Introduction to Sensory Mapping Chris Perkins University of Manchester

Visuals can distract in the world of sensory mapping To introduce the session Im going to tell you a few stories to: 1. Establish the difference a map might make when considering sensory geographies and what a sensory map might constitute 2. To speculate about why sensory mapping may well be an idea that has come of age in other words what has changed and why that might matter. I want to argue that mapping and sensing are best understood as imbricated! hybrid! refle"i#e cultural practices! best regarded as part of society not separate from it.

1. What difference might a map and mapping make?

$aps are spatial! precise! accurate! and purport to show e#erything. They link something to a place. $aps do something! they are made! read! and deployed. %nd sensory mapping is enrolled in #ery particular circumstances. Sensory mapping seems to involve three very different things a. !o map "hat different senses detect % map of smells % map of tastes % map of sounds etc etc #. &ut mapping also in#ol#es a metaphorical usage stands as a synonym for collecting cataloguing! bringing order to the messy comple"ity of the world. 'ensory mapping therefore connotes a practical way of apprehending aspects of the comple" sensory world. c$ !o communicate information a#out the "orld through that sense % map that you can smell % tactile map that you can touch % map you can here 'ensory mapping to date has in#ol#ed the first two not the third. (ew sensory maps are in the medium of that sense! with the e"ception of tactile mapping dri#en by the normati#e demands of impro#ing mobility. The o#erwhelming ma)ority of maps are #isual despite a multimedia turn in cartography. 'o theres a gap in research and e"ecution.

%. !echnological social and epistemological change is facilitating a significant rethinking of mapping

In the past** The map was on a sheet of paper! under the producers control! anonymous! an end point! deployed by go#ernments to control! represent the world! bring the unknown future or past into the present! useful knowledge at a distance! in +atourian terms an immutable mobile! fi"ed but portable. %nd almost entirely #isual. (ast forward through a raft of technologies and social changes that are progressi#ely destabili,ing these certainties -ata collection remote sensing! ./'! -igital mapping software to manipulate data -isplay technologies %nimation Interaction: new affordances! touching! gesturing /rinting technologies 0ireless applications and communications technologies The 0eb and all that goes with it Embodied real time mapping: the dot on the mobile de#ice is you and it mo#es as you mo#e 'ocial networking altering notions of authorship and pri#acy -emocrati,ation of mapping: the crowd can map where a kettle is on a demo! we can all help to make a map of our own backyard! we can share it 1rowdsourced alternati#es under the control of people! collaborati#e bottom up cartographies such as 2pen'treet$ap or citi,en science acti#ities &ut all applied in a conte"t of global economic crisis in a globali,ed neo3 liberal world 4et combination of these things has resulted in: 5uestioning of the accepted status 5uo profusion of map art playful interaction raft of no#el applications mapping new data! tweets! (lickr images! data scraped from web sites and combined! o#erlain or )u"taposed di#ersity inno#ation churning and uncertainty 'o what we get is Emotion! Immersion! 1ultural /ractice! and open3ended e"ploration %nd e&citing times to #e doing some sensory mapping6