Emily Knight | Contextual Studies

Walking with intention is something I have discovered to be a particular thing many of us should do more often. A refreshing new take on life and the world around can be found from forgetting your normal paths and stepping towards somewhere new. What I found from this project in particular is there are many things that the majority of us take advantage of far too often, I myself have come to this realization. However it has also come as a friendly reminder of certain things I should keep in mind more often in order to not only be able to take advantage of the places around me but also doing it effectively as well.  The majority of my usual day-to-day walks are the same and can become tedious. Being asked to become your own Flaneur was a fun and an exciting new approach to a project. So walking through Camden Town became a whole new experience, despite walking through there countless times before. You begin to notice things more, the sounds I heard while passing count...

After 'walking with intention' these past few weeks I had come to the decision to focus my map on Sound. More specifically the sounds I heard and recorded on my way round Kentish Town, Camden Town and Mornington Crescent. I had chosen this as my focus for my map as I thought it would make for an interesting and more abstract approach for a map based outcome. Maps are usually used to record the things we can see in order to move around a city with ease. However sound is not something you can see or simply record as well as buildings and roads on a normal map. That is why I thought it would be much more interesting to try and create a map of something we do not usually take as much notice of while mapping our way around a city. Here is my first outcome I made; The lines represent the actual route I took while walking and a few others roads and paths surrounding it. With the addition of different coloured and sized circles which represent the various different sounds I heard and h...

Another walk of mine that I took was from Kentish Town station, through Camden Town and ended in Mornington Crescent. As I was 'walking with intention' I noticed I was paying more attention to my surrounds and noticing more of the things going on around me; for example, conversations that I walk past, body language of some people when they walk past, movement of traffic (people or cars) etc. As well as walking, towards the end of my trip I sat a drew and recorded a few things around me. While walking through Camden I loved looking at the random and peculiar things that Camden seems to house. One example is in the image below, its difficult to see because of the lighting and reflection but while walking across one of the bridges I spent some time looking at the river. I found there to be a lot of random objects in the water and made me wonder how each of those things got there and who the objects belong to. Some a very obvious and self explanatory like the hundreds of beer...

I have been on a few walks these past few weeks for this project, some in my area where a live and some a few stops down the Northern Line just to get a variation. My first walk was around where I live, I took a particular route I could remember but also different from my usual routes on a day to day basis. I wanted to track my route and remember it as I planned on doing it twice, once in the day and the other in the evening. This way I could record both by taking pictures and drawings, and make a comparison in order to see what interesting things I could uncover. These pictures are of Hendon Central and the surrounding area, day and night. I like seeing the comparison of night to day and the feeling each picture gives you. The atmosphere of the different times of day were also something to note, especially coming from the point of view of a woman walking of an evening. Walking the route in the day felt normal and no different to a usual walk I would take. However walking in the evenin...

The word Strava means 'strive' in Swedish which I find suits the purpose of Strava Art and why people do it in the first place. Strava Art is where you use your GPS and track your movements in order to create an image. This can be done while running, walking, cycling, swimming, hiking etc. This makes for an overall interesting trip where you can find yourself going through completely different routes in your own area unusual to someones normal everyday route. All in order to create a fun image through a GPS. It takes planning, as you have to know exactly the right route in order for the design to come out looking correct. Here are some examples of what some people have created through walking and running.

Here are some examples of some of the research I had done on Sound and how it could be represented in a map. I decided to focus on sound as I thought it would be an interesting approach as sound is not something you can necessarily see. You can see the object or thing that is making the sound, however sound itself you cannot. The best way to do so is through shapes and colours, I like this idea and intend on progressing and taking it further, in order to create a visually interesting and unique looking map.