January 2012 Archives
When thinking of how to challenge my existing views in addition to formulating new ones (that continue to operate as thresholds yet with different connotations at each scale) I have come up with a quick sketch collage to illustrate how I think the attic view could operate:
(Thanks Graham for the great reference!)
Rather than the warehouse that I have drawn in my thick drawing, the attic space could begin to operate as a series of spaces organized like a panopticon-carousel and accessed through these inhabited-wall corridors leading onto other memory-spaces. Below is an interesting building layout that could become useful:
A quick sketch of how this space could work as a carousel - allowing for multiple experiences to be stored as spaces like boxes in the attic:
A good reference for this would be my man of the moment, Leandro Erlich, the Argentinian Surreal Installation Artist who made this piece called Carousel where the house appropriates the mechanism of the carousel to operate as a stage set of multiple experiences:
Back to TS...
This is what i have so far - its taking a lot longer than expected but hopefully I can churn out these layouts once Im done. Ive only gotten as far as storyboarding my introduction, precedents and the staircase design within my project. Need to rethink the layout of the project pages and add in the mirror window and attic design pages. Will blog an update tomorrow.
I've found better precedents though and researched the rest so i will be able to draw/ redraw information for most. The layout uses the case study format of my whitebook so that the two can become interchangeable.
From the jury, the best quote that summarizes what I would like to achieve by the end of this year was something Tom Weaver said,
"If you, at some point in June, are standing in
front of a wall and on that wall is a huge tableau drawing and in front of that
tableau drawing is a model , a dollshouse model which incorporates elements of
that drawing within it and then you are holding a book which navigates, in a
sense, between both model and drawing and then you could then place yourself
within the book, the painting and the models
- you could set up your own mise-en-abyme that way - a proper
choreographed presentation."
TS Tutorial:
My TS tutorial with John Noel was really helpful. He understood most of my project (barring the view of the basement - he doesnt think the whole tube angle is working for me and thinks it could be reworked to better suit my project). He did say something very interesting when looking at my embedded staircases by questioning how they could be nested not just in space but also in time. I really like this idea since it relates to my Re-con which collapsed space and time whereas the landmark inflates them. The nesting of space and time means not only how spaces can sit within one another but how the same space can operate at multiple scales and be perceived in a multitude of ways over time.
one idea that we discussed was a hinged stair whereby the stair can operate on multiple scales and keep changing its configuration over time depending on the amount and placement of hinges.
Since the jury, Ive been thinking a lot about what my landmark is.
I was re-reading parts of the Surreal House especially the section on the portable house which made me think that the landmark of home becomes a boite-en-valise of memories - a miniature, not-quite replicated collection of all our lived experiences.
Joseph Cornell. Untitled (Bird Box) c.1948
Also, continuing in the line of what Tom Weaver was saying at my jury regarding evidence or found objects: "If the surreal house is a found object, la maison trouvee, then the egg must surely be one of its most wondrous incarnations. And the cage, the ultimate symbol of confinement, also a home for birds, has particular resonance across the entire surrealist spectrum." I dont yet know how this will be helpful for my project - perhaps the symbolism or the idea of the house itself as a found object?
I've updated my three views of the spaces within the Surreal Landmark to reflect some of the ideas present in the thick drawing and from TS:
FORTRESS IMPENETRABLE:
MINIATURE EMPIRE:
SUBTERRANEAN ACTIVITY:
This is a summary of what I will present for the jury on Tuesday. The columns to the right of the of each plate outlines what I still need to do.
I've been working on the big drawing since Tuesday and am now trying to feed in comments from my TS tutorials and the conversation with Alex.
Its time to get busy...
This video shows some amazing inspirational pieces by Brian Dettmer who uses books, cassette tapes and other media that is becoming obsolete. At the end he talks about memory in an interesting way:
"The way that books dictate a linear path while the internet and even the way we remember things, is more of a fractioned experience with a lot of non linear paths that kind of connect at different points."
Brian Dettmer - Remixed Media from Alfredo Aponte on Vimeo.
I would love to use some of these techniques in models of my project since I think it really captures the layered sense of time and space that is present in my project and i think its a beautiful technique to manipulate.
I've been working on TS case studies this weekend. Here are the spreads that I have so far:
I'm hoping that I can dispel some of my confusion re: my project statement by working on the narrative of my detective story. Perhaps by figuring out The Case of the Surreal Landmark, I won't need to mention how memory works?
For now, here is a good quote for my project from Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space:
"For our house is our corner of the world... An entire past comes to dwell in a new house... Through dreams, the various dwelling-places in our lives co-penetrate and retain the treasures of former days."
"A detective story must have as its main interest the unravelling of a mystery; a mystery whose elements are clearly presented to the reader at an early stage in the proceedings, and whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end."
- Ronald Knox, 1929
"All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
