[gps-talkusers] The travails of travel in the land of the excessively verbose
- From: "Richard Myers" <dkmyers28@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 03 Sep 2005 08:32:45 +0900
Hello, Lisa,
I was just fine, reading away and thinking I would learn something about
traveling. That was until I came to the first of David's questions. When I
finally waded through the jibberish, I decided that he didn't have a clew.
For clarity of the written thought, you might recommend him to read John
Hull's "On Sight and Insight", especially where he discusses his trip to
France.
You can't read writin if it's written rotten. Author: Pogo
Dick Myers
(8):[(8)
From: Lisa Yayla <fnugg@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: gps-talkusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lime119@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [gps-talkusers] research paper - the delights of travel
Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 20:54:13 +0200
Hi,
Am forwarding a request for help from a researcher, David Feeney, from
Ireland , Trinity College who is working on a research paper about travel
and blindness.
Thought that this list is definitely the place to go. Am enclosing his
questions. He can be contacted at the following email address
lime119@xxxxxxxxxxx
Regards,
Lisa
A relatively recent recruit to the interdisciplinary task of exploring
various aspects of the experience of blindness, I am currently struggling
with a paper on the acquaintance of blind people with the delights of
travel. Although I am interested in the role played by tactile maps in this
experience, my paper takes its starting point as that juncture when
orientation is no longer in doubt, and the blind wayfinder is free to savour
the aesthetic gratification afforded by his/her passage from place to place.
I address the following questions to members of the blind community, but
would be equally grateful if they, or people familiar with their experience,
would take the time to suggest ways in which some of the following questions
might be addressed in relation to the experience of voyaging:
· How would you describe the relation between navigation and aesthetic
appreciation?
· The process of ?psychical distancing? might be described, in the context
of travel, as the willed abstraction of the element of danger from
conditions of low or impeded vision, in order to dispel anxiety and induce a
savouring of the poignant enjoyment of the very act of making one?s way in
such treacherous conditions. Is it facile to suggest that this phenomenon
might feature in your experience of travel? Do you suspect that his question
may be more pertinent to those with some trace of vision? How is the balance
between the emotions of excitement and trepidation experienced while
travelling through unfamiliar territory? In what ways does a map dictate
this balance?
· Have you ever availed of a ?pre-visit pack?? In what way, and to what
extent does being primed or prepared for an encounter with certain
geographical or architectural features enhance or diminish your aesthetic
enjoyment of the experience?
· Which do you find more enjoyable - the maiden visit or the ?revisit?? How
would you describe the relation of ?sense memory/memories? to the enjoyment
afforded by the latter? In what way does the act of revisiting help you to
?update your file? on places you have been before?
· Do you harbour a conception of the distinction between ?potential reach?
and ?actual reach?, and of the process of travel as a purposeful action to
transform the former into the latter? What do you make of the type of allure
held, for example by a distant mountain range in the case of the sighted
traveller? Do you think that a tactile map fortifies your understanding of
this phenomenon?
· What are the main aesthetic qualities of the maps themselves? Do they have
the capacity to incite wanderlust? Do you think, for example, that the
texture and curvature of the map adds an element of immediacy to your
speculations about the proposed trip, in contrast to the relative remoteness
from the mapped territory in question felt by the sighted traveller during
the preliminary stages of an excursion?
· What are the chief differences between travelling alone with a map, and
travelling with a companion? How significant is the difference between
travelling with a sighted and blind companion?
· What degree of influence do the conditions exert over your journey? Does
rain, for example, or a stormy passage, give you a keener sense of your
surroundings than still weather?
· What kind of data do you usually return from a journey with? What are the
chief ways in which this data differs from the information the map had
yielded before you set out on the journey?
· By what kind of features do you typically identify places?
· To what extent is the joy of arrival commensurate with the effort expended
getting to your destination? What does a map contribute to the joy (rather
than mere fact) of arrival?
· How would you describe the difference between the respective values of
place-names and places to the pastime of travel?
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