Deep Mapping Middletown

Deep Mapping Middletown is a joint effort of the Institute for Digital Intermedia Art (IDIA) Lab and the Center for Middletown Studies, along with colleagues from Michigan Tech, IUPUI, and Florida State, to create a detailed multimedia depiction of Muncie, Indiana. It capitalizes on the extensive archive created by the century of social research focused on the city as a result of its role in Middletown, Robert and Helen Lynd’s pathbreaking investigation of modern American life, and its many successors.  In Summer, 2022, the Center for Middletown Studies and IDIA Lab held a hybrid (in-person/virtual) workshop for a select group of scholars who devised a plan for designing and developing Deep Maps of the city that rest upon the rich archive of material generated by researchers who have studied Muncie as “Middletown,” from the Lynds’ initial 1920s investigation down to the present.

Initial work on the project has been supported by Ball State University’s Sponsored Projects Administration and the George and Frances Ball Foundation.

You can learn more about Deep Mapping Middletown at the project’s webpage.