INTERDISCIPLINARY URBAN RESEARCH
CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY
University of Basel, Urban Studies, MA Critical Urbanisms, Fall 24
Independent Project
SPATIAL TRANSITIONS, PHYSICAL PHANTASM, BODILY ATLAS OF DRIVER
USING THE BODY AS A MAP
THE CAR AS “INHABITING INFRASTRUCTURE”
This project, as an exercise in visual thinking, aims to map the car driver’s body through its memories, movement, and the space it inhabits. The goal is to create an overlap, a projection, and a unity of meaning between the limits of the car and the boundaries of the body within the urban context.
SPATIAL TRANSITIONS, PHYSICAL PHANTASM, BODILY ATLAS OF DRIVER
BODY, SPACE, AND MOVEMENT
The map can present itself in the form of the body as a movement. The body articulates the full spectrum of the term “movement” or “the function of movement.” The space of the car reveals that the term “mechanical extension of the body” is vaguely defined and should be seen as both a personal, intimate sense of “being at home” and a discursive resource that constructs socio-spatial forms of inclusion and/or exclusion, which it claims, justifies, or resists.
The map can explore how much importance drivers, isolated in their cars and often disconnected from society, place on their perception of urban space. It can examine socio-spatial positions, belonging, and boundaries, focusing particularly on how drivers experience these concepts.
How does moving around in a car every day affect their sense of urban space? What thresholds exist in their daily lives that reinforce their sense of space? The research seeks a social definition of the driver who does not have a real urban status.
HOW DO THE DRIVER AND THE CITY COEXIST?
BODILIY SCHEMA OF DRIVER
The mechanical body in the city: reading the body as it moves from place to place within the car that both shelters and inhabits it.
The body, seemingly detached from the city's social plane by the car, shifts toward an abstract plane rather than remaining rooted in physicality—a body sensitive to speed.
The driver's presence in the city can appear independent of physical space, identifiable instead through the mechanical extensions of the car across various social planes.
PHYSICAL SILHOUETTES
COGNITIVE DIMENSIONS OF THE BODY FORMED BY CITY
Seeing the car as an urban interface, where not only its interior but also its exterior defines a physical space. Reflecting on what precisely determines the boundaries of the body in the city when in a car.
Viewing the human as a mechanical body through the lens of the car, perceiving their physical existence within the car's space. Considering the human as a moving body, constantly changing places in the city through the vehicle.
Exploring the individual and social relationships of the driver, along with the bond they form with urban space through the car. Interpreting these dynamics through the movements the body performs with the car in the city.
Evaluating the evolving relationship between the city and the human, shaped by mutual inclusion and limitation, as mediated by the car. Imagining the driver as a singular body—detached, separated, and removed from a social whole.
How does the driver interpret their physical presence within the city and the car? Is it a matter of being inside or outside the city, or does it involve creating a unity of meaning between the car's boundaries and their own?
Can the relationship between the city and the body be moved to a more perceptible physical dimension through the car? What might it mean to perceive how the city, the car, and the body exist together—shaping and creating one another physically?
PLACELESSNESS
THE STRINGS
Understanding the boundaries that define the driver's physical silhouette within the city. Exploring the perceptible characteristics, speed-sensitive activities, and cognitive dimensions of the driver shaped by these boundaries.
Who contains whom? Does the human contain the city, or does the city contain the human? Evaluating the dynamic relationship between the city and the driver, recognizing how they contain, shape, and transform one another.
Drawing, schematizing, and visualizing the body to translate these complex relationships into a perceptible dimension—a simple form. Creating a simplified bodily schema for the driver, space, and city to reveal social connections.
Observing the strings that socially control the driver in the city—the same strings that bind them to physical space—through the perspective of an urban actor. Exploring spatial threads, bonds, and transitions as experienced through movement within the car.
Defining, perceiving, and experiencing the human solely through their body—its movements, spatial transitions, and sensory engagements. Conceptualizing drivers as entities occupying space only in relation to their cars.
Defining the car through the body and reflecting this relationship in urban. Understanding the spatial dissolution of the body at certain speeds.
REMOVING FROM A WHOLE
UNDERSTANDING HOW THE BODY OF DRIVER REFLECTS URBAN SPACE
Dividing the body into parts and interpreting the driver's relationship with different spaces. Depicting the human by fragmenting them into parts, revealing how space is also divided and its integrity disrupted by constant movement.
Considering the driver as both a figure shaped by the city and an individual isolated within the car. Perceiving human relationships in urban spaces through movement, including the encompassing nature of car spaces.
Removing people from the social plane, detaching them from public space, and confining them to the existence of cars. Limiting, framing, or enclosing life within specific spaces in the city.
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