I loved this exercise. From simply reading the directions, you would not realize how spontaneous and fun walking through a space can be. Arbritrary directions don’t mean anything, but when you’re on your journey and in context, you realize what direction lies ahead and have a heightened anticipation of what you’re about to observe. In a way this makes you more aware of your surroundings.
I needed to go home after meeting an artist at a cafe for my 281 interview. This location was in the NoPa neighborhood (“North of the Panhandle” park) which is on the other side of a hill from my home in Hayes Valley. I had no idea where these directions would take me– it could have lead me even further from my destination! In the end, the journey was quite enjoyable and it ended up only dropping me off three blocks from my home. At one point, I was surprised to see that a “Slight Left” took me into an ice cream shop, at which point I stopped in and got a scoop.
Drawing the map was a stylized abstraction of my journey. I found myself using different forms to simulate landmarks. For instance, when climbing up the hill in Alamo Square Park (home of the Full House houses), I found myself drawing slopes and stairs. It was a surprisingly creative feature that I did not play, but came organically as I “walked my pen” across sketch book.
Overall this activity is a great way to observe a space and map it in a way that is unplanned and organic. This is divergent thinking at its finest. I almost wish I would have employed something similar for my observations for the 281 project because I often times found myself converging on things and ignoring others that I may have discovered if I had been moving randomly through the space. I’ll try my best to incorporate such an interesting activity going forward.