The Moves and Grooves of Chicago
Places are a lived experience. This idea, or a variation of it, is often repeated throughout our readings. This idea is hard to understand though without actually experiencing it. A place is not just a singular event, but rather the culmination of all of the events that take place in this space. From the mundane to the extraordinary, everything defines it’s space. These events are what define the ambient rhetoric. The rhythms of a space.
The first gif I created is of the brown line train arriving at the Southport stop. This is probably the most obvious idea when one thinks of a gif to represent Chicago, but there’s a reason for that. The El represents the veins of Chicago, all culminating in the symbolic Chicago heart of downtown. Thousands of people see this event every day. the El is a microcosm of the city, with each line representing a different facet of Chicago. The El defines the city in so many ways that it is necessary that it is shown in the rhythms of the city.
The second gif I created is an average view of Michigan Avenue. I chose this spot to create my second gif because it is one of the most popular streets in the city. When people hear Michigan Avenue their mind quickly goes to fancy clothing shops and office buildings. Michigan Avenue represents downtown Chicago with its skyscrapers and businessmen hurriedly walking this way or that. When making this gif I was able to appreciate the (pun intended) magnificence behind what was on this street. I walk down Michigan often, but I rarely stop to appreciate the grandeur of the buildings around me, and the hundreds of thousands of hours of collective community effort to create these structures.
The third gif is quite a contrast from the second. It is of Southport street later in the night. It is reminiscent of sleepy Chicago neighborhoods, and young families attempting to live in the closest thing to a suburb while staying in the city. This gif represents what many of us see while walking home. It is a stark contrast of the Chicago shown from Michigan Avenue.
all of these gifs represent different ideas of what Chicago is. One is the picture of sleepy commuters trying to get from the outskirts of the city to downtown, The other image is of shoppers and businessmen, and the last of a quiet Chicago neighborhood, but all are accurate representations of Chicago. The ambient rhetorics in all of these gifs are vastly different. The city is an innumerable amount of things and ideas, far too many to ever capture in any medium, but this slice will do.
