COURSE TITLE
Introduction to Critical Spatial Media
COURSE NUMBER
CEGU 23517 / ENST 23517 / ARCH 23517 /
DIGS 23517 / ARTV 20665 / MAAD 13517
TIME/LOCATION
T/Th 2–3:20
1155 E 60th St, Room 289A
INSTRUCTORS
Alexander Arroyo
aarroyo[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30
Grga Bašić
grgabasic[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours W 9:30-11:30
Sol Kim
solkim[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours M 9:00-11:00
QUICK LINKS
Syllabus ->
Atlas ->
Lab ->
Studio ->
Introduction to Critical Spatial Media
COURSE NUMBER
CEGU 23517 / ENST 23517 / ARCH 23517 /
DIGS 23517 / ARTV 20665 / MAAD 13517
TIME/LOCATION
T/Th 2–3:20
1155 E 60th St, Room 289A
INSTRUCTORS
Alexander Arroyo
aarroyo[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30
Grga Bašić
grgabasic[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours W 9:30-11:30
Sol Kim
solkim[at]uchicago.edu
Office Hours M 9:00-11:00
QUICK LINKS
Syllabus ->
Atlas ->
Lab ->
Studio ->
ABOUT THE COURSE
This course introduces critical theories and creative methods for visualizing interconnected transformations of urban, environmental, and planetary systems amidst the pressures of climate change, urbanization, and global economies of capitalism.
At its core, the class revolves around a helical pair of questions: how does the way we theorize these transformations change the ways we envision their dynamics and effects? Conversely, how do the ways we visualize these transformations mediate how we theorize them?
We approach these questions through the prism of spatial media, “the mediums... that enable, extend or enhance our ability to interact with and create [networked] geographic information” (Elwood and Leszczynski, 2013: 544). These include not only geospatial data and information, but hardware and software, technical workflows and aesthetic techniques, cartographic content and modes of representation. Spatial media organize our experience of space and place, and structure those narratives geographically. It is in this spirit that spatial media entail “maps” and “mapping” in the most expansive sense of the terms.
Pairing lecture/seminar-style sessions with more hands-on technical tutorials (“labs”) and mapping workshops (“studios”), this is a thinking and/with/through making course. Working with spatial media is process-based and iterative. We will move from critically analyzing prevalent theoretical frameworks, geospatial data, and associated visualization techniques to creatively visualizing critical alternatives. We’ll learn how to construct visual narratives through a variety of media, sites, scales, methods, tools, and concepts.
This course introduces critical theories and creative methods for visualizing interconnected transformations of urban, environmental, and planetary systems amidst the pressures of climate change, urbanization, and global economies of capitalism.
At its core, the class revolves around a helical pair of questions: how does the way we theorize these transformations change the ways we envision their dynamics and effects? Conversely, how do the ways we visualize these transformations mediate how we theorize them?
We approach these questions through the prism of spatial media, “the mediums... that enable, extend or enhance our ability to interact with and create [networked] geographic information” (Elwood and Leszczynski, 2013: 544). These include not only geospatial data and information, but hardware and software, technical workflows and aesthetic techniques, cartographic content and modes of representation. Spatial media organize our experience of space and place, and structure those narratives geographically. It is in this spirit that spatial media entail “maps” and “mapping” in the most expansive sense of the terms.
Pairing lecture/seminar-style sessions with more hands-on technical tutorials (“labs”) and mapping workshops (“studios”), this is a thinking and/with/through making course. Working with spatial media is process-based and iterative. We will move from critically analyzing prevalent theoretical frameworks, geospatial data, and associated visualization techniques to creatively visualizing critical alternatives. We’ll learn how to construct visual narratives through a variety of media, sites, scales, methods, tools, and concepts.
WINTER 2024 THEME: Mapping the 3/4 Coast
By critically analyzing and experimenting with visual representations of socio-ecological change from the 19th-century into the near future, we will develop a way of understanding how these changes operate unevenly across different spatial media-- data, bodies, places, landscapes, and geographies-- that connect the most local scales-- a microbe, a plant, a birdsong-- to planetary climatic systems and global geopolitics.
By focusing on this “invented territory,” we’ll also take up a perspective on broader theories of epochal global change-- e.g., the Anthropocene and its various critical alternatives-- situated in particular landscapes. In this sense, the 3/4 Coast becomes a multiscalar, multisited model for approaching expansive geographies of crisis and change through deeply rooted, localized histories and dynamics.
Using a selected suite of technical tools (e.g. GIS, basic programming languages, vector/raster illustration and image processing programs), the course revolves around building a collective, heterodox “atlas” of the 3/4 Coast that simultaneously traces its rich historical geographies while orienting us toward alternative futures.
This winter we will explore the watery geographies of Chicago and the Great Lakes– the so-called “Third Coast” of the United States– and their conjuncture with the Mississippi River watershed– the “Fourth Coast.” Invoking its ambivalent, contingent, and always-incomplete figuration, we call this the 3/4 Coast.
By critically analyzing and experimenting with visual representations of socio-ecological change from the 19th-century into the near future, we will develop a way of understanding how these changes operate unevenly across different spatial media-- data, bodies, places, landscapes, and geographies-- that connect the most local scales-- a microbe, a plant, a birdsong-- to planetary climatic systems and global geopolitics.
By focusing on this “invented territory,” we’ll also take up a perspective on broader theories of epochal global change-- e.g., the Anthropocene and its various critical alternatives-- situated in particular landscapes. In this sense, the 3/4 Coast becomes a multiscalar, multisited model for approaching expansive geographies of crisis and change through deeply rooted, localized histories and dynamics.
Using a selected suite of technical tools (e.g. GIS, basic programming languages, vector/raster illustration and image processing programs), the course revolves around building a collective, heterodox “atlas” of the 3/4 Coast that simultaneously traces its rich historical geographies while orienting us toward alternative futures.
SYLLABUS
Overview
FORMAT
The course is structured around weekly lecture/seminar-style discussions and more hands-on “lab” (weeks 1-5) and “studio” (weeks 6-8) sessions.
This structure aims to help develop critical, complex narratives through a combination of written argument and media-- e.g, student-created geospatial data, maps, diagrams, digital collage, visual timelines, etc. There will be a combination of collective and individual work, both of which are essential for the midterm and final phases of the class Atlas.
During the first half of the course, class will be divided into two weekly sessions: lecture + discussion (Thursday) and instructional labs (Tuesday). During the second half of the course, we will devote more in-class time to group project work, which will require a more fluid structure. Taking a cue from art and design pedagogy, most lab sessions will be replaced by “studio” sessions, where we will spend time constructively critiquing and developing work-in-progress (WIP).
For both parts of the course, the two weekly sessions will reinforce each other, but think about them like musical counterpoint: they’ll do different kinds of work as part of the whole, but you’ll need both to get the full, integrative experience.
All class readings, media, assignments, and other materials will be posted to the content-sharing platform Are.na.
The course is structured around weekly lecture/seminar-style discussions and more hands-on “lab” (weeks 1-5) and “studio” (weeks 6-8) sessions.
This structure aims to help develop critical, complex narratives through a combination of written argument and media-- e.g, student-created geospatial data, maps, diagrams, digital collage, visual timelines, etc. There will be a combination of collective and individual work, both of which are essential for the midterm and final phases of the class Atlas.
During the first half of the course, class will be divided into two weekly sessions: lecture + discussion (Thursday) and instructional labs (Tuesday). During the second half of the course, we will devote more in-class time to group project work, which will require a more fluid structure. Taking a cue from art and design pedagogy, most lab sessions will be replaced by “studio” sessions, where we will spend time constructively critiquing and developing work-in-progress (WIP).
For both parts of the course, the two weekly sessions will reinforce each other, but think about them like musical counterpoint: they’ll do different kinds of work as part of the whole, but you’ll need both to get the full, integrative experience.
All class readings, media, assignments, and other materials will be posted to the content-sharing platform Are.na.
Lecture + Discussion
During lecture + discussion, we’ll think through the core concepts, critical contextualizations, and media-based engagements with that week’s theme. During the first half of the course, weekly readings/references will always comprise some combination the following:
During the second half of the course, readings will support primary focus on media precedents that we will use to guide our studio work.
Lab
Labs will primarily focus on deconstructing and reconstructing a drawing, diagram, map, or other visualization presented in lecture. The assignment for each lab involves completing the tutorial, creating original work outlined in the deliverables, and posting your work-in-progress (WIP) on Are.na.
Studio
Studio focuses on critically experimenting with what spatial media (can) do as aesthetic, narrative, and rhetorical instruments. Studio work revolves around a creative, iterative, and self-reflexive process. This process is grounded in constructive, critical feedback to work-in-progress offered during in-class “crits”. We will also provide limited tutorials during select studio sessions, but they will be more exploratory and open-ended.
During lecture + discussion, we’ll think through the core concepts, critical contextualizations, and media-based engagements with that week’s theme. During the first half of the course, weekly readings/references will always comprise some combination the following:
- A geographical narrative or “geo-story” exploring some area, itinerary, history, and/or conceptual dimension of the 3/4 Coast, typically in plain language.
- Spatial media that creatively engages geographic narrative and critical theorization, typically in the form of an artwork, map, speculative design project, or other spatially-attuned medium or genre. This will often be the basis for our lab exercise for that week.
- Additional scholarship (+++) reframes the narrative in more technical language belonging to a field of academic research (e.g., biology, geochemistry, human geography, environmental studies, social theory, etc).
During the second half of the course, readings will support primary focus on media precedents that we will use to guide our studio work.
Lab
Labs will primarily focus on deconstructing and reconstructing a drawing, diagram, map, or other visualization presented in lecture. The assignment for each lab involves completing the tutorial, creating original work outlined in the deliverables, and posting your work-in-progress (WIP) on Are.na.
Studio
Studio focuses on critically experimenting with what spatial media (can) do as aesthetic, narrative, and rhetorical instruments. Studio work revolves around a creative, iterative, and self-reflexive process. This process is grounded in constructive, critical feedback to work-in-progress offered during in-class “crits”. We will also provide limited tutorials during select studio sessions, but they will be more exploratory and open-ended.
Schedule Summary
PART I: LECTURE/DISCUSSION + LAB
WK01
Thursday, 1/4:
Seminar 01: Inventing the 3/4 Coast, Or, What is an Anthropocene Watershed?
WK02
Tuesday, 1/9
Lab 01: Mapping North American Watersheds
Thursday, 1/11
Seminar 02: (Un)mapping the Urban Watershed Beyond the City
WK03
Tuesday, 1/16
Lab 02: Redefining “Urban” Watersheds
Thursday, 1/18
Seminar 03: Geoengineered Landscapes in the Capitalocene
WK04
Tuesday, 1/23
Lab 03: Mapping through Transects
Thursday, 1/25
Lab 03: Mapping through Transects continued
WK05
Tuesday, 1/30
Seminar 04: Pollution, Colonialism, and Embodied Geographies of Toxicity
Thursday, 2/1
Lab 04: Generative Terrains
WK01
Thursday, 1/4:
WK02
Tuesday, 1/9
Thursday, 1/11
WK03
Tuesday, 1/16
Thursday, 1/18
WK04
Tuesday, 1/23
Thursday, 1/25
WK05
Tuesday, 1/30
Thursday, 2/1
PART II: LECTURE/DISCUSSION + STUDIO
WK06
Tuesday, 2/6
Midterm Peer-to-Peer Presentations
Thursday, 2/8
Studio 01.1: What is an Atlas?
WK07
Tuesday, 2/13
Studio 01.2: Mapping Relations across Media
- Part I
- Part I
Thursday, 2/15
Studio 02.2: Mailbag session
WK08
2/20 – 2/22
Studios 01-02
WK09
Tuesday 2/27
Studio 03
Thurdsay 2/29
Final Presentations
------
Thursday, 3/7
Final Project Due
WK06
Tuesday, 2/6
Thursday, 2/8
WK07
Tuesday, 2/13
- Part I
- Part I
Thursday, 2/15
WK08
2/20 – 2/22
WK09
Tuesday 2/27
Thurdsay 2/29
------
Thursday, 3/7
Detailed Schedule + Readings
PART I: LECTURE/DISCUSSION + LAB
WK01
Thursday, 1/4
Geo-Story
Kaplan, Sarah. “Crawford Lake Shows Humans Started a New Chapter in Geologic Time, Scientists Say.” Washington Post, July 12, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/11/anthropocene-begins-canada-crawford-lake/.
Media
Kaplan, Sarah, Simon Ducroquet, Bonnie Jo Mount, Frank Hulley-Jones, and Emily Wright. “Hidden beneath the Surface.” Washington Post, Accessed September 21, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/anthropocene-geologic-time-crawford-lake/.
+
Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. “Projections,” Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan, 28-55. New York: Actar D.
+++
Chwałczyk, Franciszek. “Around the
Anthropocene in Eighty Names—Considering the Urbanocene Proposition.” Sustainability 12, no. 11 (May 31, 2020): 4458. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114458.
Davis, Heather, and Zoe Todd. “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 16, no. 4 (December 2017): 761–80.
Curley, Andrew, and Sara Smith. “The Cene Scene: Who Gets to Theorize Global Time and How Do We Center Indigenous and Black Futurities?” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, May 17, 2023, 25148486231173865. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231173865.
McCarthy, Francine MG, R. Timothy Patterson, Martin J Head, Nicholas L Riddick, Brian F Cumming, Paul B Hamilton, Michael FJ Pisaric, et al. “The Varved Succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a Candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene Series.” The Anthropocene Review 10, no. 1 (April 1, 2023): 146–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281.
Lewis, Simon L., and Mark A. Maslin. “Defining the Anthropocene.” Nature 519, no. 7542 (March 2015): 171–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14258.
Ellis, Erle C. “Why I Resigned from the Anthropocene Working Group.” Anthroecology Lab (blog), July 13, 2023. https://anthroecology.org/why-i-resigned-from-the-anthropocene-working-group/.
WK01
Thursday, 1/4
Kaplan, Sarah. “Crawford Lake Shows Humans Started a New Chapter in Geologic Time, Scientists Say.” Washington Post, July 12, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/11/anthropocene-begins-canada-crawford-lake/.
Media
Kaplan, Sarah, Simon Ducroquet, Bonnie Jo Mount, Frank Hulley-Jones, and Emily Wright. “Hidden beneath the Surface.” Washington Post, Accessed September 21, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/anthropocene-geologic-time-crawford-lake/.
+
Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. “Projections,” Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan, 28-55. New York: Actar D.
+++
Chwałczyk, Franciszek. “Around the
Anthropocene in Eighty Names—Considering the Urbanocene Proposition.” Sustainability 12, no. 11 (May 31, 2020): 4458. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12114458.
Davis, Heather, and Zoe Todd. “On the Importance of a Date, or Decolonizing the Anthropocene.” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 16, no. 4 (December 2017): 761–80.
Curley, Andrew, and Sara Smith. “The Cene Scene: Who Gets to Theorize Global Time and How Do We Center Indigenous and Black Futurities?” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, May 17, 2023, 25148486231173865. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231173865.
McCarthy, Francine MG, R. Timothy Patterson, Martin J Head, Nicholas L Riddick, Brian F Cumming, Paul B Hamilton, Michael FJ Pisaric, et al. “The Varved Succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a Candidate Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene Series.” The Anthropocene Review 10, no. 1 (April 1, 2023): 146–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281.
Lewis, Simon L., and Mark A. Maslin. “Defining the Anthropocene.” Nature 519, no. 7542 (March 2015): 171–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14258.
Ellis, Erle C. “Why I Resigned from the Anthropocene Working Group.” Anthroecology Lab (blog), July 13, 2023. https://anthroecology.org/why-i-resigned-from-the-anthropocene-working-group/.
WK02
Tuesday, 1/9
Lab 01: Mapping North American Watersheds
Thursday, 1/11
Geo-Story
Cronon, William. Chapter 1, “Dreaming the Metropolis,” in Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 23-54. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
Media
Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. “Introduction” and “Projections,” Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan, 12-21; 28-55. New York: Actar D.
+++
Cosgrove, Denis E. Chapter 9, “Moving Maps,” in Geography and Vision: Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World, 155-168. International Library of Human Geography, v. 12. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Blackhawk, Ned. Chapter 4, “The Native Inland Sea,” in The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, 106–138. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023.
Schoolcraft, Jane Johnston. “Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior,” in “The Contrast, and: To the Pine Tree, and: Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior, and: By an Ojibwa Female Pen, and: On the Doric Rock, Lake Superior.” Ecotone 15, no. 1 (2019): 140–47.
https://doi.org/10.1353/ect.2019.0083
Goeman, Mishuana. 2012. “The Tools of a Cartographic Poet: Unmapping Settler Colonialism in Joy Harjo’s Poetry.” Settler Colonial Studies 2 (2): 89–112. doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648843
Domlesky, Anya and Geoff Manaugh, “Living in the Glacial Afterlife,” in Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan. New York: Actar D.
Tuesday, 1/9
Thursday, 1/11
Cronon, William. Chapter 1, “Dreaming the Metropolis,” in Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 23-54. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
Media
Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. “Introduction” and “Projections,” Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan, 12-21; 28-55. New York: Actar D.
+++
Cosgrove, Denis E. Chapter 9, “Moving Maps,” in Geography and Vision: Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World, 155-168. International Library of Human Geography, v. 12. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Blackhawk, Ned. Chapter 4, “The Native Inland Sea,” in The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, 106–138. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023.
Schoolcraft, Jane Johnston. “Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior,” in “The Contrast, and: To the Pine Tree, and: Lines Written at Castle Island, Lake Superior, and: By an Ojibwa Female Pen, and: On the Doric Rock, Lake Superior.” Ecotone 15, no. 1 (2019): 140–47.
https://doi.org/10.1353/ect.2019.0083
Goeman, Mishuana. 2012. “The Tools of a Cartographic Poet: Unmapping Settler Colonialism in Joy Harjo’s Poetry.” Settler Colonial Studies 2 (2): 89–112. doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2012.10648843
Domlesky, Anya and Geoff Manaugh, “Living in the Glacial Afterlife,” in Ibañez, Daniel, Clare Lyster, Charles Waldheim, and Mason White, eds. 2017. Third Coast Atlas: Prelude to a Plan. New York: Actar D.