Bridge by Michael Cross
I want my thesis to read like this feels...
10/21/09
10/5/09
Decay
definition of decay:
(under construction)
... just trying something out here guys - I'd like to make a glossary of terms within my blog to define words that hold prominence in my thesis work. I'm trying to figure out a good way of accomplishing this in an organised fashion...
hang tight!!!
(under construction)
... just trying something out here guys - I'd like to make a glossary of terms within my blog to define words that hold prominence in my thesis work. I'm trying to figure out a good way of accomplishing this in an organised fashion...
hang tight!!!
8/5/09
8/3/09
Yet To Be Defined...
This post is a default for words in the Glossary of Terms that have yet to be defined...
... don't worry - it's on my list!
... don't worry - it's on my list!
8/1/09
An Essay of Temporality: Grappling With Theory
So...here is my first stab at a paper which situates my thesis in its contextual discourses. I had hoped to create an essay which flows in a rolling and gentle way - a series of thoughts strung together by a series of thresholds woven into one another...
... I still have some work to do, and the ending has yet to be written...but without further ado:
Facing Temporality:
The Fragility of Decay, the Atmosphere of the Uncanny, and the Bed
I should like to begin with the idea of the bed; The bed intrigues me in its intimacy, and in the fragility that it signifies. It is a place – a space of memory, identity, and meaning; A place resonates with one’s experiential past, and therein finds its own identity. Marc Auge, in his essay From Places to Non-Places, describes place as something stable, intimate, and rooted in the familiar. The bed is dear to us as a place of refuge, and a source of comfort. It is the place where we submit ourselves, after to toils of the day, to utter vulnerability – trusting in its guardianship in the hours of sleep. In sleep, we relinquish all control to the raveling landscape of the subconscious. This is an enchanting idea; The bed as the steward of the body, a house of safe-keeping, as the mind sinks away into the pools of the imaginary. Gaston Bachelard refers to the house as a cradle, a refuge that appeals to our primitive need to enclose and protect ourselves. The bed then takes up, where the house leaves off in the transition into sleep. The bed is a threshold, an architecture of dreams, by which we happily succumb to the vastness beyond – but more on this later.
Let us return to the theme of intimacy; The bed knows the body. Jules Michelet writes, of the building of a bird’s nest, that this home is formed so intimately, by and for the body, that it is an extension of the bird itself.
“…the bird’s tool is its own body…th house is a bird’s very person; it is its form and its most immediate effort.”
The bed is etched with the identity of the body. Georges Perec writes, in his Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, that the bed becomes so immersed in the space of the body that it becomes singular to the individual; “…we have only one bed, which is our bed.” Michel Leivis describes the bed as an island, upon which we find comfort in solitude. We turn, scrunch, flatten, plump, twist, wrench, and kick to make the bed our own. It is often times such an intimate, and telling portrayal of its user, that it can expose our most vulnerable of secrets, and strip us bare to reveal the raw truths of our lives. It can be the picture of vulnerability.
Because the bed is of a nature so universal in its representation, it behaves in much the same manner as an architectural place; Indeed it is a repository of memory, and a framework upon which identities may be strung. That is to say, it is an object upon which we project past experience. Changes in the projected meaning can be understood in great emotional poignancy, without any regard for intellectual comprehension. If the bed appears in the guise of the unfamiliar, its meaning fluctuates. In Edouard Manet’s Olympia the bed becomes confrontational – a podium from which a challenge is cast, a stage upon which defiance is cultivated. The bed is a protagonist not often credited for its voice in the literature of the ages. In Homer’s Odyssey for example, the bed appears as a destination, representing the solidarity of the home as an anchor enduring the weathers of Odysseus’ epic journey, and the unwavering fidelity of his wife Penelope, in the face of an unrelenting wave of suitors. But I digress. The distilled sense of place that appeals to me predominantly, is its chameleon-like qualities – the ability of the bed to shift identities, to shed meanings, and the subsequent atmospheres therein created.
Segue to the deathbed. To be sure, there are many doors that are opened by this, most sacred of thresholds, however I propose to open only those that speak of human fragility, and the atmosphere of absence. The vulnerability of the bed in life, is emphasized in quite a different way in death. I have spoken of the memory of the bed as place, and its intimacy with the body – it follows then that the deathbed, imbued with the identity and the traces of the life that it has served, becomes unfamiliar in its lifelessness, as though it were an amputated limb. That is to say that one can sense the loss and the vacancy of the bed that was once to intimately connected to the body. Sigmund Freud describes the uncanny as that which is homely becoming unhomely or, the threat of the Other emerging from the woodwork of our most vulnerable of strong-holds, unbeknownst to us. We become repulsed by the Other before we can even fully recognize it as such. We understand it first sensorily, before we can comprehend it intellectually. It is this human fragility that interests me. How is it that vulnerability can take such a hold of our senses? How can it seep from the pooled shadows of the subconscious and grip us in fear before we even have the chance to recognize it? It is this element of the uncanny that addresses temporality – that emerges to converse directly with the intimacy of the bed and the human fragility it portrays. It is the emptiness of the deathbed that is so Other to us, but what of accepting our temporality as fact, and welcoming it therein? It is this surrender to the tides of time, and the acceptance of the Other that I find so fascinating in its defiance of the natural human instinct. Is it possible to play amidst decay? Be at home with desolation? Embrace the uncanny? Anthony Vidler describes the architectural uncanny, and the places of decay as a disfiguration, terrible in the thoughts it brings forth from the depths of the onlooker. He references Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la Mer, who speaks eloquently of the uncanny of decay, as something that emerges from within ourselves.
“ The house, like man, can become a skeleton. A superstition is enough to kill it. Then it is terrible.” p51
It is the violence of the uncanny that possesses the majority of its disturbing nature, but what is of greater discomfort is the juxtaposition of the fragile and the treacherous that sinks cold into the bones.
The deathbed stands now as the story teller of the unknown, a liminal space, an edge condition – both terrifying and seductive in its vertigo, a sentinel, leading into the dark. E. A. Poe describes this unnerving sensory perception of the architectural uncanny in his story The Fall of the House of Usher, in which the house becomes the tomb.
“ I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit…the feeling was unrelieved by an of the half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible…bleak walls…vacant eye-like windows…white trunks of decayed trees…an utter depression of the soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation…there was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart…” p88
The atmosphere of decay is valuable for facing Otherness, and becoming one with the edge condition. Although it is sometimes fearsome (in a similar vein to the Sublime), there is beauty in the natural process of decay, and the presence of the inevitable therein. These atmospheres churn the corners of one’s soul, demanding an emotional understanding of place. They are, by this nature, elusive and resistant to definition.
The sensation of the uncanny in these spaces, is often amplified by the traces of human life that stand testament to the passing of time and the architecture’s memory – palimpsests of collapsed eras. Perec, speaks of these objects of memory as a residue that has accumulated over the history of a life.
" The passage of time (my History) leaves behind a residue that accumulates: photographs, drawings, the corpses of long since dried-up felt pens, shirts, non-returnable glasses and returnable glasses, cigar wrappers, tins, erasers, postcards, books, dust and knickknacks: this is what I call my fortune." p24-25
These objects take on identity, just as the bed becomes an extension of the body, and a witness to intimacy.
By enveloping this emblem of human fragility within the landscape of collapse and desolation, the bed becomes charged with the atmosphere created in this juxtaposition. In contrasting the clean, the comforting, the safe, the vulnerable, and the familiar with the dirty, the threatening, the fearsome, the dark, and the unfamiliar, we can know the uncanny through the medium of experience. What is the emotional understanding of the uncanny, of the atmosphere of decay, and how can we describe it? How can we comfortably step off the edge? How do we welcome the chilling expanse?
The bed; A place we trust as a gateway into the realm of sleep, a threshold to the vastness of dreams, and the sheer immensity of death. A place to pass into what is beyond our control or understanding, and the accompanying fear that surrounds the unknown. To face our temporality, and to embrace desolation is to have an intimate and accepting understanding of fear, and in so doing dissolve the boundaries of fear itself.
... I still have some work to do, and the ending has yet to be written...but without further ado:
Facing Temporality:
The Fragility of Decay, the Atmosphere of the Uncanny, and the Bed
I should like to begin with the idea of the bed; The bed intrigues me in its intimacy, and in the fragility that it signifies. It is a place – a space of memory, identity, and meaning; A place resonates with one’s experiential past, and therein finds its own identity. Marc Auge, in his essay From Places to Non-Places, describes place as something stable, intimate, and rooted in the familiar. The bed is dear to us as a place of refuge, and a source of comfort. It is the place where we submit ourselves, after to toils of the day, to utter vulnerability – trusting in its guardianship in the hours of sleep. In sleep, we relinquish all control to the raveling landscape of the subconscious. This is an enchanting idea; The bed as the steward of the body, a house of safe-keeping, as the mind sinks away into the pools of the imaginary. Gaston Bachelard refers to the house as a cradle, a refuge that appeals to our primitive need to enclose and protect ourselves. The bed then takes up, where the house leaves off in the transition into sleep. The bed is a threshold, an architecture of dreams, by which we happily succumb to the vastness beyond – but more on this later.
Let us return to the theme of intimacy; The bed knows the body. Jules Michelet writes, of the building of a bird’s nest, that this home is formed so intimately, by and for the body, that it is an extension of the bird itself.
“…the bird’s tool is its own body…th house is a bird’s very person; it is its form and its most immediate effort.”
The bed is etched with the identity of the body. Georges Perec writes, in his Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, that the bed becomes so immersed in the space of the body that it becomes singular to the individual; “…we have only one bed, which is our bed.” Michel Leivis describes the bed as an island, upon which we find comfort in solitude. We turn, scrunch, flatten, plump, twist, wrench, and kick to make the bed our own. It is often times such an intimate, and telling portrayal of its user, that it can expose our most vulnerable of secrets, and strip us bare to reveal the raw truths of our lives. It can be the picture of vulnerability.
Because the bed is of a nature so universal in its representation, it behaves in much the same manner as an architectural place; Indeed it is a repository of memory, and a framework upon which identities may be strung. That is to say, it is an object upon which we project past experience. Changes in the projected meaning can be understood in great emotional poignancy, without any regard for intellectual comprehension. If the bed appears in the guise of the unfamiliar, its meaning fluctuates. In Edouard Manet’s Olympia the bed becomes confrontational – a podium from which a challenge is cast, a stage upon which defiance is cultivated. The bed is a protagonist not often credited for its voice in the literature of the ages. In Homer’s Odyssey for example, the bed appears as a destination, representing the solidarity of the home as an anchor enduring the weathers of Odysseus’ epic journey, and the unwavering fidelity of his wife Penelope, in the face of an unrelenting wave of suitors. But I digress. The distilled sense of place that appeals to me predominantly, is its chameleon-like qualities – the ability of the bed to shift identities, to shed meanings, and the subsequent atmospheres therein created.
Segue to the deathbed. To be sure, there are many doors that are opened by this, most sacred of thresholds, however I propose to open only those that speak of human fragility, and the atmosphere of absence. The vulnerability of the bed in life, is emphasized in quite a different way in death. I have spoken of the memory of the bed as place, and its intimacy with the body – it follows then that the deathbed, imbued with the identity and the traces of the life that it has served, becomes unfamiliar in its lifelessness, as though it were an amputated limb. That is to say that one can sense the loss and the vacancy of the bed that was once to intimately connected to the body. Sigmund Freud describes the uncanny as that which is homely becoming unhomely or, the threat of the Other emerging from the woodwork of our most vulnerable of strong-holds, unbeknownst to us. We become repulsed by the Other before we can even fully recognize it as such. We understand it first sensorily, before we can comprehend it intellectually. It is this human fragility that interests me. How is it that vulnerability can take such a hold of our senses? How can it seep from the pooled shadows of the subconscious and grip us in fear before we even have the chance to recognize it? It is this element of the uncanny that addresses temporality – that emerges to converse directly with the intimacy of the bed and the human fragility it portrays. It is the emptiness of the deathbed that is so Other to us, but what of accepting our temporality as fact, and welcoming it therein? It is this surrender to the tides of time, and the acceptance of the Other that I find so fascinating in its defiance of the natural human instinct. Is it possible to play amidst decay? Be at home with desolation? Embrace the uncanny? Anthony Vidler describes the architectural uncanny, and the places of decay as a disfiguration, terrible in the thoughts it brings forth from the depths of the onlooker. He references Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la Mer, who speaks eloquently of the uncanny of decay, as something that emerges from within ourselves.
“ The house, like man, can become a skeleton. A superstition is enough to kill it. Then it is terrible.” p51
It is the violence of the uncanny that possesses the majority of its disturbing nature, but what is of greater discomfort is the juxtaposition of the fragile and the treacherous that sinks cold into the bones.
The deathbed stands now as the story teller of the unknown, a liminal space, an edge condition – both terrifying and seductive in its vertigo, a sentinel, leading into the dark. E. A. Poe describes this unnerving sensory perception of the architectural uncanny in his story The Fall of the House of Usher, in which the house becomes the tomb.
“ I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit…the feeling was unrelieved by an of the half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible…bleak walls…vacant eye-like windows…white trunks of decayed trees…an utter depression of the soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation…there was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart…” p88
The atmosphere of decay is valuable for facing Otherness, and becoming one with the edge condition. Although it is sometimes fearsome (in a similar vein to the Sublime), there is beauty in the natural process of decay, and the presence of the inevitable therein. These atmospheres churn the corners of one’s soul, demanding an emotional understanding of place. They are, by this nature, elusive and resistant to definition.
The sensation of the uncanny in these spaces, is often amplified by the traces of human life that stand testament to the passing of time and the architecture’s memory – palimpsests of collapsed eras. Perec, speaks of these objects of memory as a residue that has accumulated over the history of a life.
" The passage of time (my History) leaves behind a residue that accumulates: photographs, drawings, the corpses of long since dried-up felt pens, shirts, non-returnable glasses and returnable glasses, cigar wrappers, tins, erasers, postcards, books, dust and knickknacks: this is what I call my fortune." p24-25
These objects take on identity, just as the bed becomes an extension of the body, and a witness to intimacy.
By enveloping this emblem of human fragility within the landscape of collapse and desolation, the bed becomes charged with the atmosphere created in this juxtaposition. In contrasting the clean, the comforting, the safe, the vulnerable, and the familiar with the dirty, the threatening, the fearsome, the dark, and the unfamiliar, we can know the uncanny through the medium of experience. What is the emotional understanding of the uncanny, of the atmosphere of decay, and how can we describe it? How can we comfortably step off the edge? How do we welcome the chilling expanse?
The bed; A place we trust as a gateway into the realm of sleep, a threshold to the vastness of dreams, and the sheer immensity of death. A place to pass into what is beyond our control or understanding, and the accompanying fear that surrounds the unknown. To face our temporality, and to embrace desolation is to have an intimate and accepting understanding of fear, and in so doing dissolve the boundaries of fear itself.
7/28/09
Tracey Emin: My Bed
"Tracey Emin shows us her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown. By presenting her bed as art, Tracey Emin shares her most personal space, revealing she’s as insecure and imperfect as the rest of the world."
The Saatchi Gallery website
7/27/09
Georges Perec: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
" The passage of time (my History) leaves behind a residue that accumulates: photographs, drawings, the corpses of long since dried-up felt pens, shirts, non-returnable glasses and returnable glasses, cigar wrappers, tins, erasers, postcards, books, dust and knickknacks: this is what I call my fortune."
Thesis Abstract 03: Round One!
The Bed Fables: Intimate Expanse
Place has the ability to move us. Its presence stirs deep within the constructs of memory; Ever shifting, it will not confine itself to form, but traverses all spatial boundaries, requires no language, and collapses all time; thus it is, by this nature, elusive and difficult to define. Settling itself in the identity of the individual, it resonates with one's experiential past, and therein finds its own identity. Place finds its roots within us; Place is a sense.
This thesis makes reference to the study of Place, as it is seen through the lens of the bed, and the atmosphere created therein. Jules Michelet writes, of the building of a bird’s nest, that this home is formed so intimately, by and for the body, that it is an extension of the bird itself. The bed is a repository of memory - it becomes part of the body, and as such is intrinsically tied to one's intimate identity. Gaston Bachelard refers to the house as a cradle, a refuge that appeals to our primitiveness to enclose and protect ourselves; the bed then, is a respite from the storms of waking life, and in it we find safety in the depths of sleep – it is the architecture of dreams. The bed represents that which is familiar, and comforting, or what Freud would refer to as the homely; on it we project the memories of past encounters. Through this projection of identity, it grows in meaning, and Place is born. In its intimacy, the bed is a palimpsest, a record of the life it has served. Georges Perec speaks of these objects of memory as a residue that has accumulated over the history of a life – the traces of time. The place of rest, however intimate, enclosed, and of the body it is, is also of the mind for it opens itself to the great expansive horizon of the imaginary. This thesis focuses on the Bed as it is seen through various literary voices; among these themes are those of Place, Atmosphere, the Uncanny, and the process of decay.
It is the intention of this thesis to further explore the histories, meanings, purposes, and myths that surround the idea of the Bed as Place. How is Place constructed in the imagination? Can Place be born through the traces of a life? What atmosphere is created when the objects we have such intimacy with, those which have born witness to a life, are left in abandonment, the circumstances of which are unclear? What has been the cultural role of the bed through the ages? How does the idea of the bed situate itself in literature? What are the elements of Place that surround and construct the architecture of the bed? Why can the bed carry such significance, and human identity?
The Bed As Place works both with the intimacy of the body, and with the vastness of imagination. It is a house of dreams. Auge in his essay "From Places to Non-Places" writes that place "...refers to an event (which has taken place), a myth (said to have taken place), or a history (high places)." In an attempt to answer the aforementioned questions, this thesis will put forth a book of fables of the Bed As Place, described in varying media such as essays, poetry, photography, film, and installation work, beginning with the Bed as Event, the Bed as Myth, and the Bed as History. In order to define the Bed As Place it is necessary to employ the medium of atmosphere, so as to convey an emotional understanding of the ideas discussed. It is as yet unclear what precisely this work may entail, however, in the mapping of the themes that surround the thesis, a dialogue will emerge, and with it a further understanding of Place and its role within the field of architecture.
7/9/09
P03 Paradigm Map
par-a-digm (n): 1. a typical pattern or model, an exemplar. 2. a world view underlying the theory and methodology of a particular scientific subject. 3. a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalization and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind
The Tarot Card Deck is a means of flexibly organizing, and cataloguing a set of sources; each card represents the ideas of an artist, writer, poet, or place that pertain to the dominant themes and schools of thought surrounding the thesis. The deck is based on the framework of a traditional Tarot Card deck and consists of four 'Houses' and one set of 'Major Arcana' (historically these are the 'higher secrets'); these are the House of Ravens, the House of Masks, the House of Pentacles, and the House of Stone, representing the themes of Temporality, the Uncanny, Atmospheres, and Place respectively. The Major Arcana cards are thinkers that represent at least two or more of the dominant themes, and are considered to be 'wild cards' that can fluctuate meaning depending on the lens through which they are examined.
Through this framework, one can group the sources in previously conceived relationships, or discover startlingly new conversations between the various schools of thought that might not have otherwise been seen. A methodology for uncovering these hidden relationships is in the art of storytelling through the cards, in much the same way as was traditionally done. In the writings of Italo Calvino's Castle of Crossed Destinies, stories are unfolded by allowing the Tarot cards to speak for the characters of the book. I propose that three cards drawn at random from the Tarot deck can be strung together in a poem, or story, linking the sources that each one represents. This not meant to be an end in itself, but simply a means of playing with the major paradigms of the thesis work - a catalyst for thought.
The deck will expand and shift focus, congruent with the growth of the thesis work; a hierarchy of ideas will emerge in the mapping of this ever-shifting paradigm landscape. Phase One of the Paradigm Map saw the development of the 'Royalty' of the four Houses, and the first five cards of the Major Arcana set. Phase Two of the project edited the first deck, shifting some of the focus on certain ideas, and produced the cards one through ten of the House of Ravens suit. A comprehensive reading list was also developed in this phase. The back of the card was designed to encompass the four Houses of the Tarot deck - Ravens, Masks, Pentacles, and Stones are all represented in a simplified manner, etched into the card in a geometric pattern.
The Chevalier of Masks, the King of Stones, and the Second Major Arcana Met...
I run from him who hunts me,
the hunted from the hunter,
his hounding presence haunts me,
and allows but bitter rest.
Mind reeling, scratching, scrambling,
screeching, sinking, plunging
clawing, tearing, spiraling
spiraling wildly down.
Fingers raking for an anchor.
Clutching, clutching for an answer.
Grasping, grasping but there is nothing -
but there is nothing there.
He ripped them from their roots, he did!
From their very roots, he did!
A thousand empty sockets,
stare out from empty field,
look out to empty sockets,
reach in to emptiness.
And now I've found some stillness,
within this mad-house world,
within this weeping world.
In this shattered haven,
this crumbling shattered haven,
this tattered matted haven,
I've found my happiness.
My thoughts wheel 'round the ruins,
around the crumbled ruins
there's solace in the shadows...
... and safety with the Beast.
The Fourth Major Arcana, the Ace of Pentacles, and the King of Ravens Met....
He stood
before me smiling
eyes twitching,
with the untold truth.
I saw him leaving
walking into silent seas
before my eyes
dissolving.
He took his poetry with him
pressed
to his crooked lips.
He drank
the Peace of yesterday
the scraps
of a life
already lived.
Object To Be Destroyed - Man Ray, 1923
-ori.jpg)
The Keeper of Time watches. She is a fact – solid; standing stubbornly, patterned by the unpredictable scars of age. A wooden habit drapes rigidly from her summit; stern, and scolding. Incessantly her finger moves to and fro with the indifferent gaze of a forbidden memory; a memory that seethes within. Taunting, torturous, maddening stare; serenely agitates the soul of the forlorn broken heart.
Thesis Abstract 02
Facing Temporality: The Architecture of Atmospheres
Atmospheres are spaces that have the ability to move us. Their presence stirs in the depths of our subconscious, and demands an emotional understanding of place – they are, by this nature, illusive and resistant to definition. This thesis makes reference to the study of atmospheres as it is approached in three schools of thought; the phenomenology of space, architecture as it is processed by the senses, and understanding atmospheres in their typologies. Peter Zumthor catalogues the varying sensory properties of building materials and their effect on the mood of a space, while simultaneously defining atmospheres through relentlessly descriptive writings, and imagery to further convey his meaning. In the work of Juhani Pallasmaa, our experience of space is more strictly attributed to the five senses, with criticism placed on our reliance on the visual aspects of architecture. Gaston Bachelard, in his The Poetics of Space, breaks atmospheres into their typologies in order to further understand the character of certain spaces. This thesis focuses on the Atmosphere of Decay, and how it approaches the burial site in contemporary culture; for it is in understanding these spaces that we can begin to understand our own temporality.
It is the intention of this thesis to further explore and unveil the meaning of experiential space, and to uncover the beauty inherent in the natural process of decay. How does a space of great presence and distinct character come to exist? What is it that defines an atmosphere? The cool, awe-striking serenity of an expansive stone cathedral, the invigorating warmth and bustle of a vibrant city marketplace, the charming golden haze of a haphazard night-time cafe; atmospheric places evoke emotion, sensation, and memory, giving identity to both visitor and architecture. How can atmosphere respond to the question most deeply rooted in our collective human identity, that of death, and what is its role in fathoming the unfathomable?
In an attempt to answer these questions the thesis will rigorously document atmospheres with the presence of temporality. Spaces that have succumbed to the natural process of decay will be explored in great detail through the employment of photography, film, watercolour painting, literature, and installation work. The methodology used will develop a language for discussing the atmospheric qualities of space, and conveying the experiential identity of the environments documented. Film is intended to capture the expanse and eerie stillness of decay, while painting, writing, and photography are the means of capturing the mood of the space. Installation art will encompass all of the aforementioned qualities and will serve to communicate the intense emotional understanding of place to others.
The Bus Terminal
The Bus Terminal - A Modernist Encounter
Gillian Tyrrell
It is twilight. The sky hangs, heavy in the breath of the night air - an ominous sea, draping its hues of the deepest silvery blue across the city. The lampposts at the bus terminal flicker on with a triumphant buzz. Concrete planters dot the pavement; their flowers now wilted from the unashamed gaze of yesterday's sun. I stand amidst a garden of crumpled paper and cigarette butts, my eyes tracing the paths of the beasts of burden that pass me by; they circle this concrete island, from the safety of an asphalt moat. Deep, whirring sighs escalate as they turn, falling into a faint mechanical murmur, before the bus comes to a hissing stop. A stirring occurs. Figures leak from enclosures, drifting steadily in all directions. Dozing eyes snap open, and shapes lurch from park benches, making haste for a bus on the brink of departure. Those who have been waiting patiently at the signposted destination press closer to the curb, so as to fend off those just arriving. With a glance down at his battered watch, a man with parchment skin on which age has signed its name, shuffles toward an awaiting bus. Motion has become the medium. Shadowy masses push forward at each withdrawn door, and individuals melt into a collective. With not more than a hum of resignation, the buses pull away from their resting points and disperse, happily fulfilling their purpose. Throughout the tide of travelers, the bus terminal stands firm; a fortress weathering the transitory storm, it is the keeper of time. Carved against a backdrop of glowing darkness, broken only by the lit windows of living rooms, and the faint etching of church spires, its silhouette keeps watch through the veil of night.
Gillian Tyrrell
It is twilight. The sky hangs, heavy in the breath of the night air - an ominous sea, draping its hues of the deepest silvery blue across the city. The lampposts at the bus terminal flicker on with a triumphant buzz. Concrete planters dot the pavement; their flowers now wilted from the unashamed gaze of yesterday's sun. I stand amidst a garden of crumpled paper and cigarette butts, my eyes tracing the paths of the beasts of burden that pass me by; they circle this concrete island, from the safety of an asphalt moat. Deep, whirring sighs escalate as they turn, falling into a faint mechanical murmur, before the bus comes to a hissing stop. A stirring occurs. Figures leak from enclosures, drifting steadily in all directions. Dozing eyes snap open, and shapes lurch from park benches, making haste for a bus on the brink of departure. Those who have been waiting patiently at the signposted destination press closer to the curb, so as to fend off those just arriving. With a glance down at his battered watch, a man with parchment skin on which age has signed its name, shuffles toward an awaiting bus. Motion has become the medium. Shadowy masses push forward at each withdrawn door, and individuals melt into a collective. With not more than a hum of resignation, the buses pull away from their resting points and disperse, happily fulfilling their purpose. Throughout the tide of travelers, the bus terminal stands firm; a fortress weathering the transitory storm, it is the keeper of time. Carved against a backdrop of glowing darkness, broken only by the lit windows of living rooms, and the faint etching of church spires, its silhouette keeps watch through the veil of night.
P02 Contextual Montage
Using the technique of montage, develop three drawings that situate your thesis topic within its relevant contexts, issues, discourses and assumptions.
Destabilising Otherness
The Homely becoming Unhomely; the familiar becoming estranged, abandoned and lifeless. This sensation, felt at the sight of architectural decay and darkness, differs from the awe-striking power of the Sublime. The Uncanny is fearsome in its subtleties, in its ability to emerge from within ourselves; where the sublime is impressed upon us, the Uncanny finds its origins in the shadowy pools of our thoughts - what we thought of as recognizable takes on the eerie precipice of the unknown.
"The house, like man, can become a skeleton. A superstition is enough to kill it. Then it is terrible." Hugo, Les Travailleurs
This montage sought to take an object of familiarity and make it unfamiliar in its decay, representing 'the Other'. The School of Architecture was artificially aged using a collection of photographs taken of the decayed spaces throughout the city of Cambridge - these were then grafted on to the building.
Liminal Lullaby
The second of the three montages depicted a catalogue of vacant death beds. The aesthetic of the image was deliberately shrouded so as to obscure the image slightly, making it appear separate from the onlooker, as though it is hidden under the surface of water. Various beds are portrayed in which the threshold from this life to the unknown next is traversed; among them, a prison bed, an operating table, a hosptial cot, a lethal injection bed, and the beds at Auschwitz. The beds are empty - the onlooker cannot know what event has taken place, but can only sense the atmosphere of the images, and thus interpret them. This montage strives to take one of the most familiar and 'homely' objects, and transform it into the Uncanny.
The(y) Past in the Current
The last of the montages is a depiction of the Richview Memorial Cemetery, at the intersection of the highways 401, and the 427, in Toronto. It attempts to show the distortion of the senses at this site, and the eeriness of the motion that surrounds the stillness of the cemetery. This montage is a palimpsest. It layers both the lives of those who settled in the original community of Richview (a town long since swallowed by the tides of time), and the lives of those who contributed to the building of the infrastructure that surrounds it. The history of the city is depicted here, superimposed on the current condition of the cemetery, at the centre of one of the busiest intersections of Canada. This cemetery has seen generations come and go, the land change from fields to limbs of steel and concrete - it has stood sentinel, a witness to the passing of time.
Destabilising Otherness
The Homely becoming Unhomely; the familiar becoming estranged, abandoned and lifeless. This sensation, felt at the sight of architectural decay and darkness, differs from the awe-striking power of the Sublime. The Uncanny is fearsome in its subtleties, in its ability to emerge from within ourselves; where the sublime is impressed upon us, the Uncanny finds its origins in the shadowy pools of our thoughts - what we thought of as recognizable takes on the eerie precipice of the unknown.
"The house, like man, can become a skeleton. A superstition is enough to kill it. Then it is terrible." Hugo, Les Travailleurs
This montage sought to take an object of familiarity and make it unfamiliar in its decay, representing 'the Other'. The School of Architecture was artificially aged using a collection of photographs taken of the decayed spaces throughout the city of Cambridge - these were then grafted on to the building.
Liminal Lullaby
The second of the three montages depicted a catalogue of vacant death beds. The aesthetic of the image was deliberately shrouded so as to obscure the image slightly, making it appear separate from the onlooker, as though it is hidden under the surface of water. Various beds are portrayed in which the threshold from this life to the unknown next is traversed; among them, a prison bed, an operating table, a hosptial cot, a lethal injection bed, and the beds at Auschwitz. The beds are empty - the onlooker cannot know what event has taken place, but can only sense the atmosphere of the images, and thus interpret them. This montage strives to take one of the most familiar and 'homely' objects, and transform it into the Uncanny.
The(y) Past in the Current
The last of the montages is a depiction of the Richview Memorial Cemetery, at the intersection of the highways 401, and the 427, in Toronto. It attempts to show the distortion of the senses at this site, and the eeriness of the motion that surrounds the stillness of the cemetery. This montage is a palimpsest. It layers both the lives of those who settled in the original community of Richview (a town long since swallowed by the tides of time), and the lives of those who contributed to the building of the infrastructure that surrounds it. The history of the city is depicted here, superimposed on the current condition of the cemetery, at the centre of one of the busiest intersections of Canada. This cemetery has seen generations come and go, the land change from fields to limbs of steel and concrete - it has stood sentinel, a witness to the passing of time.
Eugenio Montale - Cuttlefish Bones
excerpt from
The Lemons
See, in these silences where things
give over and seem on the verge of betraying
their final secret,
sometimes we feel we're about
to uncover an error in Nature,
the still point of the world, the link that won't hold,
the thread to untangle that will finally lead
to the heart of a truth.
The eye scans its surroundings,
the mind inquires aligns divides
in the perfume that gets diffused
at the day's most languid.
It's in these silences you see.
The Lemons
See, in these silences where things
give over and seem on the verge of betraying
their final secret,
sometimes we feel we're about
to uncover an error in Nature,
the still point of the world, the link that won't hold,
the thread to untangle that will finally lead
to the heart of a truth.
The eye scans its surroundings,
the mind inquires aligns divides
in the perfume that gets diffused
at the day's most languid.
It's in these silences you see.
5/11/09
Invisible City
(Freeze frame taken from, "Invisible City" directed by Hubert Davis)
We waited for an hour in an impossibly long line - our fingers were numb from reaching in to various bags of candy and a large packet of Maltesers that we had purchased for this very reason. I didn't know much about the film we were about to see, only that it was a documentary on the revitalization of Toronto's Regent Park (an area with a ho-hum reputation and enough bad architecture to back that claim up). From the academic whisperings of the crowded lineup I could bet that this would be a very in depth look at the architecture that would soon create a new, thriving 'community' in the former slum; I was pleasantly surprised to find I could not have been more wrong about the director's intentions, and it made for an evening of shifting perspectives, core shaking revelations, and an internal debate about the varying moralities of architecture.
Davis' artful imagery forces one to experience the subtle beauty of this area and the people that make it - not the buildings. The story follows the lives of two youths who struggle through the day to day trials that have left a permanent stamp on their world. It tells of loss, uphill battles, and the realities that chase many of the young men of Regent Park. "In this community, manhood comes early...Being weak is not an option" (Ainsworth Morgan, Nelson Mandela Park Public School). It does this without intervention, without manipulation, and put simply - it tells the story like it is. It sets the lives of these youths, eerily amidst footage of Regent Park's demolition. The point that settled in my stomach and made my mind reel was that of scale; I kept picturing architects and planners working at a zoomed out scale, completely unaware of the individual lives that would be put in upheaval at each shifting location of the "Community Centre", inevitably represented as a little cube of foam on a 1:2000 scale model.
This was an absolutely exquisitely crafted film by Hubert Davis (obviously a recently graduated student with a whole intimidating load of talent). It is a must-see with hardly anything in it that warrants knit-picking. I can only say how grateful I am to Hot Docs for bringing it to us, and to the lovely Andrea for dragging me out to see it on a cold night with the added enticement of Maltesers and Sour Keys.
5/8/09
Mulranny
Across the wetlands the path carves away; a world split in two. Endless skies billow above, settling into dark hues that fall to the horizon. A thousand lives are buried here - shadowed faces, memory layered upon memory. The hills speak of their passing, undulating with the strain of the mass grave.
5/7/09
The Racehorse
(Freeze frame from The Man With The Movie Camera, 1929, Dziga Vertov)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLykv_SCqj8&feature=related
The racehorse hammers his hooves assuredly against the battered earth of the track. Countless mechanisms keep time with the rhythm of the horse's stride, harmonizing in one, sinuous, and fluid motion. And almost audible, in the pooled shadows of our distant unconscious, is the sound of a throbbing inhalation; air sucked greedily through foamy bit, scrapes through teeth and tongue, before settling in a boiling sigh in the depths of the horse's throat. Unexpectedly, he slows. The powerful limbs ease into a motionless pause, and the horse becomes an artifact, suspended in space and time, impatiently awaiting our analysis. Poised with such potent intensity and discipline, each muscle a trembling bow hovering above the taut string of a violin, held fast, awaiting the signal. Discomfort stirs in the corners of our surrendered state. We will the illusion to continue, we will the racehorse to complete his stride, we wish to give ourselves once again to the comforting embrace of the mirage; but something refuses us entry, and still the racehorse remains caught. His freedom, and our re-admittance to the imaginary constructs of this silvery reflection, orchestrated according to the will of an unknown conductor.
Oh He's Good...
(From “Relativism is dialectics for idiots”, The Time Has Come - D. Tytob, by Dimitry Gutov)
“The time has come to say farewell to the mousy scrambling of reflection!”
5/6/09
Iron & Wine Rocks My Socks!
(Photograph by Wendy Lynch, www.wendylynchphotography.com)
Not only is Iron & Wine letting you download tracks that weren't previously released from their 2007 Shepherd’s Dog sessions on their website, AND releasing a new album due out May 19th (Around The Well), BUT they are also playing Ottawa Bluesfest this summer! Amaaaaaaazing.....
....my day has been made.
Zumthorlicious!
(Image courtesy of www.archdaily.com)
Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has received The Pritzker Prize of architecture for 2009. Zumthor has continually crafted timeless buildings, rich in phenomenology and saturated in sensory experience; the inhabitant should feel the architecture around them and be changed by its presence.
" ...What do we mean when we speak of architectural quality? It is a question I have little difficulty in answering. Quality in architecture does not - not to me anyway - mean inclusion in architectural guides or histories of architecture or getting my work into this or that publication. Quality architecture to me is when a building manages to move me."
(Peter Zumthor in his book Atmospheres, p 10)
Oh God, don't you just love him?
5/5/09
Rain
(Rain at Miyajima by Koitsu, Showa 16, July 1941)
I remember the lanterns;
their delicate paper shells swaying in time with the wind, unconcerned with the rain that drummed down just feet away. I lifted my fingertips, and I could touch the sky. It stretched toward me - sticking to my skin, hiding in my hair; playful. Each footfall sounded with a satisfying thud against the damp wooden walkway.
We moved on, through the quiet streets. The paving stones glistened in the light of shop windows. We arrived at the tea house. Large and open on all sides - it glowed with warmth, piercing the chill of evening. Its wooden structure smelled sweet in the heavy air. Decades of sencha had been served beneath its thatch roof, and it was as though the steam that had come from each cup still lingered. We sat, the clay mugs warming our hands, and listened to the night's embrace.
Snow Storm
(Snow Storm – Boat Off a Harbour’s Mouth, J. M. W. Turner, 1842)
amid swathes of stinging snow and drowning wind
the defiant steamboat carves through waters treacherous
the immutable cloth of waves tightens like a noose
a ground laden with every shifting swell of mirrored grey
sky and sea reach towards each other
with the passion of lovers
wrought in anguished battle
they twist violently
clawing to feel the presence of the other
the burning breath of the smoke stack
caught between their writhing bodies
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Atmosphere of the Unknown
Tyrrenian Sea (© Hiroshi Sugimoto)
An initial contemplation of Hiroshi Sugimoto's seascapes instills a feeling of tranquility; some kind of sigh of relief at escaping the 'chaos' of the modern metropolis, and exchanging it for what seems like the simple serenity of sea and sky. Tranquility, that is, until a second glance allows the unease to settle over you. You stand, on the precipice of the unknown, confronted with the great expanse of fearsome beauty and chilling omniscience.
This is The Sublime. Nature; darkly portrayed in its qualities of vastness and incomprehensible grace. The intellect is overwhelmed - the body is struck with awe, and veneration to the point of fear. The unrelenting horizon; a hard line that resonates with the power of Nature .
The atmosphere that reaches from the page entwines itself around the onlooker - holding them captive for the short time that they stare into the black swathes of water, and never quite letting go.
Atget's Paris
(Untitled, photograph of Paris by Eugene Atget)
the simmering waters of the seine
breathe the sweat of industry
it encircles the cool morning damp
and settles residually on the ghost
of a thousand purposeful footsteps
that echo in the memory
of the worn cobblestone streets
the solace of night subsides
giving way to the sharp cut of morning air
a new day is on the horizon
and in this glorious ambiguity
of shifting skies
when the dust of yesterday
has come to rest
in moistened grime
somewhere
distant minds are pulling themselves
from the caress of contented slumbers
and wearied souls
emerge to face the impending sun
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