown up with and for her it was the loss of a child she had watched grow up only to have his life cut short.  

When I asked my mom how I should proceed on my walk she gave me the directives to take a cup of coffee with me (as Jake was never without it), and to spend my walk thinking only of memories of Jake.  She also gave me the specific direction to only think of happy memories of Jake.  That part of the task proved to be harder than I had anticipated due to the amount of memories that I have near the end of Jake's life that are less than pleasant, as any one who has watched someone die from cancer will know.  Instead I forced myself to think about earlier memories of watching Power Rangers, and high school memories of leaving campus for lunch with our large group of friends. 

Personally I was relieved that my mom did not suggest that I try to raise awareness about skin cancer because, although I am very vigilante about reminding people to wear sunscreen and I will remind people the dangers of tanning, I feel that most people here in the desert are already aware of the risks.  I felt that I wouldn't make much of an impact on other people but by thinking about Jake and my memories of him I was helping prolong the impact that his life had on me.  I felt like he would try to do the same if our destinies had been reversed. 

Project 2- Inside/outside

For this assignment I considered the ideas about graffiti that I learned from the documentary Style Wars.  Some of the aspects of what I took away from the graffiti/hip-hop culture was their desire to get their names and work seen by as large of an audience as they could.   Since the 70s and 80s the ways of reaching a large audience has changed greatly due to the internet.  The internet can be considered a public space that is greatly accessible to everyone and can reach a world wide audience.  The ideas of using tags of nicknames have also been created on the internet with the use of usernames.  Many people, such as myself, use the same username on every site, making it easier for myself and my work to be identified. 

While I was considering what social scenes I belong to I could only come up with a couple of answers that related to websites only.  While I have friends outside of the internet I rarely socialize with them in what could be considered a regular social scene.  Through websites such as Shuttercal.com and Reddit.com I have found that my social groups have widened due to shared interests created by these websites.  

With these ideas in mind I decided to create a burner that would depict my username using paint and paper.  I then decided to incorporate this imagery into websites that I frequent to add to the visual identification of my username (meltedsquirrel) , in much the same way that a tag would bring notoriety to individual taggers.  I used a bold outline and tried to use bright shades of red to incorporate a small part of style taken from graffiti. 

Walking Assignment 5/24-Cocooned vs Engaged

For this walking assignment I decided to walk around the Reid Park Zoo. I wanted to choose a place that would have plenty of walking and plenty of people in which to be surrounded in. For the cocooned section of my walk I employed sunglasses, an ipod and occasionally turned to my phone to send text about my zoo experiences with one of my friends.
My observations of this experience of cocooning myself from my environment were these:
 - People didn't take much notice of me, often not even looking at me.
 - When the shuffled music of my ipod began to play a song which I had a strong memory connection to would cause my mind to wander away from anything I was observing at the time. Instead I began to think about past experiences and my mind would become occupied with those thoughts.
 -While wearing sunglasses I was much more likely to watch other people without a feeling of being intrusive.

For the engaged section of my walk I removed my sunglasses and put away my electronics and walked through the entire zoo by myself.

 My observations follow:
- The zoo is a much louder place than I remember it being. There were kids yelling, peacocks and other birds making noise, an occasional speaker playing music to enhance the mood of certain parts of the park, as well as the occasional audio tour being played from speakers.
 -Being able to hear the conversations around me pointed out things that I had not previously seen, such as animals which I had not been able to locate were being pointed out by others within my hearing range. -People were much more likely to acknowledge my presence and apologize if they almost ran into me or blocked my line of vision. Forcing myself to make the occasional comment about where animals were located in their enclosures to others who did not seem able to locate them got me smiles and polite exchanges. However, the lack of sunglasses made me much more apprehensive to look people in the eye.

Sounding Out the City Analysis

The excerpts from Sounding Out the City by Michael Bull brings up many interesting ideas about the barriers and connections created by the use of personal stereos. The article created some strong realizations of truth for me on the nature of musical devices and how they are used in public situations.

The reading on personal stereo use struck me as describing a circular problem that shutting oneself off from their surroundings both creates and prevents. Many of the people interviewed in this article describe themselves as shutting themselves off to the world using their personal devices, such as walk mans, and thus creating their own world. These devices discourage the interaction of others by separating the user into their own mindset and by helping to block out the unwanted elements of their surroundings. However, many of the interviewed device users also say that their device helps them to feel less lonely when they are, in fact, participating in activities alone. One user described going on her bike rides just “me and Scott Walker” referring to the singer on her cassette tapes. It's an interesting point that therefore, the stereo devices that are separating these people from others by creating a barrier are also creating a false sense of company for them when they have to face the world outside their houses alone. As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I have used an ipod many times to help put myself at ease when surrounded by strangers but it was not until reading this article that the idea of this is a very common and shared experience. While I am more likely to fumble with my phone to create a sense of being accompanied, I can also recognize the need to create a sense of companionship through technology when I am thrust out into an unfamiliar situation.

The section of the article about gaze was especially thought provoking as it described many people who, while using a personal stereo device, feel free to let their gaze wander in a way that they feel is less intrusive than if they were not walled off by their music. The thought that blocking off one sense to allow the more thorough use of another is not one that is altogether surprising. However, the article seems to describe a zoned out gaze that is not really connecting with what they see so much as the person letting their mind connect to what they were listening to.

As a photographer I have gone out shooting many times by myself with nothing but my camera and an ipod. I find that the use of familiar music helps me block out the distraction of new sounds in an unfamiliar surrounding so as to focus on only what I am seeing photographically. Maybe I am in danger of projecting the mood of what I am listening to into what I am photographing but that is an idea that I had not considered until reading this article.

Altogether this article presented me with ideas that I feel are deeply connected to myself and my own actions in a way that I had not considered before. While the technology focused on may be out of date now, the occurrence of these habits have grown far more widespread and are very present in everyone's interactions in the world and play a very prevalent part in our society.

Style Wars Analysis

10:10 Mentions exploring the tunnels as tombs under the city
Q: How are these hip-hop kids changing the face of the city; re-imaging and reconstructing the aesthetic of the city?

The people portrayed in this video were re-imagining and reconstructing the aesthetic of the city by adding visual elements of their art to it. They created a whole, ever changing display of art that could be seen by anyone who passed by it (or that was passed by the trains). They took control of what visual elements the citizens of the city saw in their day to day lives. Not only did they create works of art to be viewed every day but they created works of art that moved through the cities, thus spreading their influence to all the neighborhoods that those trains came into contact with instead of just their own neighborhoods.

5:18 “Going all City” 6:10 “it’s a matter of bombing, that I can do it?”
5:21 immortal is brought up, power of the youth
Q: How does hip-hop culture “bomb” the city, remapped and reclaimed control in an otherwise powerless demographic. How does the presence of bodywork, such as break dancing play into the language of freedom?

The hip hop culture “bombs” the city by creating a form of art and expression that is hard for outside forces to control. The entire documentary shows the efforts of the transit authority to find ways to control the uncontrollable will of the graffiti artists. The graffiti artists are expressing their ability to be free to make art whether authority figures want them to or not. Break dancing plays into this idea in the way that they are exploring ways to move their bodies and create new dances despite what was considered conventional dancing before. The only limitation to break dancing lies within the dancer's ability to control his/her body and nowhere else.

19:15: the mother says her son owns nothing in the subway.
Q: Is graffiti and tagging an attempt at ownership, born from a demographic that owns close to nothing historically? How can this be contrasted, with say, the modern day Banksy (see URLS HERE: Banksy in Bethlehem, Santa's Ghetto 2007 (Banksy), Banksy the Artist/New Yorker ), whose works are collected all over the world (and probably has less “ownership” economic hardships than the men in this movie?)? Why does Banksy continue to choose corporate spaces, or perhaps the “security” walls of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, as site for graffiti? Is tagging/defacing public/private property a means for exercising power? Does it extend, rebel or re-define the meaning of “owning” and if so, how so? If not, why?

I don't believe that the type of graffiti and tagging present in this documentary are so much attempts at ownerships but more of an attempt at self promotion and proving an artistic aptitude. To me the idea of graffiti as a way of ownership brings to mind the use of graffiti by gangs to map out their territory to exercise their power and existence to others. The graffiti artists in the Style Wars documentary are not in any way trying to map out a territory but are trying to express their art. The fact that their main focus seemed to be on tagging trains that are moving objects instead of trying to define their neighborhoods with art would reinforce my belief that it is more of an attempt at expressing themselves in the biggest way possible than an attempt at ownership. The only attempts at a claim to ownership is when it comes to their use of names in their work and the developments of their different styles. These could very well be attempts at ownerships in their own ways. The way that art historians look at certain painters to look at where certain styles evolved, the same could be done with the art of these graffiti artists.

Banksy is a deeply contrasting artist compared to those portrayed in Style Wars. Banksy uses his art work to make commentaries about his views on society while the artists in the documentary are making art as a way of expressing their abilities and to compete with one another. Banksy's choice to pick corporate spaces could be seen as a rebellion against corporations. The idea of damaging a companies property is often seen as less of an offense than damaging a privately owned piece of property.
19:00-20:55 Watch this part and refer to the question
Q: How does the imaging of hip-hop culture defy societal expectations and stereotypes of social scales? Why do you believe affluent/white kids attracted to graffiti?

The hip-hop subculture is often seen as a culture associated with vandalism and crime but in truth it is an expression of art, whether it be a painted art form or a performance art form. Even the parents of the kids in the videos did not understand their forms of expression and didn't see the movement that their kids were involved in creating. The hip-hop culture is often seen as a product of the lower class and therefore is not often identified with art. Although art is a universal product, it is often perceived as a pursuit of higher classes and hip hop is, therefore, stereotyped along with this view. Affluent and white kids may be attracted to graffiti because they see it as a way to rebel against society. No matter what social class there is usually an attraction for teenagers to try to rebel from their parents and their social classes.

4:15 “Make your Mark in Society, not on Society” …comments.
Q: Please comment on how these hip-hop artists use their own body as a means to activate, penetrate, and shift the physical, social and political space of the city. Remember, graffiti is only one element to the puzzle of hip-hop culture on these aforementioned spaces.

Hip-hop artists use their own bodies as a means to shift the physical, social, and political spaces of their city by doing whatever is within their means to express themselves. In the documentary the slogan of “make your mark in society, not on society” seems to be putting forth the notion that the hip-hop culture of graffiti is not a means to create a change in society but the reaction of the rest of society to the hip-hop society seems to be doing that. The other elements of the hip-hop culture also creates changes in the way that the lower, less advantaged classes were spending their times and efforts. They spent so much energy on trying to express themselves and creating this ever evolving culture as a means of something to occupy themselves. Several times in the videos it was mentioned that graffiti and break dancing were ways to keep out of trouble and occupy their time, that although they were being perceived as destructive they were actually a way of avoiding hobbies that were more destructive.
42:24 “Yeah, I vandalism (sic), but I did something to make your eyes open up, right? So what are you talking about it for?”
Q: What is his point, and do you agree?

I believe his point is that his work may be vandalism but he sees it as bettering the city by creating something to create diversity in the every day life of people who see it. The statement of “so what are you talking about it for?” maybe his way of saying that he doesn't see the need for such controversy surrounding the work he's done and the effect he's had. I do see his point about it but at the same time I feel like his disregard for the fact that they are vandalizing property that doesn't belong to them is wrong.
43:40- 48:31 Artist vs. Bomber- (artists sprays “burner” –like a complex graffiti art piece, and a “bomber” as is it is used here, can either be tagging, or going over the burns).
Q: Discuss this war in terms of social space. More vs. Quality. What is more important, and can you discuss it with other parallels in terms of social power and a platform for notoriety. Is one cultural, and the other, something else?

The war that was portrayed in Style Wars of more vs quality is hard to classify in terms of which approach is more important. The approach of more is an attempt at striving for more notoriety while the approach of quality is an attempt at making better pieces at the expense of having fewer of them and therefore maybe they won't be noticed. Both approaches can create a respect and recognition between writers. In my opinion however, the approach of quality is a more cultural approach because it attempts to better the art movement and to create something new and ever evolving while striving for more notoriety can only last for so long before it has to either die out of evolve into something else to maintain its impact.

49:95.  Watch the gallery scene.
Do you agree that it holds the same intensity when it is “peeled off the train?” Is the art the expression and form, or does it only exist in the high stakes theater of illegal activity and claiming of public/private spaces?

The art on the walls of a gallery creates a more exclusive audience and therefore may change the art's meaning. Context is a large part of art and once it is removed from its intended audience and designated locations it can lose some of its meaning and impact. The graffiti on the sides of a train may mean one thing to those who see it but place it in a gallery and it is approached with a different mind set when viewed. The graffiti in its original context may only speak to those who are in the hip-hop and graffiti art movement but once placed on a gallery wall it is designated for a different audience of art lovers to interpret and experience.

It should be noted that a city/space is planned and designed by those who have power; that design/aesthetics  equals our everyday experience of it. However, we the people, are not in control of what our city look and functions like. How do these artist claim the public spaces (even if on private buildings, cars, etc). Do they have as much right to reinterpret how a city looks, and whom it reflects?

These artists claim public space by creating a visual impact on their surroundings. They may not have a hand in the way the city is built or maintained but they do have a hand in how they interact with the spaces they are in. I believe that they do have a right to control how the city looks, even if the government has a different say on the subject, but the vandalism aspect of their art does not sit well with me. If society was to ignore the graffiti writing on trains, and public spaces what is to stop them from moving on to privately owned properties, cars etc. there has to be a line drawn somewhere. The city planners just happen to draw the line a little more extreme than the graffiti artists deem fair.

Rivers And Tides Analysis

4:00 looking at the lines in the landscape- Goldsworthy said “there are always these obsessive forms…” and there is an implication that these forms and presences repeat in the site/place. Yet two minutes later, he travels and is “uprooted” and declares that he is a stranger to this tide (even if the tide is repeated all over the world). Q- What is being implied here…what are the nuanced understandings between familiar but strange/new?

The idea that is implied by Goldworthy here is that nature may repeat shapes and forms but the arrangement and characteristics of every place can be similar but nothing is identical. In much the same way that one beach can be like another, with sand and waves, they can also be vastly different by the details of rock locations, the veracity of the waves, the plant and animal life, and even the type of sand they hold.

 9:45 He begins to get excited about “discovering” something he could not expect when he first planed and worked on his project. He becomes excited about potential! Q What is he referring to and please discuss.

 When Goldworthy becomes excited about the potential of the new aspect that the sun gave to his ice sculpture project by illuminating it as it rose it is because the sun gave his project a new dimension that he hadn't previously considered. When unexpectedness occurs in art work that is done intuitively it creates an opportunity to see a new side of the work or a new possibility or dimension to the project that previously had been unseen. This can allow the artist to think of his/her own work in new ways that hadn't been considered before and often times expands the impact of the work. In Goldworthy's case the sun created a new visual impact for the piece that he had not expected and found quite exciting and pleasing to consider.  

10:38 – the very thing that bring it to life, causes its death Q: How does place/site give birth to possibility and also can destroy it? Examples?

The ability of a site to give birth and also destroy a possibility comes from the behavior of the site and the things that it includes. A site in nature can provide plenty of inspiration and material for working but it may also hold elements that will destroy it. In Rivers and Tides the perfect example of this is when Goldworthy is working with the rocks on the beach, trying to race time against the incoming tide. The beach provides the rocks to work with but it also can destroy the work with its incoming tide. Most of Goldworthy's work, in fact, is made from ideas that come from a certain area but are not meant to be permanent against the natural forces of weather or occurrences in nature.

  16:33 – “doesn’t feel at all like destruction” and 57:00 taking it to the edge of its collapse. Q: Discuss the difference between destruction and mutation/shifting/evolving in ephemeral works? Can you give some examples? What power is there in this edge? Can it reflect the human experience too?

In ephemeral works the idea of mutation is a required way of thinking about the project. Sometimes the way a piece evolves can be foreseen but it can not be guaranteed. In Goldworthy's work at the salmon pool he could predict that the current would carry the work away and break it back up into individual pieces of wood instead of a whole object but he could not predict the pattern or timing in which it would occur. Destruction in an ephemeral piece, to me, would have to come from an outside force that was unexpected. For example, if with Goldworthy's salmon pool piece had been destroyed by someone who was passing by and decided that they would tear it apart, that could be considered destruction. Since the piece was expected to drift away on the water the piece would not have been complete until it reached it's end and was destroyed by the environment. A destructive person would have been ruining the piece by not allowing it to reach the end of the intended life of the piece.

 19:30 he refers to time being the great teacher. 20:25 refers to security of the art college/working in cubicles Q: How has time taught him about place? How does being in place introduce insecurity/unexpectedness that can be powerful for art making

Time seems to have taught Goldworthy about the value of working within the constraints of the elements of a place. He does not try to stop the tide from coming in or move his project further away from the ocean to give himself more time. He instead tries to work within the constraints of the amount of time that he has. When he must start over he accepts that the best option to completing his project is to wait until he can try again after the tide has gone back out and, in doing so, he restarts his race against the clock of the tide again. The mention of the security of working in the cubicles of the art college versus the insecurity of working in a location explains his feelings of the uncertainty of working in an uncontrollable environment. In the video Goldworthy says that absolute control is the death of the art. While some artists like the control of the studio, Goldworthy values the unexpected and the challenge working in place brings him. His work would undoubtedly be less strong without these elements that are uncontrollable since he does say later in the video that he works intuitively.

 25:00 He refers to his failures teaching him, each failure giving him knowledge, teaching him about his materials and place. His actual experience in place gave him his knowledge that can be measured in growth of experience. Either comment or relate a similar understanding in your own progress.

Failures in life and in art can be either taken two ways. Failures can either be seen as a reason to give up or, as Goldworthy views it, a way to learn and evolve the way of thinking and working on the project. Those who do not learn from their mistakes, especially artists, will not become better at what they are trying to achieve. When it comes to my own work art school has a way of teaching from failures and has completely evolved the way I work from the place where I started from. Specifically in this class doing the walking exercises, if I don't find what I'm looking for on the first attempt, I keep walking until the idea has become more workable or evolved into something completely new. 

26:00 The projects are “markers” to his journey and places he’s attached to. How does that change when you see his project in a museum rather than in site? How does that shift?

I feel as if Goldworthy's work is changed completely by the location of the work. His work is based on where he choses to work in nature, therefore putting it in a museum is taking away some of the concept and impact of it. I feel like the impact of the location is a very important part of the way his work should be viewed. Without seeing the work in its intended location it simply does not translate well, even within photographs of his work there might not be the entire experience of his work. However, for me, photographs of his works in their intended locations are better representations of his work than his work alone in a museum.

 51:00 Sheep had deep impact on the land and how it looks, then refers how to get past the “wooliness” or our preconceived notion of this animal. How do stereotypes, or first impressions, fear, or wrong associations keep us from experiencing what is true and honest about a place, person, thing? What are some strategies Goldsworthy employs to get at the reality of how “sheep” impacts place? 

Stereotypes, first impressions, fear and wrong associations keep people from experiencing the truth behind a person, place or thing by creating a mental separation between ourselves and the true experience of a place. When a person is not willing to be open and accept something due to preconceived notions then they are not going to fully experience what that person, place or thing has to offer. Goldworthy tries to employ the impact of how the sheep impacts a place by drawing attention to what is absent from the land because of the sheep, instead of thinking about the land as it currently is.

 52:00 How can “absence” of what once was, be recorded in the landscape? Please look up Joe Sternfels “On This Site” for this aspect of the discussion.

 Absence of what once was can be recorded in a landscape by drawing attention to once was. Joel Sternfel's “on this site” does this hauntingly well. As he depicts sites that may be unremarkable to those who are unaware of what has occurred there, he brings the knowledge that something significant happened at these locations. He is drawing attention to the absences of identifiable markings of tragedy by pointing his viewer's attention to it and demanding that they take into consideration the events that happened there. Goldworthy was trying to do the same as he made work on the commentary of what impact sheep had on the land in certain locations. He pulled the audiences attention to what wasn't there on the land because the sheep took it's place.

Walking Assignment 5/22- Social Territory

For this walking assignment I decided to focus on the social culture that is being a U of A student. It is a group of people that, although I technically belong to this group, I never felt like I was a part of it. The group of people who cheer for their school teams and those who fully embrace the college lifestyle. I chose to explore the university blvd area, as it is an area that is frequented almost exclusively by college students.

On my way to University I saw a sign of student activism against the UAPD.

There was a showing of team spirit.

Flyers for events targeting students to participate in the night life of University bars.

The inclusion of the word campus was everywhere.

Attempts to accommodate the student population.

Ephemeral Project

Recently I have been very focused on my desire to find a new location and my inability to currently leave Tucson. Inspired by Andy Goldworthy's work and his method of working I chose to express these feelings I had by drawing road maps of two locations that have been imprinted into my mind currently. I chose to use charcoal from a burnt piece of wood as the medium to draw on the rocks I chose. I wanted to use an impermanent medium since the locations I desire to go change constantly. As I was drawing, the wind was already weakening my drawings. I chose to use rocks as a canvas to draw the maps because they have the inability to move on their own as well. Rocks are only moved by outside forces and have no control over their destinations, much like my inability to leave Tucson due to constraints that I currently can not change.

Walk 5/17- Desire Lines

For the walk focusing on desire lines I decided to go along a pedestrian path that I knew was in a desert area known for being an area that a lot of off roading takes place in, as well as a place that many people cut across to get to another part of town. While I'm not one to wander off through the desert as a short cut due to too many tales of misfortune growing up, I definitely could see the appeal to stray off the beaten path and follow some of the half forged trails that led off in other directions.  That desire grew stronger when my walk started to pass the 45 minute mark and I could see where I started the walk but knew that a lot of winding path lay between myself and the end of the walk.  I encountered a no trespassing sign almost immediately upon beginning my walk but it didn't seem to have been kept in very good shape and the amount of tracks through the desert prove that it wasn't a well heeded sign.

There were many tracks that led off in different directions, some populated with foot prints, bike tires, and the tire tracks left behind by four wheelers. 

Sometimes the tracks led away from the foot path while other times they ran along side it.

I encountered some examples of desire lines that were created by non human entities while I was walking.

While fire ants aren't known for orderly,closely followed lines like other ants, after taking a few moments to watch them they definitely followed along a route from their home to another destination out in the desert.

Walking Assignment 5-15

Fr the first walking assignment I chose to walk the route that I take twice a day to walk my dogs around the neighborhood in which I live. The first sense I decided to map was the sound. I chose to walk the neighborhood at night in order to be able to concentrate on what I was hearing more than what I was seeing. During this first trip around the route I observed many sounds. 1. The sound of air conditioners and swamp coolers humming and occasionally clicking coming from many different houses along the way. 2. Barking dogs. The sound of barking followed me wherever I went. Many of the houses had dogs that upon noticing my present outside their house would begin barking. Sometimes the barking was muffled as it came from inside the house and other times it was loudly coming from behind gates and fences. The approximate size of the dogs were easy to determine due to the volume and pitch of the barking. 3. Outside of one house a man that was drinking on his porch stopped me to have a conversation about my dog. He kept repeating the phrase "I'm colorblind but not night blind" with a slight slur to his speech. 4. The last noticeable sound was the sound of someone sobbing on their front porch between indistinguishable sentences to the person they were talking to. The volume of the voice was what caught me off guard since I treat displays of such emotion as a private thing, not something to be carried out in the view of strangers passing by. The next sense I focused on was my sense of sight. I decided to take photos of details of my walk that I had not previously noticed despite my familiarity with the route and the frequency in which I walk it. The first thing that I noticed was the way that the aloe vera of one yard was growing pushed against the chain link fence. The patterns of the plant against the fence was what caught my eye.

 The next thing that caught my eye was a high chair that was left outside of a fence, half hidden in a bush alongside the road.  I almost didn't see it until I was almost completely past it.  My first response was to wonder why someone had left it there and what was their intention of leaving it in that specific spot.  Was it just to get rid of it?  To hope the trash person would pick it up on a bulk trash day?  Why hide it inside the branches instead of out further on the street?

 The last thing that I noticed was that along one particular block there was a lot of graffiti that had been very shoddily covered up.  It is now indistinguishable as to what was originally spray painted but it is still obvious that the fence was vandalized.  I feel like I understand why someone would want to cover the original graffiti but I wonder why they only half way covered it up instead of doing a better job of it.

 The last sense I focused on was the sense of touch.  I realized as I was completing these walks that I went out of my way not to touch anything (such as plants that were in my path).  The only thing that I physically interacted with was the ground.  My thoughts then turned to how little I notice the surface upon which I'm walking on unless it creates some difficulty, such as a hole in the ground, that interferes with the act of walking.  So I decided to pay close attention to all the types of surfaces, and what was on the surfaces as I walked.  They are cataloged below.

This American Life- Mapping Senses- Analysis

The episode of This American Life. “Mapping Senses” describes the different ways people have devised to map their surroundings using senses. Each person focused on in the podcast has chosen one sense that they used for their mapping. While these experiences of the senses are being mapped out in a way that other people can hear or see or understand them, each of the maps created are of the individuals experiences alone.

Denis Wood, who maps his neighborhood through nontraditional marks is mapping his neighborhood through his own sense of sight and what he sees. His ideas of what to map are completely different than what other people might find important in a visit to the neighborhood. His maps are of things he, and he alone, experiences in that particular way. Wood is the person who collects the data for his map, so it is up to his own experiences to make the maps accurate and his decisions of what does or does not belong in the parameters for each subject that he has chosen.

Tom Lester, who maps the ambient sounds of his own environment also maps his senses in a way that are reliant on his experiences alone. He matches the sounds of the humming and beeping of his environments with a keyboard and then looks to other theories to try to assign meaning to them. His theory of the effect that a minor cord, created by the ambient noise may effect a person's mood comes from perhaps his own personal experiences with being in an environment with such ambient noise. However his theory seems based only on a bit of knowledge of music theory and his own experience with ambient noise, and nothing else. Making his mapping of what he hears a personal experience that may not be the same to anyone else.

The mapper of the sense of touch, Deb Monroe, feels the need to check her body for defects, such as lumps in her breasts, constantly. While others may see her as just a hypochondriac who, when she gets stressed out, feels the need to check for cancers, some see her as a person who is mapping her own body. To me, her personal experiences with the way her stressed out mind deals with anxiety and fear is a way to map her feelings, although it is an unusual and hard to understand way. But she is still mapping her body in a way that only she can understand and keep track of.

Jonathan Gold maps a street in Los Angeles in a way that only he can remember and experience. By using his sense of taste to sample all the food served in this small area he has chosen, he can certainly describe what he is experiencing and his thoughts on it but it is his experience alone. Just as one person can experience the taste of fish and find it delicious while another person is disgusted by the same taste. Gold can identify each location by his memory of the tastes he experienced in their food but it is his memory and experience alone that gives it meaning to him and him alone.