Media III: The Cartographic Imagination

Catalog description

How we draw spatial relations informs how we think about them. And how we think about spatial relations informs how we draw them. This is the fundamental cartographic enterprise. Stated so simply, it highlights how cartographic analysis and cartographic depiction go hand-in-hand and can help us explore design’s potential for both critique and world-making. In Media III, students will explore how concepts of space—its nature, organization, and our experience of it—are reflected in, and reinforced by, our drawings. This will include a critical examination of existing spatial datasets—their categories and conceits—as well as the development of new categories that emerge from our drawings. In addition to this theoretical exploration, Media III will provide technical foundations in spatial analysis and representation techniques that combine ArcMap, Rhino, and the Adobe Creative Suite. Students will learn to analyze not only what currently exist but to also determine what may exist. Likewise, students will learn conventional cartographic techniques, gaining confidence in their ability to experiment with these conventions to arrive at new forms of spatial representation. By combining spatial analysis with experimental drawings, students will explore how representations actively support our design imagination at various scales, while also emphasizing the creation of detailed, beautiful, and evocative drawings that communicate meaning.