Activity 4
Visualizing self in relation to society
In this activity you will learn how to download and use a version of a dynamic visualization tool called the Interaction Geography Slicer or IGS. This version allows you to collaboratively visualize your physical movement data over thematic maps you or others have collected. This page begins with guiding questions and key concepts you can use to study your data in relation to thematic maps over space and time within the IGS. This page then provides an instructional video that teaches you how to download the IGS from a software platform known as GitHub and use the Processing Programming Language to run the IGS. This page then provides a case study of one student using the IGS to study herself in relation to society along with sample data sets that can be imported into the IGS from work in Nashville, TN. This page concludes with advice on how to structure collaborative visualization in the IGS with other people (e.g., other students in a class).
Guiding Questions
Why are historical maps relevant to a map of my daily round today?
How are neighborhoods changing where I live and travel over space and time?
Do catastrophes change neighborhoods (flood, tornado, gentrification)?
Are there significant “stories” in your daily round (changing residence)?
Are there types of days across your daily round?
How does “telling your story” deepen your understanding of your daily round/everyday life?
How do stories told about society (thematic maps) relate to telling your story?
What are different ways to represent your movement over space and time?
Key Concepts
Critical spatial inquiry. We typically view space as an objective and abstract concept created by people such as architects and urban planners. Critical spatial inquiry entails critiquing space as an objective and abstract concept by studying and reflecting on how space is designed, came to be, and influences your own and others’ lives in powerful and often invisible ways.
Self & society. The relationship between self and society is closely related to ones place in society and ones place in society is closely related to ones personal geography. In other words, self and society entails understanding your relation to larger societal movements and themes in ways that are made possible through large-scale open data sets and novel visualization tools.
Time geography. A geographical perspective pioneered by Torsten Hägerstrand that integrates studies of space with studies of time.
Space-time cube. A 3D representational system used in time geography to represent phenomena such as physical movement over space and time.
Interaction geography. An approach that provides concepts and methods including Mondrian Transcription and the Interaction Geography Slicer (IGS) to study collaborative interaction in ways that integrate time geography with contemporary work in the learning sciences.
How to download & use the IGS
GitHub link to download Interaction Geography Slicer (IGS)
In this video Ben Shapiro outlines how to use the Interaction Geography Slicer (IGS) and how to download a desktop version of the tool from a platform called GitHub and run it using the Processing Programming Language, a language for learning how to code within the context of the visual arts.
Structuring Collaborative Storytelling with the IGS
Using the IGS to study your own physical movement data is (hopefully) fun and enlightening. Comparing your movement data and/or thematic maps with others, who may be quite similar or different, to you is often more enlightening. Thus, it is recommended that you use the IGS together with a small group of peers (3-5) to study your movement together. To do so, after downloading and importing your data into the IGS, it is also recommended you begin by each narrating the story of your daily or weekly round. Subsequently, as a group, try to create a group narrative about the similarities or differences in your daily or weekly rounds. Finally, if other groups are present, each group can share their group stories with other groups.