Quotidian practises as a form of mapping

Monday, December 01, 2008

(2) Comments

For the past few weeks along with other few students I was brainstorming about the term ‘mapping’. After looking at Deleuze’s ideas on maps and mapping as a continuous practice I came to realise that in fact our quotidian practises are all about mapping and embedding ourselves within various maps.

I weave my thoughts within this blog (as of the last weeks of November) in a certain manner, which is different from the practice employed in my previous non-academic blogs. I’ve been treading certain virtual spaces for the past couple of months augmenting my folksonomies, compiling the blogroll and developing new networks. When I talk with my professors I maintain a slightly different lexicon than the one I use with other students of Utrecht University and they do not hear the vocabulary I use with my best friends after a couple of glasses of wine or a few biertjes. Deleuze and Guattari argue1 that ‘we are composed of lines.<...> They compose us, as they compose our map' (Deleuze&Guattari, 2004: 224). We blend and intersect with new ones on a daily basis. And we emerge out of this matrix.

Consequently I was explaining to a friend of mine the idea of our participation in network culture as a practise of mapping ourselves within them. danah boyd calls it defining ourselves and our context in which we are operating 2. The matter is as vast as the virtual web within which we are entangled together. But the more research I did on it, the more discoveries I encountered. In a week or two I'll know if I have to remap my thoughts...

In the meantime - contemplating on Gambling, Gods and LSD - a visual meditation on being I thoroughly enjoyed in IDFA in Amsterdam yesterday.

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1. Deleuze, G. Guattari, F. & Massumi, B. 2004. Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Continuum International Publishing Group.

2. boyd, d. 2006. Friends, Friendsters, and MySpace Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites. First Monday 11(12), December, p. 7
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2 Responses to "Quotidian practises as a form of mapping"

vanguy said :
December 1, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Interesting stuff - would like to read more about mapping and how it relates to the WWW.
T
http://TheProvince.com/liveat5
December 6, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Interesting, indeed. Although I find that there is a lot of mapping going on online without our knowing. Then there is the mapping that is intented and consciously pursued as part of work around status, profile and recognition. Mapping in the context of identity formation may echo Althusser's noion of the individual being hailed into certain positions [on the map].
Best
Britta
http://britbohlinger.blogspot.com

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