summary of what I have been doing since oct

From Boite en Vaise to the AA Box

The notion of collecting in a box from Duchamp's Boite en Valise is re-appropriated into the AA Box, where different elements and spaces of the school are fragmented, removed form their original context and sequence; then re-packed.  Within the box, the spaces are re-sequenced in order to curate a spatial experience defined by predictability and surprise.  For example, there are enfilade of doors that lead to nowhere; abrupt shifting in scale inside the library bookshelf; space slippage from stairs in 39 Bedford Sq to terrace door in 36, and then to stairs in 33; window in the unit space suddenly has a view looking at Kyoto, etc.  The elements and spaces are like different episodes within a sequence.  They juxtapose each other and thus create new readings, which are completely different from their original meaning within their original context.

From the AA Box to the comic strips

The AA Box is about sequence.  A comic strip (which itself is a form of sequential representation) is thus used as a tool to extract items from the box, and more importantly, to extract or distill the very idea of sequence.  The comic strip becomes a testing ground to construct a context from sequence; to explore the role sequence plays in the design and to understand its relationship with architectural form as well as the narrative.  Operating similarly in the Box, the doors and windows become points of entry/ exit in the comic strip, which allow the branching out of narrative from the main sequence, and form many other "sub-stories".  The network of comic strips can then allow the collection of different elements into the project, and at the same time create relationships (predictable or as a kind of surprise) between each of them.

The comic strips and the prison: the Great Escape

The comic strip is then developed into a kind of prison narrative.  The prison and the comic strip operate in the same way in certain sense: each individual frame/ panel in the comic strip is a form of isolation from the other frames, while still remaining as a part of the larger story sequence; the notion of imprisonment can be seen as a kind of absolute cut/ isolation from the trajectory of one's life.  At the same time, the cells for prisoners can also be seen as individual frames, but are also at the same time part of a larger sequence, which is the prison.  Within the prison narrative, there are 4 threads of sequences: the prisoner (who are also the architect of the prison, and are planning to escape from the prison), the guard, the warden and the visitor.  The 4 sequences all have different forms of surprises as they begin to talk about entry and exit.  At some point, the sequences may overlap, and may operate in a foreground/ background relationship.  Similar to the AA Box, doors and windows in the prison become points of entry/ exit that allow the escape from the prison narrative towards a larger message/ argument.