assignment two: 

social navigation of physical space

in this project we will be experimenting with the situationist international's technique of the derive and exploring the possibility of using the si's graphical connections and bernard tschumi's graphical inventions to depict and contrast "social space" (cf., lefevre's conception of "social space") with the conventional cartographic graphics.

1. check out a digital still camera from maurice or nathan


2. either alone, or in a group (as you prefer), pick an area to wander.


3. using suggestions and techniques described in guy debord's essay "theory of the derive," walk the area and take photographs at key points in your walk.


4. download the pictures from the camera onto your dmedia account.


5. put your images on a map of the area that you wandered. i.e., place them on the map in positions that would be considered correct from the point of view of conventional cartography/geography.


6. using the situation international's graphic "the naked city" as a starting point, cut and past screen images of your image-annotated geographical map. draw arrows between the parts of the map according to the ideas of the derive. you may want to do this in photoshop or you may want to do this by printing everything out and then laying it out on the table.


7. next, do a second version of this map/derive-graphic by following some of the ideas expressed by tschumi in his "manhattan transcripts." namely, "linearize" or make sequential the pieces of the map and create a narrative that connects each piece to the next. use ideas from film, comics, etc. to "unroll" the map and images into a linear, narrative sequence.


8. post your two versions of the map (i.e., the "derive map" and the "narrative map") online to your website on dmedia