http://www.radicalcartography.net/I once heard the historian behind this site, Bill Rankin of Yale, give a wonderful talk about his use of mapmaking as part of the research process rather than a way of presenting fully-baked data and conclusion.
As mentioned above and in my comment on the CFP, I would advocate encouraging active thinking about efforts to remediate, abolish, and live with toxicity—which might often be caught up in the same “toxic dynamics” that they oppose but likely also exceed them. (I imagine such work will emerge on its own in any event, as it did in some of the VtS projects.) Seems to me that locating the cracks in malign inevitabilities and chipping away at them is important both for learning new things and keeping one’s spirits up!
I'm interested in how visualizations--cartographic maps, song videos, news discourses and research projects--have created knowledge about toxic places in the context of my dissertation research. I'm interested in using the VtP project to better understand: a) the work that visuals do in creating knowledge about toxic places; b) how we come to know certain places as synonymous with toxicity; c) how visual representations allow for understandings about toxicity or how knowing toxicity calls for visual representations.
Walk-along as pedagogical activity: I have designed immersive walk-alongs for urban studies MA students where walking is a pedagogical tool to understand the rhythms of city life and street histories. I dabble in creative writing (fiction and narrative writing), and really bad free-form drawing to think through ideas
The place I will focus on is Chennai's coastline, which will likely include multiple physical locations. One of the dominant themes in my research is the idea of the coast as a constantly shifting space where land and sea meet. This idea of the coast as a place in flux has become a metaphor in academic and popular discourses to index climate risk, infrastructural changes, and competing claims over the coast.
I was a part of the design group for last year’s Visualizing Toxic Subjects and found the design and implementation of the project and the surrounding discussion to be invigorating. Now that we have one instantiation behind us, and we have added new people and ideas into the mix, I am very excited to see how this year’s instantiation will push the project into a new phase and direction.
I have a stronger background in music and audio than I do visuals, but I have a basic/working knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator. I have also developed skills in discussing and analyzing images through attending Professor Leo Chavez’s class, The Politics of Visual Representation, and through participating in last year’s Visualizing Toxic Subjects.
I will generate and/or seek out visuals that index, represent, or illustrate the multiple ways in which the city of Austin, Texas can be said to function as a heterotopia; one that is simultaneously thriving and toxic. In one obvious sense, Austin is heterotopic in that it has long held a popular reputation as a “weird”, young, and progressive oasis in a sea of Texas conservatism. But behind this boast worthy distinction there lies another, more insidious contradiction.
I was a part of the design group for last year’s Visualizing Toxic Subjects and found the design and implemenation of the project and the surrounding discussion to be invigorating. Now that we have one instantiation behind us, and we have added new people and focuses into the mix, I am very excited to see how this year’s instantiation will push the project into a new phase and direction.
I have a stronger background in music and audio than I do visuals, but I have a basic/working knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator. I have also developed skills in discussing and analyzing images through attending Professor Leo Chavez’s class, The Politics of Visual Representation, and through participating in last year’s Visualizing Toxic Subjects.
