INTERDISCIPLINARY URBAN RESEARCH
PARTICIPATORY MAPPING
CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY
University of Basel, Urban Studies, MA Critical Urbanisms, Fall 24
Francesca R. Dell'Aglio, Ernest Sewordor
USING THE BODY AS A MAP: THE CAR AS “HOME”
Mapping the driver's body with its memories, movement, and the space it inhabits. The research aims to create an overlap, a projection, and a unity of meaning between the limits of the car and the boundaries of the body in the urban context.
BODY, SPACE AND MOVEMENT
The map can present itself in the form of a body as a form of movement. The body can articulate the full spectrum of the term “movement” or “function of movement." The space of the car explains that the term “mechanical extension of the body” is vaguely defined and that the space of the car should be seen as a personal, intimate sense of “being at home," as well as a discursive resource that constructs socio-spatial forms of inclusion and/or exclusion that it claims, justifies, or resists.
The map can explore the question of the extent to which drivers, isolated in the car and often disconnected from society, attach importance to their perception of urban space. It can revolve around socio-spatial positions, belonging, and border, and is particularly interested in how drivers live these experiences.
How much does moving around in a car every day affect their sense of urban space? What thresholds exist in their daily lives that reinforce their sense of space? The research seeks a social definition of the driver who never has a real urban status.
SPATIAL TRANSITIONS, PHYSICAL PHANTASM, BODILY ATLAS OF DRIVER
SPATIAL TRANSITIONS, PHYSICAL PHANTASM, BODILY ATLAS OF DRIVER
Different body parts express different social spatialities.
HOW DO THE DRIVER AND THE CITY COEXIST?
BODILIY SCHEMA OF DRIVER
The mechanical body in the city. To read the body moving from place to place with the car that covers and inhabits it.
The body, which seems to be detached from the social plane in the city by the car, shifts towards an abstract plane rather than physicality. Seeing the body sensitive to speed.
The presence of the driver in the city can be independent of space. Finding the driver through the mechanical extensions of the car on the various social planes.
How exactly does the driver interpret his/her physical presence in the city and in the car? Being inside or outside the city, creating a unity of meaning between the boundaries of the car and his/her own boundaries.
Can we move the relationship between the city and the body to a more perceptible physical dimension through the car? To perceive the ways in which the city exists, the car and the body together, and the ways in which they create each other physically..
PHYSICAL SILHOUETTES
COGNITIVE DIMENSIONS OF THE BODY FORMED BY CITY
Seeing that not only the inside but also the outside of the car determines a physical space and reading it as an urban interface. To think about what exactly determines the boundaries of the body in the city in a car.
Looking at the human as a mechanical body through the car and perceiving its physical existence in a car space. Approaching the human as a moving body that constantly changes places in the city through the car.
Defining the individual and social relations of the driver and the bond he/she establishes with the urban space through the car. Interpreting all these through the forms of movement that the body performs with the car in the city.
Evaluating the ongoing relationship between the city and the human, based on mutual inclusion and limitation, through the car. Thinking of the driver as a singular body that is detached, separated, and removed from a larger whole in the social plane.
PLACELESSNESS
THE STRINGS
Understanding the boundaries that define the driver's physical silhouette in the city. To explore the perceptible characters, the speed-sensitive activities, and the cognitive dimensions of the driver formed by these boundaries.
Who contains whom? Does the human contain the city, or does the city contain the human? To evaluate the dynamic relationship between the city and the driver following the fact that they contain, shape, and change each other.
Drawing, schematizing, and figurizing the body to transform all these complex relationships into a perceptible dimension, a simple shape. To create a simplified bodily schema for the driver, space, and city to see social connections.
Seeing the strings that socially control the driver in the city—the strings they are also tied to in physical space—through the lens of an urban actor. Exploring spatial threads, bonds, and transitions based on movement through the car.
REMOVING FROM A WHOLE
UNDERSTANDING HOW THE BODY OF DRIVER REFLECTS URBAN SPACE
Dividing the body into parts and interpreting the driver's relationship with different spaces. To depict the human by dividing him/her into parts, to reach the feeling that the space is also divided into parts and its integrity is disrupted with constant movement.
To think of the driver as a certain figure formed by the city and an individual left alone in the car. Perceiving the human relationship in urban spaces through the movement with inclusiveness of the car space.
Removing people from the social plane, detaching them from public space, and confining them to the existence of cars. Limiting, framing, or enclosing life in a certain space in the city.
To define, perceive, and exist the human only through his/her body with all its movement, spatial transitions, and senses. Thinking of drivers that only take up space in the sense of a car.
Defining the car through the body and reflecting it in urban space. Understanding the spatial dissolution of the body at a certain speed.
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