Final Accessment

I have definitely overused the word “Williamsburg” this semester, but the more I have to talk about it, I also feel the lack of knowledge I have behind it. How to define if condo developments were harmful to a neighborhood? How to argue that cultural environments are healthy to a city? All these spatial questions I was think about needed a lot of different insights to testify that they are true. The investigation we dived into in this class really taught me that the a constructing concept of a place is truly a multi-dimensional practice. It really takes efforts to go through reading, go through social engagements with people, and always to go through physical practices of walking around the place.
One of the biggest takeaways I had through working with URT was learning the graphical powers maps can carry. At the beginning of the class, mapping to me was just finding out the points of location and naming them. The graphic stories that maps can tell seemed very limited. However, through working and struggling with URT, the limited freedom  actually encouraged me to explore more. The three kind of mapping, Path, Area and Points, encouraged me use them and individually learn how they help to visualize concepts on my map. I enjoyed finding out how drawing out an area can represent large warehouses better than points, and how mapping a path can represent migration and really embody the concept of a physical journey. For example, at first the path wasn’t very appealing to me because it looked like an error due to the blackness and thickness. But after I finished mapping, and saw how my descriptions of priced out galleries can accompany the line, the pain path became alive with meanings. This worked even more powerfully in Robert and Hira’s map where they used path to show the daily transits of venders and serial killers!
Some regrets I haven’t been able to accomplish well are definitely writing and organizational skills. Although I went through a lot of readings and pictures, I didn’t do a good job in organizing them. Even until last night, I found many picture and articles that I wished I were able to put into the map earlier but forgot to go back to. This perhaps where digital humanist’s rule of open documentation would work. If I had document the valuable inspirations more often through out my researching process, I feel I wouldn’t be so scattered in writing my arguments in the end. This development process is definitely something I want to practice more moving forward.
Another regret is I have not being able to interview enough people. In the last week of my research, I actually found out that two media studies faculty members Eugene Thacker and Christiane Paul are related to the some artists that were involved in immersionism! If I had the chance to interview them earlierI believe they could have given helpful feedbacks on my map. Apart from this, the Latino and Polish residents in the neighborhood is also one thing I touch a little, but didn’t get any primary research of. When walking around the south side Williamsburg two weeks ago, I saw latino churches and some latino youth sitting outside of the public pool in Williamsburg. It occurred to me that those are places that still exists as a gathering ground for native residents after decades of gentrification. Kind of shamefully, it also revealed to me the prejudices I might carry in my map. To further develop my argument that artists communities were necessary, I will also want to incorporate the voices of those ethnic residents of Williamsburg into the map.

One thought on “Final Accessment

  1. Thanks for these really candid reflections on: the variety of methods one needs to employ in order to understand how a place becomes what it is; the rhetorical power of maps; and the values of regular documentation and primary research!

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