December 2011 Archives
The pin-up or group tutorial was helpful in identifying how I should develop my project and presentation of the work simultaneously.
The following notes are the key points I took away from the feedback:
- Important to mention nesting at different scales (objects, spaces, buildings...) at the start of presentation as a lens through which to view the collapsed memories
- construct the view of the cupboard as a counterpart to the basement - both explore darkness but one is welcoming with defined limits while the other is endless.
- consider the other landmark buildings in the metropolis of mind - constructing counterpart views within them as a segue to the overall zoom out of the metropolis and the concept that the landmark of HOME is just one of many
- incorporate the Recon as a way of describing collapse, inflate and the mechanism of memory
- looking at memory through two types of haze: drug induced (Studio 54) and decay over time (childhood home)
- make sure the surreal and the haziness of memory is introduced into all views using the domain of control of the child as a constraint.
- provide contrast in some of the views between the child and adult perspective evolving over time
- Views to the outside world (letterbox/ windowsill) should hint at the metropolis of the mind/ stage-set quality of the view - good place to incorporate TS in how it is revealed
Important points to consider:
- how I describe the space to not be specific as to its function but rather to its experiential qualities so the audience can still input their memories.
- remove dollshouse doors from attic view and concentrate on the nesting within that space.
- dont include people - about the space and the individual's memory
Over the break, my goal is to start all the views outlined in the storyboard below:
As an idea for the corridor view, I thought i could play with illusions of changing the door sizes to heighten the depth of the corridor and alter its perception (adult/ vs. child)
I would also like to work more on the overview drawing on the space of the landmark that brings these moments of collapse together.
and will try to format existing work into whitebook format.
A test of the attic view - I dont know what this view will be doing yet but will hopefully have something more developed for tomorrow. I already like the miniaturisation of the home through the dollshouse since it reinforces the idea of nested space present in the other two memory-spaces.
Also working on a storyboard of other views and a table of contents for my whitebook.
This is the WIP Table of Contents:
Memory Artefacts
"Why do we remember the past but not the future?" - Stephen W.
Hawking
Contents
1. Reconstructing Memory-Space
1.1. The Mechanism of Memory
1.2.
Collapse
1.3.
Inflation
2.
The Childhood Home
2.1.
The Revisit
2.2.
The Domain of Control
2.3.
Imagination and Identity
3.
The Basement as Endless Darkness
3.1.
The Artefact (Playing card)
3.2.
The Memory
3.3.
The Experience
4.
The Table as Fortress Impenetrable
4.1.
The Artefact (Dollshouse table)
4.2.
The Memory
4.3.
The Experience
5.
The Attic as Miniature Empire
5.1.
The Artefact (Wallpaper fragment)
5.2.
The Memory
5.3.
The Experience
6.
The Cupboard as Hidden Room
6.1.
The Artefact (Diary Entry)
6.2.
The Memory
6.3.
The Experience
7.
The Window as Measure of Time
7.1.
The Artefact (Photograph of etched markings)
7.2.
The Memory
7.3.
The Experience
8.
The Letterbox as Periscope to the World
8.1.
The Artefact (Letter)
8.2.
The Memory
8.3.
The Experience
9.
The Surreal Landmark
9.1.
The Route
9.2.
The Nested Spaces
9.3.
The Labyrinth
10.
The Metropolis of the Mind
Ive developed the axo route through the building a bit further to incorporate the basement view. I still havent figured out how the collapsed memory can be collapsed into this drawing. In the case of the under the table view, I just collaged it in through the door but maybe it should be a kind of mapping of one onto the other (no idea yet...)
What I do like about the drawing is how it enforces the enfilade or nested space idea of my argument. In the first view the stairs are nested at different scales. In the basement view, scalar spaces are nested - the difference between the perceived endless space and the real space.
If the whole drawing could show these discrepancies/ nesting conditions at different scales and through different architectonic interventions, I think the drawing could become a really interesting map of the labyrinthine route through the landmark.
Natasha sent me a link about event boundaries - a study about how we often experience a loss of memory when we pass through a door into a new space. This process of resetting memory could be manifested through various thresholds that link different spaces together in the landmark and could be a good way to deal with the concept of "resetting the route" that Javier talked about in my TS tutorial when thinking about designing a labyrinth.
I apologize in advance for the hilarity of this view....
The memory exposes the overactive imagination of the child who dreads entering the basement which stretches out as an endless black background into which its worst fears are inserted (in this case, a dragon). Yet, when the lights turn on, we see the basement for what it is and the dragon transforms into a harmless (albeit scary) cat...
My tutorial with Natasha and Alex was helpful in determing how the individual moments of collapse could begin to be collaged together to form a meta-drawing that fills in the gaps between memories to create the route through the landmark.
This is the beginning of that drawing (edited post-tutorial to attempt to collage the perspective view into the axonometric drawing)
Skewing the perspective to try to map it onto the axo looked terrible so I ended up photoshopping the perspective into the frame of the door in the axo and collaging them both into the drawing to make it look more surreal / incongruous. Here is a zoom in:
I also wanted to reintroduce the operable quality of my re-con to allow the slowness and feeling of entry into the collapsed memories through layering and pop-up techniques. So this is the first view re-done:
Also in discussing what form my whitebook could take this year, a diary format was suggested to collect fragments of the real and understand how they are collapsed to form surreal memories. This made me think of the murder mysteries written as a book of evidence that Tom Weaver showed me this summer (see below) as a reference for my project. I could therefore combine written accounts with other formats of recollection - photographs, found objects, film, scrapbooks etc to build up a body of evidence for each memory that draws from the real and the imaginary.
Im working on the view of the basement which I will blog later today - I'm trying to think how it can also retain an operable quality - maybe by switching on the light and revealing the true space vs. fictional endless space of darkness or a similar sense of overlap/ nesting as the stair view.
