Weather Map
Our class readings and discussions have recently focused heavily on narrative, and in terms of this assignment, how to convey a narrative through maps, with a focus on the discursive element, e.g., how and through what medium the story is told, and the significance of what the creator chooses to include/exclude in the telling. In digesting this, I began thing about how, when bored, many of us have a tendency to scope people on the subway and make passing judgments/guesses about their emotional states/stories/thoughts, etc.
My map concept was to sketch a subway car interior with people in various poses & states of interaction with others, and then to have detachable symbolic icons that can be placed over various character's heads to convey the viewer's interpretation of their emotional weather. since its reconfigurable, it comments on the instinctive yet arbitrary and often inaccurate tendency we have to judge strangers' emotional states and/or personal histories, and on the largely subjective nature of any narrative since each story is so heavily influenced by the ways in which the reader/viewer makes meaning from it based on their own biases and experiences.
Photographs coming soon...
Post-mortem
The class' interpretation of and reaction to this piece was generally positive. I was a bit disappointed to hear that the postures of the characters made their mental states seem somewhat obvious, and not as arbitrary and reconfigurable as I would have hoped. If I were to redo the piece, I would try to make their body language more ambivalent.