Project Introduction
Welcome to the webpage for What Moves You, a project about technology, movement, and perception. This Civic Engagement Project (CEP) is designed around exploring how people interact with their environments through the use of technology, and how this changes their perceptions of the world; specifically when people are moving. For this project there are three parts: Movement journals, notebooks placed around town with a prompt for people to add and share their own stories, the What Moves You? public discussion event, and a community bike ride.
Background Content
People's local environments are often times overlooked in discussions of environmental concerns. My project aims to address this in some way, by encouraging people to be more engaged with their environment when they are moving through it. This engagement is generally mediated by some form of technology (cars, bikes, buses, etc...) which each encourage different perceptions of the world. These technologically mediated perceptions of the world help to set up how we understand the world, and if they are too confined to a singular form of technology, an individual may not be able to view the world from any other perspectives. This project aims to bring together technologically mediated perspectives from both metropolitan transportation and outdoor recreation. Through bringing these perspectives together I am hoping to encourage people to be more considerate and engaged with their local environments and how they move through them. My hope is that through the three different parts of my project I will be able to get people to be more considerate within their environments, and pay more attention to how they are constructed.
Theoretical Application
The Issues in the Anthropocene course is probably the course that I enjoyed the most, but more importantly, challenged and pushed me to reconsider human/nature dualism, amongst other things. Deconstructing the separation of humans from their lived environments has been tremendously helpful in helping to focus my CEP and its goals. Steven Vogel’s Thinking Like a Mall was very influential insofar as helping to think about built environments as natural environments, or more accurately, that all environments are built environments. The removal of this dichotomy has allowed me to change the way I think about the construction of spaces, specifically, urban spaces. Through this exploration of constructed environments it became clear to me that the construction of places could be done with different considerations, given different perspectives and input. By expanding the perceptions of how people interact with their environment, and even who the environments are constructed for, I am hoping to get people to more actively engage with the construction of their own environments. Additionally, I am encouraging the perceptions to move beyond 'human' spaces and 'wild' spaces and consider that the two can, and maybe even should, exist in the same spaces. This shared space becomes more possible the wider we open up our considerations.
The environmental aesthetics course was helpful for me in formulating the basis for my CEP for a number of reasons. The main takeaway from this course was within Tom Greaves and his aesthetic theory of movement. His theory provided an entirely different aesthetic theory that informs the ideas behind my project. Additionally, exploring the conceptual history of American landscape aesthetics and their ties to a ‘pristine wilderness’ ideal and landscape aesthetics helped to push me to seek out a different way in which to conceive of our aesthetic of the world. The draw towards this differing aesthetic is in part because the traditional conception of animals within aesthetics seems to be lacking to some extent and fails to recognize what is aesthetically appreciable about animals in the world. This want to create a wider aesthetic understanding of the world is in part the motivation for my CEP because I believe all experiences of the world are to some extent aesthetic, and if we can change how we conceive of the aesthetic conception of the world, we are able to open ourselves to more considerations in other areas. By moving towards a less structured and more apophasis conception of what is aesthetically appreciable about the world, I am hoping that people will be more open to a wider range of aesthetic experiences. Additionally, a less structured view continues to break down a human/nature dualism, as it means becoming more aware of what is aesthetically appreciable in one's immediate surroundings.
The way most humans interact with the world is mediated by some form of technology or another; for most people it is corrective lenses of some variety. One must think about what form of transport they are going to use to move from one location to another, opting for one form over another. One must consider what form of technological communication is best to reach a friend or colleague, near or far. One usually must get involved with some form of technology if one wants to get into most sorts of recreational activities, some shoes, a bike, a fishing rod, a rope, etc. The philosophy of technology class has helped me to form my CEP by presenting the positive and negative effects that technology can have: its ability to form communities and its ability to destabilize people’s lives, its ability to give people freedom and its ability to be used in a surveillance state. Technology covers a broad range of human creations and artifacts, but it has been an integral part of human society. Andy Clark in Natural Born Cyborgs argues that humans are essentially the kinds of beings that use technology. This intertwined nature of humanity and technology creates a series of difficult questions about the ways in which our interactions with the world are mediated. Through my CEP I’m hoping to explore some of the ways technology mediates our experience of the world and can help build community.
What Moves You? Event
Accomplishments
While one part of my event went really well, that is the community discussion event, the other two parts provided more challenges and chances to learn. The event itself was well attended and was able to produce a lot of fruitful conversations and stories from all involved. I got feed back from multiple people that they would be interested in participating in a similar event again, given the opportunity. This sort of community building would be something that I am interested in engaging with again, in a similar format that revolves around discussion and stories. Additionally, the sharing of various perspectives is helpful in making sure more stakeholders are considered in our community, and the efforts we undertake to better it.
The movement journals, that were placed around town for people to write and share their own stories, had mixed results. One person was kind enough to share a story in the journal at the Gear Exchange, a local consignment and second hand gear shop. They wrote:
"I am apart of the climbing program at UM and have been spending every Saturday climbing in outdoor spots like Rest Stop, The Keep, and Rattler. Climbing brings me a lot of peace and joy, and having the opportunity to meet all the wonderful people in my class that share that same passion has been amazing. I am very excited to see where I go with climbing, but also sad that my class will be coming to an end soon. I hope others find the peace I do when I climb. - Cookie"
The community bike ride that took place the day after the discussion and story telling event was less successful then the event itself, but provided great time for reflection, not only about the ideas discussed the day before, but also the enviorment one moves through everyday.