My Projects

Figured I'd give you guys a little taste of the class projects that I'm working on as well, since this is a STUDY abroad program. Hah.

For my Computing and Society class, we have to write a position paper on some topic that sounds relevant to the class. This just means we have to pick a side and argue it. My topic is going to be argueing for the accuracy and validity of Wikipedia. For those of you that have never used or heard of it, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia with a catch: it is editable by anyone. While this sounds like it would be a horrible concept just asking for trouble, so far it has enjoyed enormous success. It has articles on nearly everything you can think of, and the vast majority of the time they are very accurate. It also enjoys some perks that normal encyclopedias don't, like for example the rapidity with which a new article will be put up when a new topic comes out. You can read about anything from political issues to marine biology to artificial intelligence. In fact, I frequent just type in topics from my textbooks and read them on Wikipedia instead of from the textbook because they are much more well-written and enjoyable. And they also usually have links to other webpages with verifying or extra data.

And the reason I picked this topic is because typically academic-types (read professors) hate it. This is slowly changing, and as everyone begins to see how well it's done over the last few years, more and more people are using it more often. In fact, I think that recently someone said that the New York Times actually quoted it as a source in one of their articles. So this is one of those volatile issues in the academic world, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, before I picked it, and actually what made me think of it, was the fact that the professors here with us are split down the middle on whether they like it or not. So this should be fun.

I start my research on that today, with an outline due thursday, and the final paper due probably around finals week (2 1/2 weeks).

Then there's our corners project, for architecture, which I've talked about before. And there's also this project that the professor calls "From the Formal to the Social." In this we have to pick a process or an object, and fully document it and its uses around the city. He wants to make sure we focus on everything about our topic, from XS to XL. So for example, on project might be the trash removal system here, called BCNeta. Or some people are doing graffiti. We're doing public sitting places. So you have to look at everything, including construction material, measurements, ease of use, placement within the city, how it affects traffic flow, how it affects views and monuments, yadda yadda yadda. Everything from the smallest material thing about it to the largest most general way it affects the city or patterns within the city. That one just started today, so that should be interesting to see how that one goes.

Then there's the public spaces project. Each group of 3 people gets a district of the city, and has to come up with a categorization of the public spaces within that region, then pick on category and fully document it within the region. It's an interesting thing to focus on, because Barcelona has so many public spaces everywhere. It draws attention to the differences between how cities and societies function. In the late afternoon, everyone in Barcelona comes out into their local square or park, and it just becomes this amazing transformation. Some squares turn into psuedo daycares/playgrounds, where kids just take over the square and the parents completely let them go and pay attention to whatever else it is. Sabir was sitting and watching and he said he saw one woman come and just drop her kid off in the square, leave for 2 hours doing shopping, then come back with arm fulls of stuff, grab her kid and head home. In other squares all the surrounding shops and cafe's push chairs outside and form a perimeter of outside dining. And in all of them the age range goes from 2 months to 100 years. It's pretty cool. Sabir sometimes calls the parks and squares things like outdoor living rooms. It's an interesting concept.

We also have what's called a "Passages" project. The concept here is that throughout the day, each person in a city traces a passage through the city. Each of these passages may have their lulls and peaks of activity, and they all cross each other thousands of times a day. It is the aggregate of all of these passages that makes up city life. Which is a pretty cool way to think about it. So we have to create, document, and re-present our own passage of the city. It is a four hour long cut into the city life, a kind of cross-section of the Barcelona hustle and bustle. And the idea is that on the way we create some form of little "disturbance" and then observe the ripples. And the ripples should be made in possibly more than one way, so that we have multiple tracks through which to observe what is going on. It's got more of an artistic focus than a scientific or research one. And it's really cool.

Past projects have included things like asking directions to a specific place, then having the person draw the directions for you. That creates a set of drawings that show how people's mental maps of the city differ. Or another past project included sitting on the metro from the beginning of one line to its end, and taking a picture of the seat opposite you (they face each other) at every stop, then lining all the pictures up with the inner monologue of the picture taker.

I think mine is going to be standing in Plaza Catalunya, the biggest and busiest plaza right at the heart of the city, holding a sign that says "Free Hugs." I'll have someone else taking pictures of everyone that comes up to get a hug. Definitely gonna be interesting to see how that goes.

Then I think there might also be papers in each of the architecture classes, but the rumor is that he has always cancelled one project every year. So we'll see how those go.

Ok, well that's about it. I just picked up my backpack from Kylie. Looks like a winner. Can't wait to get to Interlaken.

Catch up with you guys soon!

-K3