A map is something that people used to associate with strictly\u00a0geography, landmarks, and location. Now, maps have uses\u00a0such as telling stories, building communities, and documenting significance. No longer are maps just geographical devices; people have their own sense of maps, which include emotion, memory, necessity, etc…all on top of the\u00a0traditional sense of location.\u00a0My project, Define the Person,\u00a0See the Map<\/em>,\u00a0takes\u00a0maps of Davidson College, information provided from different types of students, and ideas\/concepts introduced by authors, which all combined together, forms a visual of the ideal map of campus for a certain type of student. My project will answer the question: If\u00a0students at Davidson College had to create their own map of campus, how would they view\/create it?<\/p>\n The core of my idea comes from the concepts of mental maps and sketch maps, which Didem Ozkul and David Gauntlett bring up in “Locative Media in the City: Drawing Maps and Telling Stories”.\u00a0 The introduction of mental maps to digital mapping has opened up a door\u00a0leading to\u00a0new ways to understanding space.\u00a0 Ozkul and Gauntlett\u00a0deem\u00a0cognitive (mental) maps\u00a0as\u00a0something that includes “both a broad sense of its geographic features, as well as memories, emotions, and other associations” (Ozkul & Gauntlett, 115).\u00a0 They go on to say that cognitive maps can’t be directly transferred to\u00a0paper (115), which is something that my project\u00a0plans to do: from mind to paper to digital exhibit.\u00a0 What they do say though, is that a sketch map is an attempt to view\u00a0a person’s mental map by having them\u00a0draw a place in order to\u00a0provoke their\u00a0spatial emotions associated with that place (118).\u00a0\u00a0I am essentially mapping the mental\/sketch maps of different types of Davidson College students with my project.\u00a0\u00a0However, Ozkul and Gauntlett mention that “geographical accuracy is not a significant concern in\u00a0cognitive mapping” (118). They say this in response to the\u00a0fact that one individual will think about a\u00a0certain space differently than another individual, therefore their mental maps and sketch maps will be different and inaccurate from one another.\u00a0In order to drive a message across to the user of the exhibit, I need geographical accuracy, which will be achieved by using the same base map for each portion of the exhibit denoting the type of student.<\/p>\n Less recently, but still on the topic of mental maps, in 2001, Katriina Soini analyzed the traditional uses of mental maps. Her argument supports what I am trying to do with mental maps in my project even though I’m using them in a less traditional way. She writes that “Mental mapping has traditionally been used in order to explore spatial cognition” (Soini, 229), and she goes on to say that “mental maps have also been analyzed as indications of individual’s spatial preferences, the significance of and attachment to a place” (229). Both the spatial cognition and preference of a place can arise out of necessity associated with that place.\u00a0An individual’s necessity for a certain place or space derives from that individual’s agenda, which is born variables that define that person; for example, their occupation or age. So,\u00a0based off of\u00a0spatial preference, my project focuses on spatial necessity.<\/p>\n Another ability of maps that my project will achieve\u00a0is story telling.\u00a0 Viewing the maps will not only teach people about the students and the campus, but it will provide a narrative of what is happening throughout the day. The viewer of a map can only\u00a0follow the story if he\/she understands the language that the map is speaking.\u00a0 Soini’s argument about mental maps\u00a0can apply to story telling as well; she\u00a0writes that mental maps allow people to be able to converse about spatial information (228).\u00a0 With my project, the viewer will better be able to understand the story that I am conveying if he\/she also has a mental map of the college campus;\u00a0it is a\u00a0two-way street.\u00a0\u00a0The paths that a student takes on campus will\u00a0provide details to the story\u00a0just\u00a0effectivley as the buildings that the student visits; Lone Koefoed Hansen in “Paths of Movement: Negotiation Spatial Narratives Through GPS Tracking” discusses that narratives come from a combination of daily routine and geography.\u00a0 Hansen’s chapter\u00a0encompasses use\u00a0with space; she\u00a0uses the term psychogeography, a term from the 1960s that\u00a0“maps space as it is felt and used by those\u00a0that inhabit it” (Hansen, 129).\u00a0\u00a0 She cites Esther Polak’s NomadicMILK <\/em>project<\/a> from 2009, which shows the paths that herdsmen took while working the fields. These simple lines hold within them complex narratives; she found that “When they see their movements replayed in the sand drawings, both herdsmen and truck drives begin telling the stories of their movements in and intertwining with locations through which they navigate” (139).\u00a0 Polak’s art\/map project provides evidence for the ability to visualize a story, and in fact, the visualization can provoke a story that\u00a0poeple may not have recognized when\u00a0traveling the path in their daily lives; this is something that my project has the power to do.<\/p>\n In my project, the narrative comes to the viewer via clicking through the exhibit; the screen itself is moving from location to location on the map, but it might as well be the actual student moving around campus throughout the course of the day. In Charles Cumming’s “The 21 Steps”, <\/a>he successfully simulated a person traveling across the world by having\u00a0the view jump from different locations on a map. His mapping project is geared strictly to telling a story that includes details in a different way than a book; it shows exactly where the character goes instead of saying that he has gone from point A to point B.\u00a0 Showing these details allows the viewer to know more about the movement of the character. For my project, I want the viewer to know how the student is moving, otherwise, the viewer may deem it unimportant if I don’t include that information.<\/p>\n Define the Person, See the Map,<\/em> my project, which is a Neatline exhibit,\u00a0will allow viewers to explore 16 different maps complete with descriptions of the 16 types of Davidson College students that I have defined. It will complement as\u00a0well as branch off from\u00a0the literature that I have reviewed. This literature provides support\u00a0for my initial\u00a0project idea as well as what my project can show the viewer.\u00a0In a combination of Ozkul\/Gauntlett and Soini, mental maps were significant to me on three fronts. First, they are what inspired me to pursue this project. Everyone’s mental maps are different as Ozkul and Gauntlett explained leading to different mental maps of the same place. I wanted to create a summed\u00a0mental map of the campus, so that there would be a single map that could reveal facts about the college’s spatial information. However, I couldn’t ‘break’ mental maps to such a degree, which leads me to the second point of significance of mental maps: they are my data. Instead of creating a universal mental map of campus, I would create maps based off of the mental maps of different types of students, which actually would create a better argument than just one map. The similarities and differences between these maps would inform the viewer how the campus is used by students with different agendas and responsibilities. Third, while someone who has never been to campus could have an understanding of my project, I am relying heavily on the viewer’s own mental map, which Soini explained helps people converse about location,\u00a0of campus\u00a0in order to understand my argument:\u00a0who you are\u00a0affects\u00a0where you go and why you go there.\u00a0 In understanding my argument, the viewer will be able to follow the narrative.\u00a0 Just showing buildings along with the description of what a student may be in that building contains a narrative on its own, however, by including the paths that the student takes from building to building, I am able to add uniqueness to each map. Space in between place is something that should not be neglected, and Hansen as well as Polak showed that movement has an extreme mental process behind it, so by explaining this process in the descriptions in Neatline, I form a whole other narrative that will educate the viewer about the students on campus. Viewers will be able to see and understand the ideal maps of students who have different lives, yet live\u00a0on the same campus.<\/p>\n Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n Cumming, Charles. “The 21 Steps.” 2008. http:\/\/www.wetellstories.co.uk\/stories\/week1\/<\/a><\/p>\n Hansen, Lone Koefoed\u00a0“Paths of Movement: Negotiation Spatial Narratives Through GPS Tracking.” Mobile Stories: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies.<\/em> New York: Routledge, 2014. 128-142. 20 Nov. \u00a02014.<\/p>\n Ozkul, Didem and Gauntlett, David. \u201cLocative Media in the City: Drawing Maps and Telling Stories.” Mobile Stories: Narrative Practices with Locative Technologies.<\/em> New York: Routledge, 2014. 113-127. 20 Nov. \u00a02014.<\/p>\n