A call for participants for a workshop on Maps and Emotions that will take place in Washington DC on July 1-2, 2017 prior to the 28th International Cartographic Conference. The goal of this workshop is to provide an intellectual and creative space to share different ideas and methodologies that can help further exploring the complex relationships that exist between places, maps and emotions.
Feel free to disseminate this call in your networks and let us know if you have any questions.
Maps & Emotions
Workshop organized by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) Commissions on Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization & Art and Cartography, Washington DC, July 1-2, 2017
For the last couple of decades, the importance of integrating emotions and affects in studying places has been broadly acknowledged, which led certain authors to talk about an “emotional turn” in geography (Thien 2005; Davidson et al. 2007). This emotional turn has also affected cartography where the relationships between maps and emotions have been explored from two different perspectives; scientific and artistic. A more scientific approach, characterized by the growing interest to study emotions generated by different types of cartographic designs (Fabrikant et al. 2012; Muehlenhaus 2012; Griffin and McQuoid 2012) and by the use of social media and digital technologies to collect and represent emotions generated by certain locations (Hauthal and Burghardt 2013; Klettner et al. 2013). A more artistic approach is characterized by the will to capture and express cartographically the emotions associated with places in a sensitive way. Artists such as Christian Nold and Ariane Littman have been exploring alternative cartographic ways of capturing emotions and affects associated with certain places. This growing interest in mapping emotions is also reflected within the emergence of the concept of “deep mapping”, which is based on the idea that we can truly understand places only by taking into account the memories, emotions, and perceptions associated with them. These different approaches have in common that they need to address the complex question of how to characterize affects and emotions and how to map them? The goal of this workshop is to provide an intellectual and creative space to share different ideas and methodologies that can help addressing this question.
This workshop aims to bring together artists, scholars and students from cartography, geography, the humanities and the arts who are interested in exploring further the relationships between maps, emotions and places. We would like to invite participants interested in discussing and debating any type of relationship between these elements including:
- The theoretical underpinning of mapping emotions;
- The cognitive aspects of designing maps that can trigger emotions and in understanding how emotions influence map use;
- The methodologies developed in arts, sciences and the humanities for collecting emotional material associated with places (e.g. memories, perceptions);
- The technological and practical aspects of mapping emotions;
- The social and political implications of mapping emotions and designing emotional maps
Submission process and important dates
- To participate in the workshop, each participant must submit either (1) an abstract describing the research / artistic project s/he would like to present (max. 500 words); or (2) a proposal describing the emotional mapping activity s/he would like to organize and the logistical issues associated with it (e.g. how long the activity should last? Do you need special material or venue?) (max. 1,000 words).
- Each abstract/proposal should be summited by September 30th, 2016 to Amy Griffin (a.griffin@adfa.edu.au), and Sébastien Caquard (sebastien.caquard@concordia.ca) who will share them with the other members of the scientific committee: Julia Mia Stirnemann and Sidonie Christophe.
- These discussions will be structured around two types of activities: (1) conventional academic presentations enabling individuals to talk about their own research and artistic practices; and (2) emotional mapping activities organized by some of the participants to address one or several aspects of the relationships between maps and emotions (e.g. data collection in some identified neighborhoods in Washington DC; designing maps that could trigger emotional responses; testing the effectiveness of emotional maps).
Logistics
The workshop will be hosted by The George Washington University, located downtown Washington DC. The workshop will be free of charge, but the participants will have to pay for their food and lodging (a list will be provided on the 28th International Cartographic Conference website: http://www.icc2017.org/).
Timeline
- July 18th, 2016 – First Call for Participants;
- Sept. 1st, 2016 – Second Call for Participants;
- Sept. 30th, 2016 – Deadline for submitting abstracts or activities proposals;
- Nov. 1st, 2016 – Successful Applicants notified;
- Jan. 15th, 2017 – Participants confirm their participation
- Feb. 2017 – Preliminary program released;
- May 2017 – Final program released;
- July 1-2, 2017 – Workshop prior to the ICC 2017.
References
Davidson J, Smith M and Bondi L (2007) Emotional Geographies, Hampshire, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Fabrikant SI, Christophe S, Papastefanou G and Maggi S (2012) Emotional response to map design aesthetics. In: GIScience 2012: Seventh International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Columbus, Ohio, 18–21 September. Available at:http://www.zora.uzh.ch/71701/1/2012_FabrikantS_giscience2012_paper_64.pdf
Griffin AL and McQuoid J (2012) At the Intersection of Maps and Emotion: The Challenge of Spatially Representing Experience. Kartographische Nachrichten, 62(6), 291–299.
Hauthal E and Burghardt D (2013) Detection, Analysis and Visualisation of Georeferenced Emotions. InProceedings of The International Cartographic Conference 2013. Dresden (Germany): International Cartographic Association, 25-30 August 2013.
Klettner S, Huang H, Schmidt M and Gartner G (2013) Crowdsourcing affective responses to space.Kartographische Nachrichten 2(3): 66–72.
Littman A (2012) Re-thinking/ Re-creating a different Cartography. ETH Zurich, Available from: http://cartonarratives.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/littman_proposal.doc
Muehlenhaus I (2012) If Looks Could Kill: The Impact of Different Rhetorical Styles on Persuasive Geocommunication. The Cartographic Journal 49(4), 361–375.
Nold C (2009) Emotional cartography. Technologies of the Self. Available from: www.emotionalcartography.net. Thien D (2005) After or beyond feeling? A consideration of affect and emotion in geography. Area, 37(4)
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