a field journal platform · Dartmouth College

Slow down.
Look again.

Claim a single spot on campus. Return to it all term. Record what you notice — in writing, photos, sound, and video.

Fall 2026 is active — 1 spot claimed so far

Why noticing?

We live in what scholars and technologists call an “attention economy” — an environment in which our focus has become a valuable resource that countless apps, advertisements, and platforms compete to capture. When attention is treated as a currency, the rhythm of daily life tends toward speed and shallow perception.

This project invites you to step temporarily outside that accelerated rhythm and practice slow looking—returning again and again to a single, seemingly unremarkable place and documenting what reveals itself through patient, persistent observation. The goal is not to reject technology or modern life, but to cultivate a complementary skill: the ability to direct your attention deliberately, to sit with what you see without rushing toward a conclusion, and to discover what emerges when you give a small corner of the world your sustained, unhurried, and contemplative gaze.

What do you see? What do you see if you look and look and look again? What has changed since your last visit? What did you fail to notice before?

example field journal

The stone bench behind Collis

A sample journal — how observations accumulate over a term from a single campus spot.

01September 15, 2025 · 2:17 pm

First visit. The bench faces east, which I hadn't noticed before — the morning light would be entirely different here. There's a spruce directly behind it, close enough to reach out and touch the bark. The stone is cold and slightly damp even though it hasn't rained.

Two pigeons. One has a gray band on its left leg.

02September 19, 2025 · 11:43 am

$field sketch$

The banded pigeon is here again. I am beginning to think of this as its bench, not mine. The lichen on the north face of the stone has a pattern I can only see now that I know to look for it — pale green, roughly circular, about the size of a palm.

Someone left a single glove on the armrest. Right hand, dark green wool.

03October 3, 2025 · 4:05 pm

The leaves on the maple to the left are turning. Not all at once — the ones at the top went first, then the outer branches, now it's moving inward. I looked this up: it's called acropetal senescence. The tree is systematically withdrawing chlorophyll.

The glove is gone. The bench remembers nothing.

“We're riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity's never blind or mute. So it's not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying.”
— Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations

How it works

Claim a spot

Drop a pin anywhere on the Dartmouth campus map. Name it precisely — not just 'a bench' but 'the bench facing east behind Collis, near the spruce.' Specificity commits you to a place.

Return often

Visit multiple times a week. Choose a separate location away from your everyday routine and treat each visit as fieldwork.

Record what you notice

Write timestamped observations. Attach photos, a short field recording, or a video. Follow your curiosity — observations may lead to research.

Read each other

All journals are public. The map shows where everyone is looking. What does it mean to pay close attention to a place?

Slow down.Look again.