Endnotes¹


Alara Degirmenci
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    Artwork

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    Psychogeographies
    Inkjet print on paper, laser-engraved acyrlic
    16 x 24 in posters
    February–April 2022 (3 months)

    Statement I believe in the power of intentional design in sparking conversations, inspiring action, and influencing decisions. My designs are driven by intent and informed by a culmination of research, close-looking, listening, seeing, and reflecting. My work is often multi-layered, involving different pieces and narratives unified by a central theme. My thesis, “Psychogeographies” is composed of a series of posters, zines, and an interactive installation that explore and celebrate my and my friends’ experiences in relation to Yale’s campus over the past four years. We are used to seeing maps that depict scientific and factual information, which often fails to capture the humanity of everyday life. My design methodology uses anonymously sourced data to visualize a narrative of emotions and experiences of both personal and collective nature. It is an attempt to visualize the often unseen information and aims to demonstrate how mapping can be used to bring depth and meaning to places through portraying emotions, memory, sensation, and imagination. The resulting maps aim to spark moments of reflection rather than convey scientifically accurate information. In other words, it can be considered an ongoing attempt to create emotional portraits of a city with the hope of making the viewers reflect on their time in relation to time and place.

    Student

    map, people, yale, project, thinking, spaces, seniors, new haven, crying, chapel, place, campus, interested, idea, emotion, experiences, mapping, question, feel, suggestion
    “I'm inspired by the idea of how place makes you feel...those relationships between experiences and emotions related to physical spaces. Also, as a senior, I already feel very nostalgic about campus...I've just been trying to pay more attention and explore my personal relationship to place...and the collective experience of the people around me.”
    “Paula Scher has been a big inspiration with her typography maps. And also looking at other data visualization tools where they use different data to visualize the spaces that we live in…And then I was really inspired by Alicia Chang's thesis book from MFA class of '99, where she used her studio mates as pieces of data to project their movements”
    “I've also been interested in public versus private spaces in general and how...private spaces means so much in terms of intimacy.”
    “I'm also hoping to have maybe a larger, blank map, but I can ask the visitors to come and write what they want, during the installation. Exploring what that might look like.”
    “Interactive in the sense that I want my friends, and anyone who comes in there to reflect on their time and have a reflective experience.”
    Endnotes¹

    Alara Degirmenci
  • *
    •

    Artwork

  • 1
    •
  • 2
    •
  • 3
    •
  • 4
    •
  • 5
    •
  • 6
    •
    Psychogeographies
    Inkjet print on paper, laser-engraved acyrlic
    16 x 24 in posters
    February–April 2022 (3 months)

    Statement I believe in the power of intentional design in sparking conversations, inspiring action, and influencing decisions. My designs are driven by intent and informed by a culmination of research, close-looking, listening, seeing, and reflecting. My work is often multi-layered, involving different pieces and narratives unified by a central theme. My thesis, “Psychogeographies” is composed of a series of posters, zines, and an interactive installation that explore and celebrate my and my friends’ experiences in relation to Yale’s campus over the past four years. We are used to seeing maps that depict scientific and factual information, which often fails to capture the humanity of everyday life. My design methodology uses anonymously sourced data to visualize a narrative of emotions and experiences of both personal and collective nature. It is an attempt to visualize the often unseen information and aims to demonstrate how mapping can be used to bring depth and meaning to places through portraying emotions, memory, sensation, and imagination. The resulting maps aim to spark moments of reflection rather than convey scientifically accurate information. In other words, it can be considered an ongoing attempt to create emotional portraits of a city with the hope of making the viewers reflect on their time in relation to time and place.

    Student