Subjective Mapping

A subjective mapping is a personalized map that focuses more on revealing whether a certain pattern of information or a concept of some sort rather than giving quantitive information. It doesn't really has to be precise like a normal map as it is more based on some personal opinion, thoughts or experience but it still has to display the information clearly.

Subjective mapping is more of an ancient practice because in the old days people were not focusing on the scientific precision as there was not the technology to do so. The main purpose of a subjective mapping is to create the link between human, space and object. It's not just the location of places.

So our lecturer told us to go around SS15 and look for a subject matter that we can use for a subjective mapping. We were divided into pairs so we choose about favorite place to eat as there were a lot of restaurants around the area.

So we gathered our information and then back in class she told us to mix with other groups and combine our subject matter to make it 1 subjective map. The other group that we partnered with made their research on the smells and senses around the area as it was really smelly outside and there was a lot of trash also.

So this is the map that we came up with.

We drew it like a normal map including our university INTI and the restaurants that people told us they like with their moods drawn on it. The other group drew a few representations of the smells and things that they saw in the surroundings.

Based on these representations we can observe that even though outside they is a lot of trash and the environment is smelly and everything, people still have good times in their favourite restaurants and the outside does not bother them at all when they are inside.

So even though the area is smelly and all, people does not care about it as they are just passing by for a few minutes and soon they will be enjoying themselves for a long time in their favorite restaurants. Based on that we can deduce that maybe that is why the place is so dirty, it is so crowded with a lot of restaurants that are cooking everyday for a lot of people. And of course maybe the clients also add up to the trash around ss15.

So basically the exercises pushed me to interact with strangers which was hard as some could not understand English and some didn't want to talk as they were on a small lunch break which was quite funny in my opinion haha, this kind of boosted my confidence to see how well me and my friend dealt with those misfortune. I also got very interested into subjective map as it's a very creative and interesting way to display information. In my opinion I also find that subjective map is the best way to analyze findings about a certain location.

Based on the exercise that we did and what I've learned and everything, I feel like I want to try to look for the history of a place by studying based on the surroundings. If the place smells i might study the smell, if the place has a lot of food I might study the retaurants around and try to find a history in it. I might also try to map my feelings and other people's feelings too and try to represent it in an abstract way because I like to mess with abstraction.