Student Seminar progress

As we regrouped this week in discussing our initial findings relating to 'material narratives', we had the opportunity to put in place a plan of what we were communicating in relation to the seminar group title and our approach.  The rest of the group didn't really have much to add on from what I presented to them. I had been thinking about how we could use the upcoming Wayward event as a way to produce responsive research that we could then publish. I had seen and spoken to some of my group peers on the Friday and shown them what I was working on already, so it was un-collaborative and a let down in a way to see that none of them had decided to contribute and push their own ideas forward. The initial thoughts behind the group was the mapping of our own locations and routes. I decided to move this on given the feedback we received about materials and that Pete was interested in the idea of process. 

I had been playing around with the idea of casting mundane objects, that we come into contact with on a daily basis and use these as potential 'social objects'. The idea would be that visitors of the Wayward event would take one of the casts [in which the plan was to have multiples] and to map the objects new location. 

Upon presenting this back to Pete, he felt that the object needed further justification and questioned us over 'what we were trying to say, solve, present?'. It is frustrating because the idea was solo mine, but I do agree that there was something missing. Need to further question why we are doing what we are. We also had to later on share our views back to the other students and out of this, I did start to question "social interaction and perhaps public engagement' within an arts based context. Thinking about audience participation within galleries [something that has been flagged up during my main project research and tutorials]. I think the idea of an art kit or a one minute sculpture pack could be really interesting. it would provide at the very least an opportunity for a discussion around audience participation. 

At the end of the presentations it became clear that the original idea or opportunity to present or have work at the Wayward event wasn't going to be realistic nor possible. The notion of having this at our interim show was suggested, which if I am honest just puts this already half-heated seminar group on a back foot and that for me personally, I have other more main project focused work that I would like ot focus on both up to and during the interim show. It is certainly starting to feel like the idea of these seminar group projects hasn't really been considered . . . what do they want? for now though I do have a collection of three very aesthetically pleasing paper weights.

Drawing Spaces Lecture 07: Depicting Measure

Gordan Matta Clark: retrospective "You are the measure"

How do we communicate scale and measurement in a creative way?

Russell Bell / Simon Elvins - Map of London's silence

Studio Myerscough - way finding systems - exploring green space in London boroughs

Mapping Space - Visual Translation and transformation

Matta Clark: Measuring and the production of forensic drawings of spaces - cutting and pasting text 'strata' - a geographic fiction. Combined with Robert Smithson. Entropy - organized breakdown of the elements]

Studio Forensic Architecture: Working with the ideas of post-conflict architecture [working at 1:1 scale through the method of drawing

James Corner: Taking measurements across the landscape - visualizing these. Images that are scales yet depict a scale through combined imagery. Landscape architecture that provides motif - narrative and variation of programme.

  

Valerio Morbito: Constructing terrains. working with both memory and landscape.

Conrad Shawcross: Inside the cube - understanding processes to push the work. Working with materials and thinking through making. using technology to allow the audience to engage with the space.

 

Dahn Vo: Where the lions are: Integrated in the collision between space and time. A curated exhibition working with multiple scales. Wallpaper that has printed replicas of 1:1 botanical illustrations.

Walter Pichler: Architectural drawings of texture and details. the human figure is included to depict spatial understanding. The understanding of the scale, body, material is emphasized into the drawings.

Will Alsop: Playing with expression, material and scale. Conceptual painting to depict proposals for architectural spaces. Ideas of a material landscape.

Fred Sandback: Conceptual minimalist drawings. sculptures at 1:1 that impose the viewer to suggest alternative spaces, planes and geometry. skewing space.

Library session

After discussing how relational 'art and language' was to my project and being introduced to the work of Joseph Kosuth, who has worked with language himself there was a library session needed to find some content that would help me with the critical research paper and the above context: The following text is from Joseph Kosuth" No thing, No self, No Form, No principle (was certain)

"What is assumed about the viewer/reader experience that precedes the point of reception. Arts requires a habituated experience - has art become entertainment driven. The other relationship is engagement. Enters into the process and participators in the production of meaning. Functions as the interface between two sides of a subjective."

"Elements of construction - the fragmenting of meaning, part of Robert Musil's practice was an attempt to rupture his own habituated relationship with language with begun with convo's of the practice of writing."  

Ex-Libris: A project of Jospeh Kosuth

"An additional layer of meaning is introduced through multiple languages. Impending loss of meaning, unsolvable indifference and partial blindness symbolized by white blanks."

"A continuous white line running around the room divided the exhibition space in half. By these simple means, an essential principle of the story - the perception of imagined and actual worlds - was made manifest" 

"Spanning the temporal and spatial realm of the text. As parts of the text are made illegible, they can only be read in context, as partial meanings."

Franz Kafka - translating and annotating

 

"Kosuth has been working with types . . .like language they are used as a material and transformed into new contexts. "the circularity of language".

This idea of working with language, questioning language and almost reformatting it to extend and develop a practice has close relations to my own work. The conceptual artists worked with language to a large extent as that if the international situationists who produced manifestos and whose work starts to make reference to the 'derive' the journeys taken.

Mobile Archive: Project launch

Despite term two being crazy with work load and attempting to resolve such a large project, this term is also about taking on additional opportunities. The course as mentioned previously has provided us with the opportunity to take on some additional project, to help stretch our practice and portfolio. Tonight was the launch of the 'mobile archive project'. This project involves the collaboration of MAISD students, Sue Ridge [supported by Ken Wilder] and the UAL special collections archive form each of the six colleges. The brief . . well that is what we write tonight, an archive system and portable museum that can display an array of products form each of the collection. Sue who is leading the project is also working with the archives and is also producing a body of x-rays, yes x-rays of the objects that will support the exhibition. It is a really exciting project, it has a budget, and it is on the ten of us who have signed up to the project to design a proto-type. 

The first meeting was really an opportunity to meet with Sue and to start defining some of the parameters of the project. 

- There will be three items taken from each collection to be exhibited

- The structure must be easily portable and the scale must be supportive of working on each site [lifts/doors etc]

- X-rays will be presented alongside the objects

-elements could include: light boxes, shelves, drawers, instruments [magnifying glasses and white gloves for handling]

- It must be lockable

- Ken mentioned wheels a lot, and he had a point in the movement of the stricture

- There will be a supporting catalogue of our work and ideas

Next week will be presenting some initial precedents sourced and some sketches of ideas based on my research. My initial thoughts were modular systems [perhaps multiples?] that come together to produce this collection collection.

Tutorial

My studio practice is moving along fast since I initially discussed the use of extracting text to produce a piece of text that would i would then start to respond to. I have been building my lazer cut trajectories to give me some physical forms that I can start reflecting on and considering what they are about. I am also finding myself spending a lot of time reflecting and planning what "the project is about" and how this all starts to come together as a complete body of work. I am being encouraged and praised for letting go but at some point I need to understand what this all means. A daily activity seems to bee drawing upon these large sheets of semi-planning and analysis. This is starting to breakdown the elements and allow me to question each stage and in turn inform the next. The trajectory forms were well received by my tutor and peers and although there was a conversation of the ambiguity of scale being a good thing, I feel that without scale the work perhaps explored previous doesn't connect.  The project in my view has three/four parts that as a complete scheme give you a body of work that would hypothetically go into the three Gagosian Gallery sites and potentially in-between space, connecting these galleries to one-another.

1. The initial breakdown and extraction of the "walking in the cities" text provides an opportunity to produce both graphic and re-appropriated "assemblage" work that start to discuss the connect of walking, but also visually start to depict the breaking lines and forms created from my analysis exercise on a two-dimensional level. The ideas and work of Joeph Koseth, Kurt Schwitters and Kata Strunz all start to play a supportive reference role in making sense of art, architecture and language.

2. The trajectory lines developed into three-dimensional forms have started to take a consideration towards furniture. I started to question the role of public seating within gallery spaces and have found some basic but interesting information. There is a lack of seating and although this project is not going to be about solving a seating crisis, for me I feel I need to have some context in order to justify and push my design decisions forward. The idea of these seating forms taking their shape form a piece of text about 'walking' is slightly ironic, although I am looking at these pieces of furniture as a connector between spaces and within the space themselves.  At the moment I am testing out the forms at various scales [I have a total of six different forms, each in reference to a book page, and would like to select one and aim for a 1:1 model for the interim show]

 

3. Reflecting back on my unit 01 work and walking around each gallery space, I feel it is important to keep this work within the project scheme, its relation to each site and the text is particularly strong and what is required now is to really consider how this works within the space. My ideas at the moment are carry out a final work that goes around and between each gallery site. I want to look more into how this routes come together and how they impact on the gallery space [using the largest Britannia street site]. Fred Sandback has become an important reference at the moment although more research is required into his work. The key strength in this is that his work very much relates back to the conceptual artists [a significant important part of of unit 01 work]

4. The final element and how I would like to push and extend the media of my practice is to work with video. I have only really started to make some hypothetical suggestions and notes surrounding this piece, but would for the interim show like to produce some tests, perhaps using the university own gallery space [this is more accessible, although at the moment I am struggling with finding out how to even access the space]. The main idea behind the video work is to include and highlight an element of the temporal and temporality, of which a lot of my early research and interest started with. This would also offer an opportunity to have the manifesto [the extracted text] as a potential soundtrack, which would mean that the text that I am working with and responding to takes shape in both text, visual, structure and sound.

A lot to think about, a lot to research, a lot to bloody make and a lot to write about. My research paper at the moment has gone way over my head as this project has completely opened up into a rather large scale project. I am excited though. I need to really break down what I want long term [final show and hand in] and work backwards. I feel that I have enough initial research and justification as to support my proposal, but I suppose the upcoming critique or progress review will inform me of this.

Open Lecture Series 13: Studio Weave

Studio Weave are a multi-disciplinary practice whose work responds, relates and creates narratives. Their practice has covered a broad range of project in both scope and scale from musical installations and furniture to current re-generational master plans. The lecture was broken down into a sub-series of points about the various elements encountered and taken into consideration throughout.

1. Furniture: The relationship between furniture and the public to create space and dialogue. Studio Weaves employees' are 50% artists that have moved into architecture as a discipline

2. Public Art: Art within the public realm. The temporal nature of these projects and the impact they have on the users. The acknowledgement to test materials. creating pavilions and public installations.

3. Collaboration: Working with artists who can support the illustrative and visual impact and dialogue of the narrative being communicated. Graphics, murals and other systems to help strengthen the project.

4. Infrastructure: Testing spaces and the responses with the users. How public spaces becomes dominated by activity the social engagement rather than transportation systems. The closure of bus routes to open space up to further social opportunities.

5. In-between space: Whats the programme of activity within these spaces? how do we as spatial designers engage the public within these spaces that take us from one destination to another?

6. Architecture: How do building interact with the public. Making building for people. Working with community groups and locals to support the needs and shape the brief.

Paleys Upon Pilers:

Ecology of Colour:

Q: How does work sit within the public? how does it interact/impact?

Physical = Architecture & Landscape

Technical = Civil Engineering

Cultural = Arts & Heritage

Tutorial

The work shown on the recent spatial stories work was really well received. I was surprised that both my peers and tutor really saw the connection and understood everything I was discussing. Pete felt that I had moved forward quickly and that I wasn't attempting to restrict myself within the category of conceptual art. He felt the ambiguity of scale was a more interesting aspect and to remove the figures meaning all sense of scale and orientation was lost. He wants to now see more tests in various scales alongside drawings that support the communication of these.

I have booked another lazer cutting appointment and will construct a piece using the trajectory method out of acrylic that will hopefully move onto a full size piece of furniture. I just need to analyze the trajectory lines and study how they situate themselves standing up-right. I also want to produce another book that shows the process I have gone through with extracting the text from "the practice of the everyday" and how I have reached my final piece of text which I am classing as my manifesto.

Spatial Stories model development

With all the segments and pieces now cut and with a little bit [an entire day] of TLC I have started to construct these extracted pages into more spatial based forms. Taking inspiration from Eisenman and using my book pages almost as floor plans, I have considered voids and beams as a way of translating and communicating this new spatial language.

The structures start to give a sense of scale once figures are inserted between the layers. These are very speculative pieces of work with no determination for them to be transcribed as realistic architecture. yet the connection between extracted pages and the construction of a space that allows one to walk around starts to question the relationship of mapping our routes.  

Once all words were highlighted, I connected them via a single line. This was fed back to me in my feedback that I had subconsciously started to create new routes in regards to how the text was being read. These lines become my trajectory lines that could then be over layed onto the text to signify the key content. Although there is no physical evidence of text or words that can be read, you start to question what the content is and make that common connection between the syntax of language and my practice of moving.

As further development was questioned, I decided to lazer cut one selected trajectory line with two copies that would allow me to create a framework. The file was slightly reduced in size upon lazer cutting and therefore my pre-drawn holes that would feed the originally planned acrylic rod was too small. The insertion of wire was not as stable but it allowed me to get some quick results before my tutorial and to study how these forms sit. I must admit that it does look like a washing frame [non-intentional] but I am starting to consider these forms as potential architectonic furniture that perhaps relate to the gallery such as bookshelves, display frames, tables etc.

Open Lecture Series 12: Differencengine

John Cooper form Differencengine spoke about the realm of immersive theatre that had similar qualities of companies like punch trunk and secret cinema where audience participation become a vital part of the success in the experience. It was a rather difficult lecture to comprehend because he didn't actually show any visuals other than a single promotional video for a project that he then didn't talk about. A very animated character who discussed the plot of each project and what you would do but . . . we are visual learners. what more can I say. To sum up their practice they consider the following to be part of their ethos:

Immersive / Interactive / Narrative / Technology / Agency [the audience relationship]

Student Seminars

As part of the course and enabling more student driven ideas, collaborative working and communication we have been set with the task of delivering a series of student led seminars. The research focus groups will draw together shared theory and discussions around each persons current work to produce, what will hopefully become a book to be exhibited at the Wayward Transient environments event at Chelsea College in March. I have been placed in MATERIAL NARRATIVES GROUP 01:

Material Narrative: Surfaces, Systems, Properties, Processes, Behaviors, Culture in spaces, Spaces for making, Space and place.

By next week the group have discussed about bringing some shared theory to the table and experimental film tests of our journeys to college.

Drawing Spaces Lecture 05: The Agora

Public space / Mapping space / how the space between works

The Agora: Roman space - between/exchange exterior/interior public/private

DK-CM: Urban Realm Better Barkingside

Very interesting to listen to given I live near here and that this area is my local library / swimming/leisure centre. The idea of building a space that connects the two iconic buildings through replication of the existing architecture.

Caruso St John: Stortoget public square

Landscape project that drew together the variation of public activities and movement with a variety of city based materials. New directional lines and language are formed where materials direct you.

1st International Architecture Exhibition

a composition of theoretical elevations and facades designed by various architects. These proposals of a made up city in one single drawing were developed in 1:1 scale models that acted as a series of thresholds. The outcome is a collaborative town of architects. The threshold between exterior and interior is questioned further as the models situate themselves within an existing space.

Hiroshige: Paper Architecture

Narrative drawings that speculate a quality of space and perspective bringing body and architecture together. The influence of metaphorical stories inserted into the drawings gives examples of mixed exterior/interior view points. The drawings are layered not only in narrative but spaces and material offering a constant flexible and shifting dynamic.

Nana Shiomi: Mirrored rooms

Interior perspective prints that are mirrored questioning the boundaries and perimeter of the original space. I have seen these prints in Edinburgh whilst on a trip a couple of years ago. Beautiful detail and the idea of expanded and stretching space through the use of mirrored perspectives. 

 

Sanna: De Kunstine thearte

Human drawings that understand the relationship between inside/outside/environment/architecture. Perspectives of the solo view where the view point shifts in composing a framed relationship between the scale of human occupants and the scale of space.

Piet Oudolf: Open field [landscape part of the high line NYC project]

Considering the pattern and rhythm of the city that will be mapped across the landscape. How the space changes over time. The drawings hold both diagrammatic and calculative details. There is a clear recognition in colour, type, shape and shift in light that has impacted on the proposal.

Basil Spence: Meeting Space

Interior spaces that hold a spectacle use of lighting. They highlight the occupation of both the private and public. Meeting space is part of the University of Sussex plan. Its massive geometry and circular orientation is brought out through the use of coloured light, influenced by church windows and medieval architecture.

Charles Avery:

Fictional landscapes discussing culture, lifestyle and are made-up. They deal with architectural furniture and space. The drawings focus on a public space and doesn't draw on the surrounding buildings.

Laser cutting

This morning I had an appointment with the technician to cut and engrave all of my files. I have used a mixture of foam board and black mount card. Unfortunately the laser didn't seem to be cutting its way through the entire material. Reflecting upon this once I was back in the studio I think the wrong settings relating to the depth of the material were inputted, meaning I am going to have to do some hand cutting and finishing to try and salvage the material. As these are initial tests, there is no point in re-doing and paying out for new material costs until I have discussed the nature of the work at my next tutorial. 

Spatial Stories: Digital extraction & overlaying

Since going back over the "walking cities" chapter I become increasingly selective of those key words that started to highlight and communicate my practice and the context of my work. before developing this into a more 3Dimensional  spatial related outcome, I wanted to explore some more typographic tests by juxtaposing and digitally overlaying the information once it had been highlighted and blacked out. This was essential how my model were going to be read, looking through and down the pages that would create its own spatial language.

Unit 02: Launch

This afternoons MA ISD team meeting was about the introduction of unit 02: The focus would be on contextualization and would also introduce additional projects that would help, support and relate to wider issues surrounding the project context.

By the next tutorial - there should be an amount of work to show and a general increase in the level of practical exploration and making. The emphasis lies on making and exposing the context of the project.

Contextualize and expand of research

The unit ends with a interim show? what do I want to show? what do I want to test?

How do I test my outcomes?

The theory starts to move into a 2000 words draft. I need to re-read my CRP and start to expand on the sections. what content and theory do I want/need within the CRP? chapter, precedents etc.

The CRP needs to reflect on my practice but not describe it. It should convey the project in both image and text and include reference to own ideas and outcomes. 

The correlation between your theoretical research and practice - not a diary of events

The work should surround current debates - Wider issues connecting my project are the future museum and perhaps the influence on digital but my work doesn't situate itself within this at this moment in time.

Live project: I have decided to only take on one additional project as I am conscious of how much time is available within a week to include lectures, my own developmental practice and the continuation of my lecturing role. I have signed up for the Mobile Archive project headed up by Sue Ridge and Ken. The project will involve the design and construction of a prototype structure that will host and exhibit some of the selected items taken form each of the universities special collections, of which Sue will be X-raying. It will hopefully also include the portable X-ray machine itself. I see this unit as some form of mobile dwelling that can potentially open up and offer a range of different spaces to display and exhibit.

Unit 02: Spatial Stories Planning

Following my unit 01: feedback, I wanted to extend and expand the range of approaches I was using to further develop the project. I had considered what was next in regards to the development of my spatial frames but felt that in order to go beyond the conceptual approach 'as mentioned in my feedback" that I would revisit what has become an essential piece of text, and what was highlighted within the portfolio submission as a clear indication of high level analysis. 

My plan was to revisit the entire chapter of "Walking Cities" from "The practice of everyday life" and extract the key content that then started to support what my practice was about. This idea of highlighting and blacking out irrelevant content is influenced by Newspaper Blackout that start to suggest alternative meanings and stories to existing texts. This is a process that I had completed before but this time I wanted to translate the outcome in a more spatial design, connecting the typographic experiments in with the prior trajectory and route based system work.

Drawing Spaces 04: Homeric / Meta-Space

Homeric: Proportion / Degree / Character

"People and the built environment"

Cedric Price: Fun Palace

Proposition for a constantly changing space. Theatre and public life submerged together. The relationship between these being questioned. 1960'2 speculative projections of the proposal. A shift in viewpoint and material expression used within the drawings. A combination of drawing strategies used to communicate the proposal. [This approach influenced the Pompidou Centre]

Juhani Pallasmaa: The sequence of movements is internalized within the drawings [AD "The thinking Hand" Article] The-eyes-of-the-skin

John Hejduk: Drawing Matters

Drawing and thinking about space simultaneously. Working into space, questioning the engagement and experience.

Pablo Bronstein: Beach Sheds [Folk stone Triennial]

Expressing the grand scheme of architecture and speculation, questioning space. Looking at the relationship to the environment. https://vimeo.com/104527353

John Pickering: Inverted Space

An inverted projection, Hyrbid model/drawings. Geometrical dissections and perspectives from a sphere. Working over calculated drawings that support the models. The production of calculated spaces to draw inverted objects.

Ilya & Emilia Kabakov:

How we engage with spaces and narratives. Useless objects that have a narrative association. Appreciation of the mundane. Drawings spaces that clearly communicate political narratives and the construction of spaces that hold tactile qualities. 

Gunnar Asplund: Barn Architecture

Woodland chapel [connection to the Lewerentz Lecture in Term 1]

Relationship to nature, interior vs exterior and the relationship between all of these and human presence.

Carlos Ferrater: Landscape Architecture

Relationship between program, sequence, material. Fragmented angles confront the topography. Looking at how angular lines within a natural spaces impacts.

Peter Salter: Woodcarving Museum

The drawings hold an interior/exterior relationship [ known as mole architecture]

Below is a link from Architectural review who published a post on influential architectural drawings:

Pivotal Architectural Drawings