A Sense of Place ~ Ways of Seeing

This exhibit is a physical representation of my series 'A Sense of Place', which explores the psychological, sociodemographic and economic determinants of urban ambiance. Here, the physical representation is used as a metaphor for a world without borders, united by shared senses of belonging. 

The pieces were prepared using a multimedia approach: first, the maps were projected onto a canvas and the borders between London boroughs were traced over in tape. The projected image was then removed and the boroughs were painted, with the colours corresponding to the intensity of the respective ambiance dimensions (alternative and creative were selected for this showing). Over time, the tape will gradually fall off the canvas, representing a map of London which is not divided strictly by borough borderlines, but is held together by unique and shared senses of place/urban ambiance. 

The exhibit was a finalist for the 'Ways of Seeing' exhibition at the Holy Art Gallery, London, and was on display for February/March 2022.

A Sense of Place ~ Ways of Seeing

A Sense of Place draws upon psychogeography, urban informatics and esthetics to explore how individuals and social groups imbue meaning to the neighbourhoods in which they live. Here, I apply the concept of ‘urban ambiance’ to the city of London, and demonstrate how complex scientific concepts can be communicated esthetically through art. 

Urban ambiance is defined as “a complex composition of physical, physiological, psychological, sociological and cultural criteria”. It offers a unique way of capturing an observer’s perception of a neighbourhood, and is understood in this research quantitatively, through analysing millions of geotagged hashtags from Flickr images and matching hashtags to an ambiance terms taxonomy. I combine this with official sociodemographic data and individual-level personality data to explore the relationships between urban ambiance and psychological, sociodemographic and geographical determinants in London. This analysis uses explainable artificial intelligence to provide interpretable and transparent results.

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