I had chosen to observe the northeast corner of Prospect Park, seen below:
The area is quite close to the Parkside stop of the Q train, making observations relatively easy to do over the course of the week. So far in my “observational sessions,” I’ve sort of flitted about the site, trying to figure out what I should be observing. Should I be counting how many people walk by? The number of bikers, the number of moms with strollers, the number of barbeques? None of these seem like the right way to observe or experience the space.
But the following collections came out of that line of thinking:
Garbage Found
Tree Abrasions Noticed
The collections are not exhaustive (for the sake of my own sanity), and I refrained from attempting to count or categorize these items (at least for now).
My most successful act of noticing came when I made an audio recording of the ambient sound at my site:
Audio Recording of Ambient Sound
Though our project instructions specifically task us with setting aside our phones, it also felt as though I often needed my phone to capture the kind of information I wanted. Audio was a little different – this actually required me to set my phone down, so as not to interfere with the recording. This was my most rewarding period of actually seeing what was in my site. As I began to look and listen, I began to notice the sounds of different birds, and gain a sense of where their chirps were actually located in the space (before, their chirps were just part of the environment, a sort of disembodied noise). It all felt quite Odellian.
I’m hoping to add a bit of counting and categorizing in my future observations. These are a few ideas of what I might do in future sessions:
- Collect the leaves that have fallen on the ground. What species are represented?
- Are there any fungal species at my chosen site?
- Watercolor studies of the three large trees in my area.
- Try to identify the plant species in iNaturalist (I’ve been having bad luck with this one).
Other suggestions?
