For this project, I was trying to use the negative space on a piece of paper to demonstrate how important space is. I was planning on typing the first part of a sentence on a blank page, and then using the negative space between each line to form the other half of the sentence. As I learned while trying to complete this task, it is not possible to write full sentences in both the positive and negative space. I later learned that in order to make the writing in the negative space into words, I would have had to use letters that make up gibberish in the positive space. Since I only realized this after the project was due, I instead just used two different colors to represent the positive and negative space in the piece.

I believe the grid in Manhattan is more of a practical construct than anything else, with the influx of people in Manhattan, more space was needed, so a grid was created to protect that space.  The unintended consequences however was that too much land was developed creating a lack of public land.  I believe this was necessary to make Manhatten inhabitable and was a necessay evil. I also think that more cities should use a grid, while still maintaining the balance of protecting nature.

Ask me about it.

    Space is one of the most difficult things to define in the world.  One can ask someone  to define it and they will say it is the realm in which all events occur. Another may say it is what is outside of the Earth’s atmosphere, outer space.  A quick Google search pulls up the definition, “a continuous area or expanse that is free, available or unoccupied.”  I would have agreed with all three of these definitions at varying points in my life. However, after a period of deep reflection on the true meaning of the word, I find that I have crafted my own personal definition of what space means to me.  I believe that space is the realm in which all events occur, but I believe that definition is irrelevant and unhelpful.  If I only know a fraction of the world’s population, how am I to know what events occur on just this planet.  That is impossible, and we are just one tiny rock in the vast expanse of space, the realm in which everything occurs and exists. 

    Since it is impossible for me to take part in SPACE, I believe that what is more important is “Our Space” or the space in which we hold sway and it holds sway over us.  This sway, is more than just physical placement of objects, control of how events occur, or absolute dominance over our realm.  Sway is the effect, either tangible or intangible, that we have on “Our Space”. So how does one perceive space, analyze it, and what senses are used in the process.  Since whatever has an effect on us, or we affect is “Our Space” then we define what Our Space, or space that has meaning, is. This meaningful space is analyzed with our emotional mind just as much as our rational mind. We perceive it and think about it not only as a physical thing, but the space can be the emotional feel of the room, or the pattern sound follows when it echoes.  I believe that the principle ideas used to analyze space are quite simple, what meaning am I giving an event, and what meaning am I giving everything around me. 

    I think that it is very easy to overlook the intangible parts of space and focus only on the physical world around us. It is easy to forget that the space and the meaning assigned to Our Space come full circle and affects us as well.  

    I believe that this idea of space is most useful when  applied to difficult emotional situations. However, that is not to say it could not be applied to daily life, in fact, I believe that if it was applied to everyday life, then most of the difficult emotional problems that arise from a lack of awareness of how we affect  Our Space would cease to exist. I believe that the feelings associated with Our Space are just as important as the actual contents of Our Space. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the feelings are part of the contents. 

    Take for example some Holocaust monuments; even people who have no history with the Holocaust can be overcome by emotion at the emotional power these monuments have. They can leave this space, take with them these feelings, and hold on to them for the rest of their lives. This is a powerful example of the power of the effects of Our Space. If a person was to give this feeling a negative or bad meaning, to say to themselves that, “We, as human beings are Disgusting,” then he will take that meaning with him his whole life and will look at people as disgusting.  If he takes a positive meaning, and says to himself, “It’s amazing the power of the human spirit,” he will do just the opposite.  I believe that space is less an area, and more of a collection of experiences and our current experience that we carry around with us.  Because all of our past experiences affect our current one, the spaces we visited or lived in 20 years ago, are still affecting us now. 

    I believe that the future applications of this idea are quite simply a new way of thinking and approaching problems.  If we take into account all of the past experiences we have had, and are aware of the meaning we give them, then we can act accordingly and compensate for our emotional turmoil in our decisions.  I believe that this would help people to live and find meaningful lives that could greatly increase their quality of life.  On a more worldly level, I believe that foreign policy could use this belief to account for the prior experiences that other nations have had in dealing with them to create a better sense of understanding which would promote peaceful relationships. I believe that the idea of Our Space is important to living a meaningful, satisfying, and impactful life; which happens to be my ultimate goal. 

As someone who has lived in ghettos and basements, I almost immediately disagree with his first statement that the "house [...] is a privileged entity", having both "complexity" and "special value" (3). The mere existence of a shelter, is not a "privileged entity"—a lone house, especially a house with an apparent mechanical variety of doors, as the introductory poem posits—does not necessarily or consistently "transcend" one’s memories. His continued position that, "Finding little to describe in the humble home, they spend little time there; so they describe it as it actually is, without really experi­encing its primitiveness, a primitiveness which belongs to all, rich and poor alike, if they are willing to dream." (4) is somewhat disturbing to me—I don't want to have to dream in order to enjoy my surrounding "primitiveness". I'm, ironically, attached to materialism. However, as Bachelard wraps up this first chapter, he redeems himself with, "Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived. These drawings need not be exact [...] Space calls for action, and before action, the imagination is at work." This is a beautiful concept, beautifully articulated, as he combines both the universe and the physical space we interact with.

Topoanalysis seems to be our memory of emotionally signficant places like homes, analagous to psychoanalysis, for our minds—topoanalysis essentially studies the "shelters and rooms" of our mind (12).

Tactical cartography, as a power dynamic-based concept, is an instrument for representing and wielding "spatial data". It allows oppressed people to take control and externalize their own priorities, rather than the priorities of those in power. It’s a demand for respect. I love/am intrigued by the idea of creating our own tools for expression—especially one as unexpected as cartography—in a political context, but it's also interesting how cartography can be used in an emotional context as well. In many ways, the two are intertwined, as with the citizens of Boston's Chinatown. 

I took a screenshot of part of my old hometown in Vermont, and edited out all of the typical Google Maps clutter—except for the Google logo, because I thought it was funny. I've spent a lot of time looking at this town on Google Maps, and I know that this doesn't really do it justice. I chose this screenshot for precisely that reason, so I could take an average snapshot of an average town and elucidate all the supposedly minor components that make it emotionally significant to me. The important points become more clustered as they near my best friend's house, which (believe it or not) is not a coincidence.

With each new technological innovation, from blurry paintings to moving sediment, the "annihilation of time” as explored by Marx undergoes a new period. One might wonder what similar effect the Apple Watch would have, if anyone actually bought or used it. Rather than the assured constant that we try not to think about in order to avoid an existential crisis, time is influenced and experienced on both a personal and societal level. Technology’s role in shaping our concept of time is both dangerous and powerful, an alluring combination in the face of our galaxy’s imminent heat death.

My selfies, as well as selfies in general, are ephemeral. (Older generations may scorn them as the final nail in the coffin of “the good old days”, but I am not here to debate the public image of selfies.) They are the unique symbol of a new technological period (as such things often have), for providing a controlled snapshot of our physical and emotional evolutions. Although we are causing our own demolition as a society through a “carbon-saturated atmosphere” (12) and capitalism as a whole, selfies provide an ironic tool for documenting our existence—“bits of humanity that these exquisitely crafted machines [iPhones] hold will be lost to time” (13). So, in creating an archival record of something that will disappear in the near geologic future, I, and everyone else with an Instagram account, aim to shift the priorities and consequences of time once more. Because I take really good selfies, and I wouldn’t know this if I didn't have a record of my terrible ones from 2012-14.
 

The author seems to only focus on the indigenous people insofar as they provide "suspense" to the "performance". I've heard the story of New Amsterdam and other colonizations a million times, but never with a focus on indigenous people. The article is laden with microaggressions, from calling them "savages" to treating them as a prop for the initial European colonizers. Even after the Grid has been put in place and Manhattan is "mostly rural", the indigenous people have faded into the background, along with the invalidity of Peter Minuit's transaction. 

Ironically, the Grid's "empty spaces" and "utilitarian[ism]" created a city to oppose Paris and London's "systems of articulation and differentiation"—one of the first instances of America overshadowing Europe. However, I'm not sure where these "empty spaces" are—Manhattan is extremely crowded and no maps were shown to demonstrate their location(s). Also as a result of the Grid, the fixedness of the city blocks prevent any horizontal development.