You're listening to episode 762 of a very spatial podcast.

June 8th, 2025.

Hello and welcome to a VerySpatial podcast.

I'm Jesse.

I'm Sue.

I'm Barb, and this is Frank.

And this week we're gonna be talking about some constructed landscapes maybe, but of course, first we have some news starting off with the lawsuits continue and the current administration continues to lose lawsuits.

However, whether or not they actually pay attention to whether or not they lost lawsuits is a whole other issue, but in theory.

The USDA will be republishing some of their climate change data that had been taken offline.

You know, you have the fact that farmers need that information, and so the fact that climate information was considered not useful by the administration who feels that anything that I don't know is true is bad.

We're kind of surprised that people actually wanted information about climate.

For, you know, livelihoods.

So yeah, the thing that a lot of people in, at least the United States, I am sure it's true in other countries too, but a lot of people in the United States fail to recognize is that climate is going to happen whether you like it or not.

And it may be a political issue, but also it's inevitable.

So.

Being aware of that is critical to planning to everything really.

I mean, so, and you can tell this because a awful lot of multi multinational multi-billion dollar companies are paying attention to this data and using their planning purposes.

Even ones that you're saying, you may be saying on one hand.

You are significantly contributing to the climate crisis.

But the other hand, they're doing things to mitigate for the climate crisis, so they even believe it.

So yeah we, we need this data.

What's interesting to me is that, you know, one of the classic examples to use to explain how satellite data and GPS works, and I have the poster on my wall is farm Vehicle and Agriculture with the satellites up and it shows like how they're using all this data and analysis and equipment for agriculture.

It's just such a classic example because it's a, a classic use.

And.

It's that way for a reason.

Continuing with the absurdity of the current administration in the United States.

We've been talking for unfortunately too long at this point about the update to the spatial referencing systems the upcoming NSRS 2022, which did we ever decide if they're changing the name?

Did you guys ever talk to anybody about whether they were changing the name?

We, we were supposed to talk to somebody, but then the very thing that we're talking about, the news item kind of obliterated that.

Oh, yeah.

Conversation.

So, as you might imagine with Noah Cuts in general, this was one of the many offices, the National Geodetic Survey that lost staff.

During the last, how many ever months it's been now I can't even keep track of time.

17 years.

Yeah, that's what it feels like.

It, it's been six months, hasn't even been six months.

It's technically five months.

'cause it's January 20th ish.

2020 first.

Yeah.

So not even, 'cause it's not even June 20th yet, so Yeah, it's, yeah.

So the thing that we've been waiting for.

To be able to update all of our data so we have a more responsive, reflexive spatial references for STEM is kind of on hold again.

And, and this is before this, so it is important to note that it was on hold for a real long time.

'cause this was supposed to roll out in 2018 or 2020, somewhere in that timeframe.

And it didn't roll out for a whole lot of.

Technical and logistical issues.

And then of course, COVID happened and that, you know, threw everything to a little bit of a tailspin.

So there were, I'm gonna go ahead and say good reasons for it to go on hold as long as it did.

This is a hundred percent money and funding.

It, it's just a political determination as why it's on hold now.

So it's no, in my opinion, good reason at all.

This is the oldest agency in the United States government, by the way, so it's even silly that.

It for historical reasons why we wouldn't even bother to, to do this at all.

It's just a lack of understanding of what our different agencies do and the different groups do this.

This is such a, a vital organization, and as the National Society of Professional Surveyors Director said, it's kind of like oxygen.

You don't know you need it until it's not there.

I don't wanna fall back on the, this is another.

Problem with a lack of geo literacy.

But again, it feels like people should know how important the geodetic information is to their daily lives.

But as we said in the first news item, let's point out, a lot of this is in fluid.

Transition.

A lot of this is in change from seemingly hour to hour, certainly day to day.

So hopefully this gets restored at some level.

Who knows?

Okay.

So that's those things, and those are just two of many, many, many things that are wrong with our current administration that they're messing up in terms of geospatial, geography, science, culture in general.

But there are good things in the world as well.

So let's.

Separate from all those things and move on to the fact that the GIS Certification Institute has announced its first class of G-I-S-P-E certified professionals.

These are not full fledge GSPs.

These are people who are meeting the new criteria for the emerging GIS professional, which means they don't have all the work hours.

They do have generally classwork hours and those type of things, so they don't have the full point system, but they did do the pre GISP exam.

So they had the inaugural one of those it was administered to 45 candidates.

41 of those successfully passed the G-I-S-P-E exam and are now GISP.

So they are emerging.

And this is a one time thing.

You can get the G-I-S-P-E, I think it's three years, and then after that.

That of course, hopefully will get you to the point where you have that required number of work hours or time in work that gets you to that full GISP capabilities.

Yeah.

This is something I think was sorely missing within the GSP and, you know, the GSP has been around for, oh, how long has it been now?

It's surprisingly a little time.

Let's just put that like 15 years, 20 years, something like that.

I think it's 20 ish.

Yeah.

So compared to something like, you know, professional surveyor certification, which you've been around since.

Oh, probably the 18 hundreds, if not the 17 hundreds in the United States, probably before that in other countries.

You know, professional engineer certification has been around for, I have no idea, but I would measure, I would imagine it's measured more in a hundred year timeframe than not.

You know, CPA, all these other sort of professional things have been around forever.

The GSP is new and they have been evolving and rolling out features.

Is that the right word?

Yeah.

Let's use that word features as they've said, okay, this is a deficit we need to address.

And I think it's very, it's very promising and it's wonderful that they're doing this to give students a mechanism for evolving from just a student to this, this certified professional designation.

We still, I think, have a little bit of a.

Argument to be made for why you need A-G-I-S-P, but that's, that's even growing with time.

A lot of the engineering firms I'm seeing when they offer jobs for GIS, they're, they're asking for GSPs.

I don't know that it's going beyond that, but I.

It, it's starting to become important.

So this is great that students will be on the first step to, to do that.

Yeah, and I think I would, I would point out to go back, I think Jesse, you, you mentioned that it's then three years or, or some, 'cause I can't remember the exact time but that the idea is that this would bring people into the professionalization fold a little earlier.

Right.

The idea of that but also that you're moving towards in their minds a full certification after you've met the number of years in a position kind of requirements most likely, I'm guessing I'd have to go back and look, but that you'll have to take the full test and go through that full process after you've, you know, reached that milestone.

I'm not sure if you have to do it at the, the full test.

Yeah.

Well, that's a question then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That'd be.

If and, and it is kind of interesting because it's three years, but let's see, I'm trying to remember in the GISP, so you get, if you're not familiar with it and you're interested in the GISP, whether you're, you know eligible for something like this or you're eligible for the big GISP, you know, you get points and you get so many points in these different categories, and one of which is work.

Another one is education, another one is service.

Those are, broadly speaking, the three and how you get your points.

There's a complicated formula.

You can go to the GISP and.

See how it works.

Don't, don't, don't listen to 'em.

It's not complicated.

It's just you, you've just gotta do it.

Well, it, it is complicated in the sense of it's not a one-to-one ratio.

One hour of of education does not get you a point.

It gets you some fractional thing.

There's a, there's a calculator to do it.

It's not hard.

But the point is, is that once you get the number of points you need, you don't need any more points.

So if you have, let's just say for the sake of argument, 50 points that could be used for education, really, once you hit the four or five or whatever the number is, then everything else after that.

It doesn't matter anymore for documentation purposes.

So the tricky bit here is that it, the number one category I do believe is work experience.

So actually working in the field, this was the big impediment for you know, new people into the GIS world.

They didn't have that, you know, accumulated.

So this, this program is critical to help them get jumpstart in that.

And I do have a question of whether or not they have to actually take the test.

'cause I think that the test was, I.

Like you said, to get in and once you're in, you're, you're good.

You don't have to do that anymore.

So it is a good question.

And yet we're not gonna sit here and just look it up on the website.

We'll leave that for you to do on your own if you're interested.

That's what I was, well it's a new program and it wouldn't shock me to find out some of this is a little more evolving as they experience Yeah.

Get experience with it too.

So you can find out more@gisci.org.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't know.

It's they're not the only ones who are pushing for this and I.

I'm blanking right now, who else is doing it?

But I know that at A-S-P-R-S, there's the capability to do some levels as a student and there's a couple of other industry adjacent organizations that are, are doing the same type of thing of finding ways to get people in earlier to help with that professionalization instead of just waiting for them to have all the experience.

Give them that sense of belonging a little bit earlier, which I think is important.

Speaking of which, over in the UK where you have the association of, sorry, the Association for Geographic information.

A GI.

Not to be confused with, oh, I just forgot what A GI stands for for the geology people.

Oh, well they have an A GI as well.

But they are working on an update to the action plan for geo skills.

They did a 2023 survey.

Yes.

It's the American Geo Sciences Institute.

That is correct.

But the Association for Geographic information had a 2023 survey which the information for that is out.

You can go to the website.

In fact, I think the link that we have in the show notes takes you to a page that you can download the report on that, but at the top of that page, you can.

Provide information on basically the next survey.

So the action plan for geo skills.

If you go to the webpage in the show notes and click on that, it'll take you to a Microsoft form.

And it's basically a survey of where you would rank various aspects of the geospatial industry.

In terms of importance.

So if you are interested in, you know, helping the associate for geo association for geographic information, 'cause I can't just say a GI, since there's more than one of them, get an idea about where they're going in the future and what they're gonna suggest and their, their second report in 2020 from the 2025 survey then here to the webpage.

Help them out.

And that's it for the news.

So over the last couple of weeks.

Three weeks, however long it's been now, I don't even remember anymore Time Is, is meaningless with, with jet lag.

Sue and I were in Japan for part of the time.

It was a study abroad trip that Dr.

Bergeron was a faculty member on.

And the last week was research on various things while we were over there, but as part of the trip.

We visit a lot of constructed landscapes, and so I think that would be a good topic to discuss partially to talk about some of the ones that we saw, but just what it is that we do as a species to create these landscapes.

You know, we talk about cultural landscapes, we talk about physical.

Geography, landscapes natural landscapes if you want to, but this idea of creating landscapes for a specific purpose to convey a specific idea is kind of covered in.

So whenever I taught cult, whenever I, yeah, taught, I'll go with taught since I probably won't teach it anytime in the near future.

Cultural geography, you know, this whole McDonaldization Disnification idea of space that is part of cultural geography.

It is very much a, a thing that we have done to try to generate everything from cultural connection to consumerism, to whatever you wanna kind of highlight.

And so these constructed landscapes, which, you know, are out there in abundance at this point are, you know, representations of the ways that we want to drive.

The landscape, I guess is the way of putting it.

So what are your, what are your general thoughts or does anybody wanna just start with a landscape in specific?

Well, I think I would would add onto that like what we're thinking about is landscapes that are intentionally both created and curated to have certain elements in them to tell a particular narrative or narratives.

And so I think it's interesting on multiple levels.

So one.

The inspiration for such landscapes, right, comes from real world places or our perception of real world places whether present or past or even, I guess, imagined in the future.

And then elements are selected out, but they're selected out very much with an idea towards presenting a narrative or offering an experience that.

Has an expectation that people will, I think, react to it similarly.

Right?

So it dovetails it's like a physical space version of a lot of the work all of us do in terms of sort of looking at digital landscapes and things like that.

But it plays out in physical space.

So for, I mean, like, to give an, give an example and then you know, Barbara Frank, if you wanna kick in, one of the places we visited in Japan was Tokyo Disney Sea, right?

So it's a theme park.

And right now it's the only Disney Sea in the world.

I believe they're planning one or more in other places, but currently the Tokyo one is the only one.

But the, the landscape areas that are, are built into the theme park have very specific themes and they're very recognizable.

And some of them are from specific Disney properties in the sense of intellectual properties.

So stories, movies things like that.

You're talking about the Little Mermaid, aren't you?

No, actually there's not a little mermaid one.

Really?

I was just assumed that was what you were.

Oh yeah.

But, but interestingly, but you have Aladdin's Castle, you have 20,000 leagues.

So into Jules Verne, you have kind of a Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones area.

You have a interesting, a New York City area.

The New Fantasy Springs, which is tied more to frozen fan.

Frozen.

Oh, Peter Pan.

Yeah.

Rapunzel.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Not the little, yeah.

Okay.

Sorry.

Sorry to interrupt.

That might be at Disneyland, but we didn't go to Tokyo to Disneyland.

We just went to Disney Sea.

So, but interestingly, two of them, the New York landscape and then Venice are in fact places that aren't necessarily associated with, with Disney stories.

So that's interesting that two areas that they devote a lot of effort to are snapshots of places that are popular settings.

For entertainment and also like visiting.

And they, they actually invest a lot in those particular areas too.

So that's, that's an interesting aspect of it.

But when you're visiting those and trying to, so as the reason why we visited them with students is to kind of have an in the field exercise in reading landscape, but also in trying to maybe understand some of the stories that are.

Are trying to be constructed there.

And that's a question right?

Is, is what is it?

If you wanna see a miniature Venice, what is it you're trying to project for that?

And one of the, the sort of central parts of, of interaction with the Venice is actually a gondola ride.

That takes you just a little ways.

And, and by the way, I've done the real gondola ride and it's about the same.

You go a little bit of a ways and you go out into the lagoon area, I guess it's called, and you come right back.

And so I actually found that to be very similar to what I actually did when I, I took a gondola ride.

So, but interaction wise, that's really the only interaction you do in the Venice area and in the New York one, I'm not really sure if there was anything specific related to that either, but.

I think seeing these it starts to beg the, you know, the question as to how we, how we go about it.

'cause I've always been amazed about the design of these things and the fascination with how this is done.

But it comes back to those principles of geography and the way we read landscape.

First we read it and then, you know, if we're trying to say that these are the particular emotions that might be evoked or these are the things that I, I.

Get from inhabiting the landscape, then I'm now re reproducing them with the hope that someone else is maybe gonna get some of that same emotional connection or experience out of it.

So my brain went like nine different directions simultaneously.

So let's go back to what I was originally thinking when Jesse started setting this up.

I, I.

I'm kind of curious.

I was thinking about a professor that we all know, I don't know if we all had them.

I, I had him for which is the geographic traditions course that, that you get in graduate school.

But I'm blanking on his name.

Professor Han Hanham.

Thank you.

Professor Hanham, who wants me to comment that there is no landscape that's not touched by humans, that it's all.

Human drive, which was a bit very contentious for the physical geographers that were also required to take that class that were in there.

They were, that's just the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

But there was a, there was a whole lot of, of conversation around that, and I was thinking, I, I'm wondering how much are there are landscapes that aren't like Jesse suggested, that aren't curated to some extent, even to some extent, the natural landscapes are what we've decided not to touch now.

When you went to the Disney example, I was like, oh, I think, okay, I get it.

We're making of something that are highly curated where that's what we're really talking about is stuff that's.

Designed specifically for this, and I was kind of curious actually, what I wonder what the Disney Sea Ven Venice looks like compared to the Venetian in Las Vegas, which is also another replication of Venice with a gondola ride down the middle of it.

Which we've also been, and it's all, and yeah, it's very similar.

Yeah.

And it's versus Al, Al Outdoor.

Yeah.

And, and it's I was like, oh, it's interesting because there's exact same, you know, we have three, at least three, and there may be more, at least three representation of Venice, the actual Venice, and then the one that is at Disney and then the one in, in Las Vegas.

And, and, and it'd be interesting to look at those and think about those landscapes as what are they trying to curate?

You know, what is Disney trying to curate in the Japanese theme park that they have compared to, what's the one that I've been to in Vegas where it's basically a mall.

It's basically just a big shopping mall.

And it's to curate going from store to store and to keep you in the Yeah.

Potential to go and.

Do some more gambling.

Right?

Because the way, the only way to get there, as far as I know, is, is you, you go in through a casino and then you go downstairs and you can do all the shopping and you come out through a casino.

So, yeah.

Well, and I think I would, I would add an interesting note that I had to, it is that the video game that I use in my video game, worlds class as kind of an example of immersive world building also has a very Venice like.

City in it.

That is part of the narrative.

And when I was there, I could actually almost side by side match screenshots from that video game, which developed by a Japanese developer.

Which game?

Oh, final Fantasy 15 is the game with one of their, with what I was seeing kind of an experiencing in, not just in the real Venice, but in the Tokyo, Disney, Venice.

So but all of them, the gondola ride.

Riding a gondola is in fact a central way of navigating through that landscape.

And so I think so.

So anyway, I thought that was really interesting that that's a central piece that's taken away from visiting Venice, I guess, or from seeing Venice experience by others, is the mechanism of being able to travel on by gondola is actually replicated in a lot of these.

Constructed scenarios.

So that's when you say, well, what's the thing that you want people to be able to do?

It's ride a gondola.

So when you mentioned, you know, the, you know, the digital geographies and then I was thinking about Disney.

I go, I was, I think of Disney as being highly constructed.

But I also think about the fact there're often a leader in the geospatial industry in terms of the types of things they use on the ground to basically create this feeling and to run it.

So I wondered, you know, how closely you felt at, you know, Disney Sea, if you've been to any of the other Disney properties that hid in geospatial construction that overlaid, I guess, underlaid everything instead of overlaid everything.

Well, I think one of the interesting things about that particular place is that part of the immersion.

Right.

And, and the Japanese in other part theme parks, so are very much into this being able to immerse yourself in a fantasy world in a physical space.

So there's a number of different parks and places that, that have this.

But interestingly, the construction of.

Disney Sea.

So when you first enter it, it is the Venice and then New York is next to it.

But once you move around this lagoon area into those parts of the park that are replicating some of the, the Disney properties and fantasy types of worlds, it's interesting that it's, it's very difficult to see another one when you're in one, if you know what I mean.

So the spatial construction of them is to seem as though each one is its own world.

And it's very cleverly done.

And, and although it's an expansive space overall, right compared to how big it could be everything is kind of packed in there.

So when, if you're in Aaba from the animated movie Aladdin, when you're kind of walking around there, you can't really see any other things until you kind of step out towards the edge and then you can see to the lagoon, or when you're in the Caldera where the kind of central constructions are for 20,000 leagues under the sea, you can't see anything else.

And then when you move into other areas, as soon as you're kind of into that world, it's very difficult to see other things.

So part of, part of the very, I think well done construction of that is saying the physical space must make you feel immersed in the world.

And so as best that they can, they're doing that, but also providing pathways for you to.

To move around because another thing Disney is very good at is moving people through its physical spaces so that they can, you know, get from one place to another.

But anyway, that was something I in experiencing on the ground I thought was really interesting because it's a key to kind of a curated landscape where you're trying to make people feel immersed in whatever that, you know, place and time is that they not, you know, kind of have distractions of the outside world.

And I thought that was really interesting.

And to kind of pull us away from the Disney rabbit hole that we could easily go down.

I'm, I'm gonna toss out another location that was very much curated.

Very different in terms of its expectation, in terms of, I.

People to attend and, and those type of things.

And that's the Edo Tokyo Open Air Museum.

And this is a little bit west of Central Tokyo.

About an hour from Tokyo Station, Zuku area by train.

And it's a collection of buildings, basically.

It's a fairly large park.

A small portion of this park is set aside for the museum, but even the museum portion of the park is probably, I dunno what, 10, 15 acres and Yeah.

You know, we're talking about buildings all the way through to things that are, you know.

Showa or even arguably almost modern era.

So you have a lot of different things going on that are representations of this is kind of what historic architecture ish would look like.

And they even have you know, kind of neighborhoods set up in the area.

They have a whole kind of CB, d central business district set up in the area just so people can go and see these kind of architectural examples in, in.

I guess is a way of putting it.

Yeah.

I mean just, it's a, a landscape that is a museum, that is a landscape.

But interestingly this one, and maybe you guys can think of places in other places that have this, is that the Edo Tokyo Open Architectural Museum reminds me of pictures, like photographs that are laid next to each other.

So, so there are places that are so.

A little bit different than the previous space you talk about, but, but interestingly.

If you see them, you can see yourself kind of almost in a snapshot with them.

So one of the things a lot of people like to do at that museum is take pictures of themselves in the historic structures.

There's even an old bus that you can kind of climb in, train car.

But it's interesting like the layout of that is so that once again you can get angles where it seems like none of the other stuff exists, even though there's a show era, shop Street.

Right.

Or earlier era, right next to a set of houses that actually were trying to show you the Japanese Western influence among you know, the elite class or whatever.

And they're right next to each other in terms of the space that you would have to walk.

But they're cleverly done in such a way that if you were to stand in it, you're like, oh, you could see, or you took a picture of it.

It's really like you're seeing it out of a scrapbook or something.

And so I found that to be kind of a really interesting way to, to lay out that space, to, to maximize kind of the feel once again, comes back to the mini immersion that to, to.

Make it a pleasing sort of thing to look at that landscape.

You wanna sense that it's not a jarring collection of stuff that's just been thrown down there.

It does seem like there's a, a, a sort of context around it.

I, I, you see that some in the Smithsonian.

Where, and it's interesting because there's definitely been an evolution.

I don't know anything about this field, but an evolution in museum curated studies work.

Because you'll have these displays that are older and it'll be more or less, you know, you're very much hands off.

It's behind a glass or you know, it's behind a rope in a glass.

It's what you're used to.

Then you'll move into other areas of and I'm thinking mostly about the American history museum.

You move into other areas where it is much more interactive and a much more immersive experience.

I remember the display they had, I think it was in the American History Museum of the internment camps for Japanese during World War II that happened here in the United States, and they had a, a, a camp setting that you actually could.

Like be in it.

It, it was a much more immersive experience.

Then compare that to my favorite thing, and there's a very different topic here.

One of my favorite things at the museum is if you go down to the basement of the American History Museum, you can go to an old soda shop and it works and you can get ice cream and it is a very immersive thing because you literally are in it eating ice cream served in much the way it would've been been done in the 1930s, I think, or twenties, whenever this was.

I.

You sort of prototyped that.

Obviously updated for modern food safety standards.

But basically it, it's, it's sort of those kind of two extremes.

The Aaron Space Museum, the Smithsonian also has a lot of interactive, immersive to get you to really see what this look like in reality as opposed to, you know, looking at it as objective.

Artifacts of history, you know, it's much more of an immersive experience.

It's not at the scale that you're talking about there, but it did, what you were talking about did remind me of that, where what I thought was interesting was I was thinking about the landscape of, well, a lot of parks particularly parks around things like battlefield.

So Gettysburg is a great example of.

That park is designed to get you into the landscape and allow you to explore it, but to explore within the context of that landscape.

It doesn't do what you're talking about, where obviously you can see the buildings on the edges and the built environment, all that stuff if you go to the edge of the park.

But if you're in the middle of the thing, you can very well see what the battlefield presumably would've looked much like.

Obviously a hundred years or so, 130, 40, whatever it's now years of of.

Change in the landscape will have some impact.

Not the same trees, not the same grass, all that sort of stuff.

All that sort of stuff.

But.

It seems a little bit like that here in United States.

It's interesting that given the, the sheer volume, breadth and depth of history that you see in that, you know, England has touched in various forms.

I remember when I was in London, I.

Going to like the London Museum, you didn't see things like that.

It's kind of interesting.

They didn't really, haven't really embraced that sort of approach to thinking about depicting history in this particular case.

But hi, depicting a landscape in such a way that you can connect to it at that level.

And we do have examples of this in the US if we look at some of the historic properties, you know, large plantations and those type of things.

Yeah.

Williamsburg, where you have had buildings pulled from somewhere else in the nearby.

Landscape.

They weren't originally, you know where they are now.

They were somewhere else.

They were just reconstructed or simply moved to this, to these locations.

So they could be in that historic context.

And that's kind of what this museum is.

It's not I think some of the things might have been built there, but many of them were moved into the park.

But yet just bringing all these things together just gives you that, that ability to go through this planned.

Museum experience so that you get a little bit of this, a little bit of that as you're going through it.

A little bit of curation by necessity.

Yeah.

Because the, in order to save those structures, they had to be moved.

So the structure.

In those cases, and I think in, you know, others where you have buildings and stuff that have been moved, right?

Then the, the, the building is separated from its original landscape and becomes the object like an artifact at that point.

So it goes into a new situation.

And so that's that different idea of are we.

Preserving the elements in, in the landscape itself.

Right.

So their context and orientation, and I'll, I'll agree, right.

I've, I've made a couple of trips to Gettysburg and one of the things that's difficult in, I think, curating those types of landscapes is that what really was of the importance was an ephemeral, you know, snapshot in time, right?

Those three days and, and the aftermath and even some of the, the prep for it.

But those things didn't leave necessarily a lot of physical.

Markers on the landscape that are, that are obvious, right?

That can be looked to itself so people know and know the names of, of, you know, little round top or something like that.

But those elements aren't necessarily in and of themselves the cultural importance, right?

It's what happened there.

So you have a temporal thing going on.

So so it's interesting, right, because there the landscape is not constructed in the same way, although it is.

And so.

When people go to visit it, there's, there's a different challenge in trying to create some immersion as well, although I'll say, as I've maybe said before, is the Gettysburg is where I had my one and only supernatural experience in my lifetime.

So, so there you go.

I don't know how to lead on from there.

I was gonna ask Sue and Jesse, if there was anywhere where you saw a totally constructed landscape.

That, you know, was, was not rooted in, in reality.

And I'm, I'm including Disney Sea and the rooted in reality, just 'cause you mentioned you know, Venice in New York, but, or Aladdin.

I mean, but they're, they're, they're variations on reality.

They're not reality themselves.

Oh wait, you took it out In fact that we did.

So another theme park in Compare.

So we asked the students to compare two theme my students to compare two theme parks Disney Sea, Tokyo, Disney Sea, and then another one called San Rio Pure Land.

So if you're not familiar, San Rio is the company that that created and, and owns Hello Kitty.

So the Hello Kitty Worldwide franchise and they have a number of theme parks, but one of the ones that they have in Tokyo is called San Rio Pure Land, and it is actually constructed.

Based on the world of Hello Kitty, the characters.

And there are physical elements in it, including a giant tree.

And then there's a, a, a boat that you could take around this, this magical world.

But it not only is something that's completely created and curated to promote Hello Kitty and its characters, but there's also some religious potential spiritual symbolism in it as well related to the Buddhist religion.

Specifically pure lamb buddism.

Yes.

Specifically pure land Buddhism.

So hence pure land.

And so that's really interesting because that is again, a, a fantasy world that is translated into physical space and it's very popular.

And, you know, long lines to, to.

Go in and do things there.

But it's, it's very fascinating to see how Hello Kitty is depicted in the, there's musical events in there.

There's a parade that circles the great tree and all kinds of things.

So, so that's an example of a fantasy landscape that actually has some real symbolism and stuff and was very carefully constructed to.

You know, present some ideas.

You know I, I made me think of, again, this is a Disney property 'cause they're the best at doing this.

But of the, I, I don't think, I think it's being decommissioned because it just was too expensive and nobody really wanted to do it.

But the Star Wars Hotel Galaxy that they had made that was supposed to Galaxy says yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That they had made it, you know, make you feel like you were actually in Star Wars in a, in a real setting.

You were really in a, in a spacecraft.

Similar thing.

It's a fantasy constructed thing.

Obviously it doesn't have the religious, well, for most, most people, it doesn't have the religious overtones.

Though Jedi apparently is a real religion in some.

Since areas.

So it, that's kind of interesting to make that I did wanna jump to a really contentious question I had about this which is, and I don't have a strong feeling to be honest with you.

I was thinking about the, you know, you were talking about, so the landscapes, like where they actually set originally in the orientation and all these sort of things to.

Moving them to a place that it's more honestly convenient in most cases for the modern world.

I, I'm wondering, you know, at, at some level from a cultural geography standpoint, how do we reconcile that push and pull between and I'm talking to, two archeologists who became geographers.

So they probably have a point of view, but you know, where you say, okay, that was then, and our culture has evolved in a different direction.

And that stuff needs to be, needs to be acknowledged that it had.

Historical context and we've pulled what we need out of it.

It needs to evolve with it as opposed to, no, we really, this is important.

We need to maintain the integrity of this, for that future knowledge of the past.

That's a, that's a problem I think that we, we contend with.

Society how to, how to reconcile those pushes and pulls.

Particularly when you're talking, it's, I think it's easy in the United States to talk about things like, for example, Gettysburg.

That's an important historical landscape.

Right?

But how about a plantation where that has, is an important historical landscape that has a very ugly connotation and connection, or what?

Well, I think that's kind of one of, you know, sort of the, the cruxes of.

First of all, you know, reading landscapes and then trying to see the elements there and then saying, based on this, right, we're interpreting them then and in a constructed landscape or, or, I mean, this is a.

A common thread, right?

A debate a aspect of analysis of historic districts of all these things, right?

So one of the things, for example just, just a a side thing in, in trying to understand this right, is I can remember even in my hometown, right?

Or in the towns around it, in upstate New York, I mean all these fancy houses, and it didn't occur to me that the little buildings behind them.

And they all, you know, like in a row, and then there'd be like an alley and there'd be little buildings behind them.

Like a lot of them were carriage houses where these family servants lived.

And, you know, often they got separated out into different plots and, you know, sold off and, and became houses for other, you know, other people.

But you know, that was never, often, never included.

I mean, sometimes they'll be still part of the property and they'll be repurposed.

But often, you know, that wasn't really mentioned.

Or I can remember in doing.

My dissertation study on Morgantown and doing the recreation, right one of the streets that we looked down from the building we were in at the time, white Hall.

We could like literally look out the window down Chestnut Street.

And you know, the character of that, since a lot of those buildings have been torn down of, you know, very much working class again, one street over from the main street where there had been tanneries, which if you know what that is, right?

That's where they process animal hides and the smell would be atrocious.

That was where immigrant workers lived and, and all of these things.

And there's very little of that landscape left, nor was there much interpretation related to it.

And so those are things, right?

You.

When you see that in as a snapshot in time, you say, well, what choice am I making?

In terms of any kind of, you know, reconstruction or preservation or things like that.

What, what decision, that decision am I making as to what that's gonna be?

And so, you know, there are a lot of landscapes like that where there's a lot of push and pull and the.

Those who are involved in it will often, you know, bring their worldviews to it.

So I think you're right.

I think that's absolutely one of the cruxes of, of doing these things.

And even, even in constructed landscapes that are meant for things like entertainment.

Right?

So there are very clear decisions made on what will or won't be represented even there.

And it's a multi temporal thing as well.

Whenever we look at these landscapes, we talk about them as a specific landscape, but that same plantation landscape has a modern history.

It has of course, its original plantation aspect.

The variations between those two times and what happened before that, there's likely you know, if there's a habitation site there.

Historically, there's very likely to be prehistoric materials underneath that.

So it's, it's, whenever we look at these, we look at them a lot of times as snapshots, but they are part of a very long con continuing change in landscape.

And, and I, it's really important because I know in the case of West Virginia, for example, there was a contention for a long time that West Virginia never had any Native Americans living in it, which is hilarious.

Yeah, it's preposterous.

But the reality is, is that because of the landscape and the way that it worked, those things weren't preserved.

It wasn't considered a priority.

Once, you know, European settlers moved into the area, it just wasn't relevant.

So that's the modern understanding of the landscape, pre-settlement, that nobody lived here.

It was just open territory.

There was no.

It was not used by Native Americans, which is, you know, demonstrably false now.

But that was truth for a very long period of time in our most recent history in, in my lifetime.

In fact, he did put quotes around the truth in case anybody was wondering.

You couldn't see them, but they were very big air quotes around truth.

Yeah.

But the point being is, is that Jesse's right?

It's, it's an evolving landscape.

And the question is, is where, when does the snapshot happen?

When is, you know, this, the critical bit that we go, this is the part we have to, it's the same thing as a region, right?

It's, it's the person who's doing the study who has to decide what the area, what the landscape, what the temporal context, all of these things are.

Why, why is Venice Gondola rides?

Well, if we're speak, if we're speaking about these snapshots and, and the examples you're giving, what was it like to be at the World Expo?

Because there's a, you know, that's the World Expo has a long history of snapshots and.

What were, what was the constructed landscape like there?

Well, I think, I think it was interesting in that there actually was a architectural theme in that there's a big ring, they call it the grand ring.

And so one of the things, that Japanese culture is known for Japanese architecture is known for, is their ability to work in wood and not have to use things like nails and stuff.

So they wanted to highlight that or they're very proud of that.

And so it's this huge.

By Guinness, the largest freestanding wooden structure Yes.

Now, In the shape of a circle to kind of unify the site and part of it actually goes out into the water.

So it unifies also the elements of land and water, right.

Within this and, and the natural wood structure.

And so there, there was in fact some, some really.

A conscious thought in that, in terms of the site for it within that site.

A lot of the structures of the country's pavilions or others at Pavilion, some of them have external architecture that kind of lends to a theme that they feel is important in their country's culture.

So one, I think it was Portugal had ropes like you'd see on ships rigging on the outside of their building, for example.

And some other shapes related to cloth.

What's that?

Using cloth on materials, using cloth, Things like that.

And within, within the structures, the experiences that they wanted you to have indicative of their countries are, were very different, but some of them very strongly highlighted their landscape.

So the Canadian Pavilion, which we did get to go in, was an augmented reality experience.

And essentially they used the Arctic topography kind of as a backdrop for the AR and then showed.

Some of the different urban landscapes and other landscapes within Canada's boundaries.

So interestingly they focused on their cultural landscapes and also those landscapes of things like logging and but used the icebergs as the platform Yeah.

For the ar.

Exactly.

So, so that was kind of interesting.

And others didn't consciously necessarily connect to their environments as much.

So the Japan pavilion was more about how they are seeing the future of human needs while sustaining the earth.

So that was more their themes.

So, and to be fair, the, the themes were future and sustainability.

Yeah.

And.

Diversity.

Yeah.

So each, each country kind of took that slightly different ways.

Yeah.

That we went through.

But many of them highlighted their unique landscapes and there were aspects of their cultural landscapes that you saw in the imagery, in their booths, and in some of the smaller countries or countries.

That didn't have as big investment.

They were grouped together in larger buildings.

And even there you could see that, that each country kind of sees its, its natural and cultural landscape melding, right?

As as something that's an identifier in some ways.

One thing that should be noted in these constructed landscapes, with the exception of not so much in the architectural architectural museum, but in the rest, an important part of the landscape is the cue the line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really.

So, so that's the thing, is that accord or necessary evil, just It exists.

Yeah.

It, yeah.

And so whether it's, you know, the designing of where people are gonna stand while they're waiting in line and something like rides at Disney Sea or Pearl Land, or you know, where you're gonna stand while you're waiting to get into your pavilion at the expo.

There's, yeah, there's a lot of focus on where can people, well wait.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's one of, that's one of the things right about the visiting of, of curated landscapes is the recognition that, that you are stepping into it from an outside and there are a lot of people that are gonna wanna do that.

And so the, the management of people moving to the landscape entrance, moving through it, and then exiting are all pretty planned out.

And I guess that's one of the advantages of.

Being a country that's what 90 some percent urban like Japan is for the couple of the examples that we gave, right, is they're very adept at moving people, but it is constant motion.

So that's an interesting thing too about right, these, these types of landscapes is they're not meant for lengthy perusal or contemplation.

Now there are other constructed landscapes in Japan that are like garden spaces, but these spaces are meant you move through them.

You get a small sense of the essence of that landscape, if you will.

You have an interactive experience and then you move on and it's very much designed to keep you moving and that's how they manage the number of people I.

So that's an interesting thing that's become part of the modern theme park.

That probably goes back to the opening at Disneyland, right?

When they didn't anticipate all the crowds that would show up for that first day.

But that becomes part of it, right?

As part of the experience is it's not a lingering one.

So when you're trying to give people the flavor, the immersion, right?

It's done in short bursts and it is like snapshots vignettes, like news reels almost to kind of think of it as a metaphor for some of the stuff, right?

Is.

You know, can I get this feeling I wanna pass to somebody, but can I do it in these short bites?

And then they move on.

So it's kind of interesting.

And that kind of wraps us up because we've gone a long time on this and I don't wanna have to edit too much.

Yeah, we can come back to, to talk about construction landscapes 'cause it's not by any means something unique to any place in the world.

It's just we were in a place where we were visiting a lot of them for specific purposes.

You know, we didn't talk about the fact that the pilgrimage that we've been looking at for a few years now, it has become a constructed landscape even though it.

Was initially meant to be independent things as it's been constructed.

We didn't talk about the fact that, as Sue kind of alluded to, we went to the Chu Goen National Gardens and, you know, that's very much a constructed place.

We went to the, the Imperial Palaces gardens as well.

Another example of constructed place that aren't necessarily meant for the same purposes as a Disney Sea or a Pearl Land.

But still are very much things that were planned and are intentional in the landscape.

So yeah, these are things we can come back to in the future.

So onto the events corner, go to events.

Even if it's not an official conference or something like that, go talk to people.

I think we're back to that now.

We'll see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you can also do virtual stuff and you can mix it between virtual and in person too.

Yeah, that works.

Alright.

Go talk to somebody on Zoom us.

Even if you wanna talk to us over the summer, let us know.

We can, maybe not me 'cause I'm terrible at replying to people at this point.

But yeah, if you'd like us to, well, since I checked that email podcast@veryspatial.com would be where you would the email if you wanted to talk to us.

But yeah, I, I'm not good at that.

And if you wanna reach us individually, I can be reached at sue@veryspatial.com.

I can be reached at barb@veryspatial.com.

I can reach atFrank@veryspatial.com, and I'm available@jesseveryspatial.com.

We are just short of a month or just over a month, , from our 20th anniversary, so we have no idea what we're gonna do for it.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to reach out and let us know.

At any of our contact information, which can be found at very spatial.com/contacts.

As always, we're the folks from very spatial.

Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in a couple weeks show how we do, how we do, how we do like that.

Yeah.

We go, what?

We go what?

We roll, roll raw.

We bring that wherever we go.

What's the, so what's supersonic?

Wherever we go.