sensory map of an imaginary pneumatic tube system

I have been wondering what a map of an imaginary pneumatic tube system, for a fantastical city of the past, present or future might look like ... or smell like ... or taste like ... or sound like ... For why should maps be restricted to beautiful lines and pictures?

I am inspired by the taste map of the London underground, created by James Wannerton of Blackpool in the UK. Wannerton has synaesthesia, a condition which means that the senses become intermingled in interesting and sometimes disturbing ways. For Wannerton, it means that he can taste words. His map is filled with tube stops that he has tasted, from cold Horlicks and crisp sandwiches to coal dust and burned rubber. What would pneumatic tube stops taste like? In Christchurch, where pneumatic tubes transport burgers and fries from the kitchen to hungry diners, they might be rather tasty. In the hospital it might be a bit different! Imagine a network that transported all different kinds of materials at the same time: burgers through one line, letters through another.

I am inspired too by Kate McLean's smell maps. In Paris, letters sent by pneumatic tube could be scented by perfume, the scent lingering in the little capsules. On Roosevelt Island however, it is garbage which moves through the tubes, leaving a lot less pleasant smell. Further inspiration can be found in the many sound maps online. Sounds could be recorded of landing and take-off, or rumbling journeys and expressions of delight or dismay at the contents of capsules, such as those that I have uploaded onto SoundCloud.

I am having lots of fun imagining all the sensory stops on my fantastical map. What would your imaginary pneumatic map sound, smell, feel, taste and look like?

For more about pneumatic tube maps, see my series of blogposts in 2010 and 2011.

archaeological fragments of a mystery

A follow-up on last week's post about the Dreyfus Affair, for at the train station the other day I spied an intriguing poster for a new book by crime writer Robert Harris:

Harris has written a historical fictionalised account of events surrounding the Dreyfus Affair, from the perspective of Colonel Georges Picquart, whose tireless investigations led to the ultimate release of Alfred Dreyfus from imprisonment.

A petit taster. Paris, 1896. Colonel Georges Picquart has handed his trusty officer Lauth the infamous cone of torn-up documents without looking at them yet:

He dons his apron, and while he fetches his box of equipment from his cupboard, I empty the paper sack over his desk. Immediately my eye is caught by a sprinkling among the white and grey of several dozen pale blue fragments, like patches of sky on a cloudy day. I poke a couple with my forefinger. They are slightly thicker than normal paper. Lauth picks one up with his tweezers and examines it, turning it back and forth in the beam of his powerful electric lamp. 

"A petit bleu," he murmurs, using the slang expression for a pneumatic telegram card. He looks at me and frowns. "The pieces are torn up smaller than usual." 

"See what you can do." 

It must be four or five hours later that Lauth comes to my office. He is carrying a thin manila folder. He winces with distress as he offers it to me. his whole manner is anxious, uneasy. "I think you ought to look at this," he says. 

I open it. Inside lies the petit bleu. he has done a craftsman's job of sticking it back together. The texture reminds me of something that might have been reconstructed by an archaeologist: a fragment of broken glassware, perhaps, or a blue marble tile. it is jagged on the right-hand side, where some of the pieces are missing, and the lines of the tears give it a veined appearance. But the message in French is clear enough.

The message implies another officer's guilt and Dreyfus' innocence. The discovery is a pivotal moment in the plot, one that the characters return back to. Harris reconstructs the story from fragments and shards of documents himself, breathing life into that moment. The Evening Standard declares that Harris is committed to the belief that "you can get at a truth as a novelist in a way you can't as a historian - you can bring things alive, the sense of fear, prickly fear, the sweat, the smell of the place and so on".

For those who like the book, apparently the idea came from a lunch with Roman Polanski. So look out for the film soon!

sensory research

Often my posts on this blog refer to the sensory aspects of pneumatic tubes. My PhD research paid attention to the sensory nature of doctors' adjustments in new hospitals, and my future research concerns the sensory practices of doctors-in-training. While I have, and will be, deliberately paying attention to the sensory dimensions of experience in hospital settings, often this can be overlooked in health care research. My PhD supervisor and I wrote an article that was published recently in Qualitative Health Research which attempts to heighten awareness of the sensory in qualitative health research, particularly in interviews, and I share it here in case some of you are interested.