Today's three-part tasks interrogate and make sense of SOCIAL DISTANCING. We've been hearing a lot about social distancing - a practice that will help to curb the spread of the Corona virus. According to the CDC, two key aspects of social distancing are (a) avoiding crowds and (b) keeping about 6 feet of space between you and other individuals. That got me thinking...
PART A.
Recently, I've heard that movie theaters are limiting the # of seats that they are selling in order to promote social distancing. For example, AMC announced that it would only sell tickets up to 50 % capacity:
But is 50% the correct capacity to support social distancing in a movie theater?
Visualize a movie theater you've visited...maybe sketch a floor plan...
Deep Thinking Question: What % of tickets should a movie theater sell if it wants to (a) promote social distancing (6 ft between customers) while maximizing the # of tickets sold?
PART B.
Now that you've pondered about movie theaters...let's do a different kind of thinking task. First, imagine an environment that you enjoy. Visualize that environment and represent it - using words, images, whatever you like.
Deep Thinking Task: Now, re-visualize the environment in the condition of social distancing; wherein all people are at least 6 feet from one another. What does it look like, feel like, and sound like now? Represent your socially distant environment.
Reflect on the exercise. What questions, conclusions, and ideas did this bring up for you?
PART C.
Shout out to my friend (and groomsman) Travis for this one. Yesterday, Travis posted an image on Facebook that reminded me of Edward Hopper's classic "Nighthawks" painting - except, without people in it!
Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks," 1942
Dean Rohrer, "Depopulated Nighthawks"
Deep Thinking Question: What do you make of this "Depopulated Nighthawks"? What is the effect of removing humans from Hopper's painting. And, what is the effect of my friend Travis posting this latter image on 03.16.20?
Think Deeply and Share Broadly!