Notes On Time Mapping

1) "I will be there in 20 minutes"
2) We negotiate the space of the City of LA using time and not distance
3) There are certain times of day when you should not drive to the Westside, where a 12 mile trip takes one and a half hours.
4) Differing time truths of inhabitants of the city
5) Psycho-temporal geography

Last Saturday, we explored mapping DTLA and temporal geographies from a time-based perspective. Some participants walked, some drove, others took public transportation. Specimen collections by all groups took place at a specific time, 20 minutes after we left the headquarters of the HABEAS LOUNGE.

Navigating the city with an eye on time signifiers, the walking group noticed numbers and clocks. At a specific street corner where everything was open for 24 hours, memory was triggered towards a nighttime version of the city. Our driving mappers had a consumer time experience (spending money = spending time?) : American Apparel was 20 minutes away! And our public transportation mappers had their journey prematurely put on hold at the end of the DASH line- standing still for the most part - idling at a stop light -waiting for a bus that never came - observing the different modes of transportation passing them by in the bike lane, on the sidewalk and in the street - and then with no other option short of hitching- walked the four blocks back to our starting point.

Our divergent paths made plural patterns on the wall map - circles for wait time, multicolored paths for the varying ways back to the LOUNGE, and detailed notes on interactions/observations.

Come check out the paths we took and the maps we derived from this past Saturday's time-controlled experiment/adventure. Then, visualize your own time map, think about your perspective, draw it out and make your contribution to the wall of maps at the HABEAS LOUNGE.