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Comment by 就是冷門 on February 7, 2024 at 3:20pm

Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind

Abstract: Traditionally, architectural practice has been dominated by the eye/sight. In recent decades, though, architects and designers have increasingly started to consider the other senses, namely sound, touch (including proprioception, kinesthesis, and the vestibular sense), smell, and on rare occasions, even taste in their work. As yet, there has been little recognition of the growing understanding of the multisensory nature of the human mind that has emerged from the field of cognitive neuroscience research. This review therefore provides a summary of the role of the human senses in architectural design practice, both when considered individually and, more importantly, when studied collectively. For it is
only by recognizing the fundamentally multisensory nature of perception that one can really hope to explain a number of surprising crossmodal environmental or atmospheric interactions, such as between lighting colour and thermal comfort and between sound and the perceived safety of public space. At the same time, however, the contemporary focus on synaesthetic design needs to be reframed in terms of the crossmodal correspondences and multisensory integration, at least if the most is to be made of multisensory interactions and synergies that have been uncovered in recent years. Looking to the future, the hope is that architectural design practice will increasingly incorporate our growing understanding of the human senses, and how they influence one another. Such a multisensory approach will hopefully lead to the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our social, cognitive, and emotional development, rather than hindering it, as has too often been the case previously. (Source: Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind by Charles Spence; in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2020) 5:46 Keywords: Multisensory perception, Architecture, The senses, Crossmodal correspondences)

Comment by 就是冷門 on July 19, 2023 at 9:04pm

後旅遊者：體驗的文創

一個14歲的女孩，暑假裡父母帶她遊玩了北疆和敦煌，回來後問她，好不好玩？出乎我的意料，她的回答是，感覺一般。

她説，這些地方看起來也還可以，但是比較起來，還是以前在電視裡看到的一些景點更加神奇；另外，光是看來看去，沒意思，不能互動就沒意思。

我問什麼是互動？她説的互動就是在那拉提騎馬，在喀納斯漂流，在鳴沙山滑沙。在她的行程中，最好玩的就是這些。可惜，父母擔心安全問題，沒允許在喀納斯漂流，爲此她耿耿於懷。

自然景觀如此，人文景觀的莫高窟又如何呢？她説，老師在課堂上講過敦煌莫高窟，沒想到親眼看到就是這個樣子。在她看來，莫高窟一個個的洞窟也顯得單調，比較起來，還是在鳴沙山爬沙山讓她印象更深。

女孩不知道什麼是消費文化，什麼是媒體時代，什麼是身體哲學；但是她對於旅遊的直觀感受處處都直指這個時代最基本的思想和文化問題。

這一代人對景物的觀看態度和方式變了。

過去中國文人遊山玩水講靜觀，講領悟。“萬物靜觀皆自得”；那個時候的觀景，與其説是一種身體活動，不如説是一種思想活動。“獨坐幽篁裡”，“花間一壺酒”，是古人的樂趣所在。

這種樂趣對女孩這代人不復存在。傳統的觀景是人的肉眼對風景的直觀，而依賴電視成長起來的新一代人，以對電視圖像的觀看替代了肉眼對風景的“眼見爲實”。她們看第二手現實，看圖像的圖像，看風景的風景；儘管這二者是有根本區別的，但是她們寧願相信電視，相信電視畫麵中那些更加神奇的，或是虛擬的，加工過的風景。這使得任何眼前之景在這一代人麵前降低了魅力值。

於是，她們把興奮點轉向了身體，也就是這個女孩説的“互動”。既然靜觀的活動不好玩，思想的活動也不好玩，那麼就把自己身體投入到風景中，讓自己的身體參與在對風景觀看和遊覽中。這個時候，所謂風景不過是爲身體的活動提供了一個場所，而感性的，富於刺激性的身體活動，讓女孩在參與中感到了旅遊的價值，感到了眼前風景的意義。

當代文化並不是一種抽象的存在，隻有如此具體的和一個孩子討論問題的時候，才讓人感覺到兩代人的距離感和差異性。就旅遊而言，也許我們將要面臨的，是一個“後旅遊的時代”。 （後旅遊者）

Comment by 就是冷門 on July 5, 2023 at 11:26am

What is learning experience design?

Learning experience design (LX design) is the process of creating learning experiences that enable the learner to achieve the desired learning outcome in a human centered and goal oriented way.

Learning experience design is rooted in a combination of several design disciplines with the field of learning. Key design principles used in LXD come from interaction design, user experience design, experience design, graphic design and game design. These design principles are combined with elements of education, training and development,

, cognitive psychology, experiential learning, educational sciences and neuroscience.

To gain a deeper understanding of LX design it's easiest to break things down into smaller parts: experience, design and learning. These parts are quite self-explanatory and together they tell a lot about what LX design really is about.

Experience：Everything we learn comes from, that’s a fact. As mentioned earlier an experience is any situation you encounter that takes an amount of time and leaves an impression. These experiences don’t necessarily have to take place in an educational setting like a school. They can take place at home, outside, in the office or anywhere else.

Not every experience is as educational as the next. Some experiences can be straight out boring or annoying. Fortunately, we’ve all had experiences that were very educational and that will last a lifetime. Being able to design such powerful experiences is the main quality of a good LX designer.

Design

LX design is a creative design discipline. In essence, it is an applied form of art. Similar to other creative professions the LX design process typically includes research, experimentation, ideation, conceptualization, prototyping, iteration and testing. It is not a step by step systematic process, but a creative process with an outcome that’s uncertain at first and crystal clear in the end. LX designers use a mix of creative, conceptual, intellectual and analytical qualities to come up with elegant solutions that work. The main difference with other design disciplines is the fact that your design serves a purpose to learn.

Learning

LX design is about learning and not so much about teaching, instruction or training. The focus is where it should be: on the learner and the process that the learner goes through. You definitely have to understand why and how people learn in order to be effective. Experiential learning in particular is part of the foundation of LX design. As stated in the definition of lxd, you want to design a learning experience that enables the learner to reach the desired learning outcome. But how do you do that? By making the experience human centered and goal oriented.

Comment by 就是冷門 on July 5, 2023 at 11:25am

Human centered

Learning is a human and preferably social process. Putting the learner at the center of your design process is called human centered design. This is an important part of how and why LX design works. This means you have to get to know and understand the people you design for. You want to figure out what drives them and how you can ignite their intrinsic motivation. That’s why getting in touch with your target audience through interviews, observations and co-creation is indispensable. People are both rational and emotional beings. We all have wants, needs, hopes, fears and doubts. So a great learning experience has to connect on a personal level. To do so, being able to distinguish and act upon differences between groups of learners and even individual learners is key.

Goal oriented

A learning experience will make no sense if you don’t reach your goals. Choosing and formulating the right goals is an important part of designing a learning experience. This can be quite a challenge, depending on the scale and complexity of the experience that you are designing. Coming up with activities that enable the learner to actually reach specific goals is vital to a great design. That’s where a thorough and innovative approach, like working with the Learning Experience Canvas, can really make a difference.

One very important aspect of LX design is what form, medium or technology you choose for a learning experience which is primarily based on the goals of the learner. This means you start with formulating the desired learning outcome and every next step in the design process, including the choice of your medium or technology, is geared towards the desired learning outcome.

LX design vs instructional design

Sometimes LX design is confused with instructional design. On the surface there are similarities but when you look closer they are fundamentally different regards to their origin, perspective, methods, skills and tools. Find out more about these differences in the next chapter "" or read the blog post "
(Source: https://lxd.org)

Comment by 就是冷門 on November 12, 2022 at 5:22pm

熊本縣和水町×熊本縣立大學——鄉山再生「建設溫馨之鄉」項目

8年前，大型企業要在這裏建廠。在企業、行政、熊本縣立大學三者的合作推動下持續至今，使梯田和農田重新煥發生機。學生們種出的無農藥大米出現在大學食堂餐桌上。

插秧的景象

與當地居民進行交流

玉名郡和水町位於熊本縣北部，跟福岡縣鄰接，此處山間有一處「和睦森林」，隨著人口劇減而人跡罕至。但在這一片荒蕪的鄉裏山間，卻回蕩起了學生和地區的孩子們杵年糕的號子聲，慰勞一年農忙辛勞的杵年糕大會成了毎年慣例。

梯田裏整齊地擺放著秋天收割後的稻草束，一旁牛和山羊吃草的怡然風景展現在人們眼前。

鄉山再生活動「溫馨之鄉項目」開始至今快要有8年了。活動毎月舉辦１回。參加活動的有：以地區居民為主體的「溫馨之鄉協議會」以及熊本縣立大學的教職員工和學生們，毎回都有許多學生自發地參加插秧、割稻、保養鄉間道路等活動，通過各類勞動，在辛勤揮汗的同時，也加深了與地區居民的交流。

起因是征地建廠

           杵年糕大會

熊本縣立大學為了在各個領域與行政部門、企業等進行合作，制定了振興地區、調查研究等綜合協定制度，並為貫徹該大學「地區實學主義」理念的教育，在各地區開展著各種活動。

活動之一的該項目目的在於：通過大學與行政、企業合作，開展持續性活動，讓荒蕪的鄉山得以再生後，能吸引地區居民和孩子們来遊玩。

項目舞臺是約20公頃的鄉山，原本是當地人們從事農業、休養生息的傳統鄉山，可是，隨著現代化以及少子老齡化，人們不再問津鄉裏山間，被放棄的鄉山田地裏雜草灌木叢生，鄉間道路也消失了，最後變成了荒山。

活動的起因是2005年富士電機系統株式會社（現為：富士電機控股公司）在熊本縣建廠。該公司在鄰接和水町的南關町建立了太陽能電池製造廠，並決定在該地區開展奉獻社會、與環境共生的CSR活動，此地被選為該公司與熊本縣政府以及大學聯手合作的活動場所，於2007年2月啟動了該項目。

重現梯田和農田

活動初始，高過人頭的草木茂密叢生，想踏足山裏都不是件容易的事，通過采伐、開墾、放牧這種不亞於開拓時期的活動力度，逐漸恢復了原來的面貌，以山腳下的開闊地為中心重新開墾了梯田和農田，在那裏學生們種植的無農藥大米，被送到大學食堂的餐桌上。森林裏的鄉間道路也得到修繕，成了當地孩子們也能漫步的步行山路。通過持續地再生活動，許多學生因感受到不斷變化的鄉山面貌的魅力，在校期間一直都參加這項活動。

成為可持續的活動

在縣行政部門的扶持下，在當地建造了山間小屋「冠翠鳥」作為活動據點。建造接近完工的2014年2月，突然傳來一則令人震驚消息：從初始階段至今，一直為活動提供贊助的富士電機熊本工廠將要轉讓給外資企業。學生的交通費、各種勞動工具及夥食費等，該事業的大部分活動經費是來源於這家工廠的贊助，因此大家都擔心活動是否還能持續下去。

一旦人們撤離了好不容易剛剛再生的鄉山，不要多長時間就會重新變回原來的荒山。

一想到至今為止無數參與活動的學生以及地區居民開墾荒山的辛勞，無論是大學還是鄉政府都沒有後退的選擇。

為了擺脫困境，在大學向日本文部科學省2014年度公開招募的「構築地（知）據點事業（大學COC事業）」提交申請並獲得到批準的同時，和水町也向林野庁「為發揮森林山村多樣性策略提供資金援助事業」提交了申請也獲得了批准，總算擺脫了眼前的危機。

熊本縣立大學之所以積極參加這項活動並非是將活動當作一般的慈善活動，而是將它定位為培養人才活動的一個環節，為了讓該活動成為可持續的活動，本想將它作為正規課程的一部分形成學分製度，但是每回都參加活動的學生則提出了反對意見∶「我們都是憑自己的愛好參加活動的，反對以學分為目的的人加入」，所以此事需要慎重考慮。不過，學生們有這樣的反應，其本身是一件可喜的事，為了讓這類持積極態度的學生人數不斷增多，今後，我們打算跟鄉政府合作，開展以鄉山為據點的交流以及野外調查等新事業。文／髙本篤（熊本縣立大學地區合作研究推動中心參事 / 2014年12月22日 產學研合作）

延續閱讀：動漫文創·動漫+文創：揭秘日本文化IP產業鏈（下）

Comment by 就是冷門 on October 11, 2022 at 3:07pm

文創企業產品開發

近年來，「文創」是一個非常熱的詞語，越來越多的商業業態與文化創意元素進行跨界混搭。許多人以為文創設計就是將某種帶有文化屬性的圖文附加在現有的產品上，這樣的理解並不是正確的。

故宮文創節氣海報

文創產品是是從文化的不同方面詮釋的一種物化形態，也就是說文化才是文創產品設計的重要元素。設計師利用原生文化的美學特征、人文精神、文化元素，再通過自身對文化的理解和詮釋，將其與產品相結合，最終形成文化創意產品。

因此要想設計出受歡迎和有內涵的文創產品，首先要深入了解對應的文化，最重要則是如何選擇可用的文化元素。蘊涵文化氣息的產品會在無形中提高自身的價值，在同類產品中脫穎而出。 一起來看看別人家有優秀的文創設計產品吧~

01 故宮博物院

說到文創，沒有人會忽略故宮博物館，這座將近百歲的建築在現在依然受到了很大歡迎，文創產品功不可沒。

2014年，故宮微信公眾號發送了一篇叫做《雍正：感覺自己萌萌噠》的推文，從此故宮的文創屬性開始覺醒。隨後，掌握了「流量密碼」的故宮推出了「朕就是這樣漢子」折扇等一系列創意的文創產品。故宮文創多次在朋友圈刷屏，成為網紅中的清流。

2016年推出的紀錄片《我在故宮修文物》獲得豆瓣評分9.4分，在年輕群體中的口碑很好。故宮IP對應的受眾變得年輕化，與之相對應地，文創產品的設計也開始切合年輕人的使用習慣，故宮推出了「國寶色」口紅、每日故宮APP等產品。

02 西西弗書店

西西弗書店是國內獨立書店中的佼佼者，註重引導讀者進行精品和深度閱讀，這一點從西西弗書店的裝修和文創產品中就可以看出來。書店裝修采用墨綠色的色調，歐式櫥窗和紅黑配色是它的特色，整個書店布局清新雅致，給人一種簡約美，營造出濃厚的閱讀氛圍。

下圖是西西弗書店的會員卡，標誌性的深紅色和手繪、插畫元素相結合，再加上書店主打與「閱讀的力量」，看起來非常有情懷。文創產品的設計和品牌的視覺形象一致，既能體現品牌特色，又能增加美感。


03 大英博物館

大英博物館成立於1753年，館內有800多萬件藏品，是世界上規模最大、最著名的博物館之一。

下圖是大英博物館推出的木乃伊棺槨造型鉛筆盒，設計師在鉛筆盒上繪製了古埃及木乃伊的插畫，消費者打開鉛筆盒時就能感受到歷史的莊嚴感。雖說是棺槨，卻又一點也不陰森，別具風情。

04 企鵝圖書

「三段式書封」是企鵝出版社的經典造型， 2009 年英國皇家郵政局發行的「影響英國的十個經典設計」的郵票中，企鵝「三段式」書封與雙層巴士、MINI 汽車一起成為了代表英倫文化的符號。

因此企鵝圖書在推出文創產品時首先選擇的就是「三段式」設計，下圖是企鵝三段式帆布袋、陶瓷馬克杯等周邊產品。顏色清新明快，樣式俏皮可愛，又不失文學氣息。

依托於文創產品，濃厚的歷史文化不再只是停留在史書、影像中，它們以更貼近日常生活的方式不斷向我們靠近，越來越年輕化、越來越鮮活有力；被賦予了文化價值的產品，其內涵也隨之提高，而不再僅僅停留於產品層面。（原題「文創」概念都被玩壞了，來看看真正的文創產品設計）/https://www.canva.cn）

Comment by 就是冷門 on May 11, 2022 at 10:43pm

Chaim Noy·The Poetics of Tourist Experience: An Autoethnography of a Family Trip to Eilat 1

（Chaim Noy，2007，The Poetics of Tourist Experience: An Autoethnography of a Family Trip to Eilat，Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change. January 2007, P141-157) 

This paper is an autoethnographic exploration of a tourist’s experience. Through interpreting qualitative material, in the form of a poem I wrote in 1994 about a short familial excursion to an Israeli seaside resort city (Eilat), the research seeks to sensitively describe the intricacies of travel experience. The research explores the advantages of the autoethnographic method of inquiry, and discusses tourism-related emotions and memories in the context of performance and representation. The paper joins recent efforts in attempting to challenge and loosen the grip of positivist epistemologies and discourses on mainstream tourism studies, by illustrating the emotional complexities and contradictions in the travel experience of tourists. In line with traditions

of critical research in sociology, the exploration sheds light on the materiality of texts and on the role language plays in tourism, viewing the poem read in this paper (‘Quiet Eilat’) simultaneously as a representation, performance and material object of discourse.

 

Keywords: performance, qualitative methodology, language, family, travel literature, poetic expression

Introduction: Performing Experience Research into the experiences of tourists, commonly referred to as the ‘tourist experience’, has a respectable tradition within the sociological research of tourists (Cohen, 1974, 1979). Through employing the conceptual categories suggested by Cohen, various researches productively explored the typology of tourists’ possible and actual experiential modes (Lengkeek, 2001; Sternberg,

1997; Wickens, 2002). These works have further enhanced as well as criticized Cohen’s early tourist typologies. Generally, they directed scholarly attention to the unique experiential characteristics of tourists’ phenomenology, and contributed to the growing understanding of the intertwined psychological, social and

cultural possibilities that are promoted and embodied by modern tourism.

While invaluable, Cohen’s formulations tended to stimulate highly theoretical research, often aiming at neat conceptual categories and clear theoretical typologies. Due to this tendency, researches neglected the details of tourists’ lived experience, and did not allocate sufficient grounds for these experiences before theorizing and conceptually categorizing them. Indeed, although Cohen’s early works were inspired by phenomenological and existential trends of thought, new methodologies, that would have captured in more sensitive and informed ways the ‘tourist experience,’ did not follow. The present exploration addresses this state of affairs by pursuing the following sensitivities and sensibilities.

First, close – even intimate – attention is paid to the experiences themselves. Indeed, the bulk of the paper is devoted to a detailed evocation of the experience of a tourist excursion. The emotional dimension of the tourist experience is elaborated, with emphasis on negative hues, which are not commonly associated with tourists’ experiences and emotions.

Comment by 就是冷門 on December 7, 2021 at 11:31am

（To be Con't）Second, the exploration seeks innovative methodologies – autoethnography in the present case, which can communicate experience and reconstruct it in vivid, lively and sometimes painful ways. By pursuing the research of experience in an evocative fashion, a presentation is possible whereby insights into and appreciation of the subject matter of experience is reached. In this regard, the present research is part of recent advancements in tourism research methodologies (Aitchison, 2000; Ateljevic et al., 2007; Botterill, 2003).

Third, the field of ‘tourist experience’ is presently construed as an integral part of everyday experience of people living in late-modern times in affluent societies. Following the advancements made by Urry (1990), this research holds with the notions that the cultures of tourism, and the experiences these cultures embody and endow, are but one sphere of the whole of our lived, everyday experiences. According to this view, the notion of ‘tourist experience’ entails a dazzling array of human experiences that emerge when people engage in the

sphere of tourism, via its many institutional extensions, representations and guises. The point is that people are constantly in touch with various cultures of tourism, and are, in one way or another, ‘much of the time “tourists”’ (Urry, 1990: 82). Hence the tourist experience is often an extension of people’s everyday experiences, amounting, as Richards and Wilson (2004: 254) note, to a ‘home plus’ experience.

Fourth, tourists’ behaviors, including the expression of feelings, emotions,  experiences, and memories are presently conceived as performances. Following the above notion concerning the cultures of tourism, the category ‘tourist’ is construed as one which engulfs a cultural symbol of modern experience (MacCannell, 1976). This symbol can be embodied through different roles people assume when they uptake tourism endeavors. In this vein, embodying tourist roles means performing tourism. Tourism is construed as a discerned set of aesthetic activities which take place in discernable spaces wherein tourists do not only cast the tourist gaze, but are also the subjects and objects of that gaze (Adler, 1989; Edensor, 1998).

More specifically, it means performing various states of experience and modes of being on the international social stages of tourism. However, since the borders between tourists’ experiences and everyday experiences are continuously blurring, some tourism-related activities, which are not performed within designated tourist spaces, are also construed as tourist or tourist-related performances (Noy, 2004). Such is the present case, where travel writing in the form of a poem, is construed and interpreted as a product (and a trace) of tourist performance.


A Tourist Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a critical and reflexive way of inquiry that flourished mainly within the North American qualitative movement in the social sciences during the last decade. Appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of this way of inquiry, as well as the implications it bears and the impact it carries on various fields of research, requires acknowledging its inherent relation to the diverse family of qualitative research methodologies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000).

Yet even within the family of qualitative research methodologies autoethnography presents a rather radical approach; a subversive and oftentimes provocative relative. Autoethnography is a way of inquiry that is wholeheartedly – morally, emotionally and ideologically – committed to the subject of the research, namely to people and to their complex, intricate lives and experiences.

Comment by 就是冷門 on November 8, 2021 at 11:54am

（To be Con't）In this respect, autoethnographical research shares grounds with performance studies, symbolic interaction, feminist research, and similar schools of thought, both recent and traditional, within the social sciences.

Further, autoethnography is unique in that its power lies within its discursive, written mode. It is a text. The term literally entails the definition of the inquiry procedure: the researcher addresses herself or himself (‘auto’), as a subject of a larger social, cultural or institutional group (‘ethno’), by ways of revealing research and writing (‘graphy’, Ellis, 1997, see also Bochner & Ellis, 2002; Ellis & Bochner, 1996). The autoethnographic work aspires to tell of those constitutive dimensions that in conventional sociological research are erased or

play a backstage role. In addition to personal, lived experience, autoethnographic research explores voice, emotions, processes (rather than results or products) and embodied senses and knowledges, as a part of ‘the guerrilla warfare against the repressive structures of everyday lives’ (Denzin, 1999: 572).

Often, autoethnographic research investigates the relationship between researchers, their fields of inquiry and their informants, thus supplying innovative perspectives on the underlying assumptions and discourses of various academic disciplines, as well as on the process of socialization and disciplining in academia (Jones, 1998; Noy, 2003). As a method that is centered on the scholar herself or himself, autoethnography is inescapably an emotionally painstaking exercise, a type of ethnography that ‘breaks your heart’ (Behar, 1996).

The evocative and provocative effects accomplished by autoethnographic work, are mainly due to the genre’s literary form(s), including poetry, fiction, novels, personal essays, fragmented and layered writing, and more (Ellis & Bochner, 2000: 739). These forms are tailored to the social and cultural reality that is being studied – tourism, in the present case. Hence through a poeticized and personalized case-study, autoethnography forces the tourists – ourselves – to inquire into and to challenge our experiences, which would otherwise be dismissed as ‘recreational’, ‘superficial’, ‘fun’, and so on, in a reflexive and informed manner.

Autoethnographizing our tourist experiences soon reveals that there is more, indeed much more, to the sphere of tourist experience than leisurely experiences or other types of positive experiences. Rather, this type of critical and reflexive text forces us to admit to how much of tourism-endowed experience resonates with feelings of sadness and alienation. It seems that as tourists, i.e. people performing tourism, we are not permitted to feel or to acknowledge alienation or despair. While it is legitimate to occasionally admit to a sense of disappointment – as one traveller once revealed, ‘India was much warmer and humid than the pictures I saw show’, – or to cathartically experience powerful feelings of collective mourning and grief, such as is the case in dark tourism, expressing more mundane alienated feelings is almost a taboo.

Comment by 就是冷門 on October 14, 2021 at 10:27am

Furthermore, regardless of the different type of tourism involved, in the capacity tourists are performers, they are constantly under the gaze of other people, such as tourists, locals, and tourist operators, and their behaviors are constantly regulated and monitored so as to avoid ‘improper’ expressions (Aitchison, 2000; Fullagar, 2002). While the show on the stages of international tourism must go on, ‘deviant’ behaviors, emotions and experiences are effectively, even if subtly, sanctioned. 

Lastly, because the autoethnographic text presents highly personal, perhaps intimate moments of lived experience, and because it is ideally suited to explore the relationship between researchers and their disciplines, it is potentially a delicate endeavor. Autoethnography has the capacity of revealing and rearranging academic institutional relationships by illuminating the normative, taken for granted axioms of various fields of research, with which researchers comply, which they resist, and with which they engage in alternative ways (Jones, 1998; Noy, 2003).

Nathan and I The present exploration addresses a poem I wrote, that describes a short family excursion to the resort city of Eilat, located in the southmost tip of Israel (by the Red Sea, on the way leading to the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula). After presenting the poem, the paper turns to interpretation – integrating academic discourse and further personal recollections and insights in the aim of creating a rich and informed account of the trip’s experiences and the meanings they bear.

The poem, ‘Quiet Eilat’, is a naïve piece. It was written in the winter of 1994, before my academic career had led me to research tourism (and before I became reflexive about tourism discourses and research). Since I am not an accomplished poet, the piece is best conceived as a stylized journal entry, a part of a travelogue aesthetically depicting memories and feelings I had after spending an off-season, December excursion in a nearly empty resort city. It is a product of a literary form, and may thus be viewed, at least partly, as a tourist performance of the type of ‘reminiscing’ (Edensor, 2000: 135–148), revealing the emotional ‘lows’ of tourism.

Crucially, the journey took place during the winter, clearly an ‘off-season’ in Eilat. Although Eilat is located in the southern-most, warmer part of the country, it is windy in the winter and quite empty of visitors. This emptiness creates a sense of desertedness, which also radiates desolation. 

Furthermore, the traveling family included several family relatives, including Nathan, who is particularly dear to me. Nathan is five years younger than me and since I was an only child (and much closer to my mother’s side of the family), Nathan was as close to being a brother to me in my childhood as I could ever have. We spent many enjoyable summer vacations together, both during the years he lived in Israel, and later, after his family emigrated to the United States. We usually made fun of our unmarried maternal aunts, would build ‘pillow houses’ in their living rooms, and would go together to the Kfar-Saba beach and have ‘sand fights’.

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