Alternative methods of exploring a city
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UNIT H: CULTURAL GEOMETRIES
Monday 7 October 2013
A City Salvaged
The Process of Making One Hundred Chairs by Martino Gamper
" I didn’t make one hundred chairs just for myself or even in an effort to rescue a few hundred unwanted chairs from the streets. The motivation was the methodology: the process of making, of producing and absolutely not striving for the perfect one. This kind of making was very much about restrictions rather than freedom. The restrictions were key: the material, the style or the design of the found chairs and the time available — just a 100 days. Each new chair had to be unique, that’s what kept me working toward the elusive one-hundredth chair. I collected discarded chairs from London streets (or more frequently, friends’ homes) over a period of about two years. My intention was to investigate the potential of creating useful new chairs by blending together the stylistic and structural elements of the found ones. The process produced something like a three-dimensional sketchbook, a collection of possibilities. I wanted to question the idea of there being an innate superiority in the one-off and used this hybrid technique to demonstrate the difficulty of any one design being objectively judged The Best. I also hope my chairs illustrate — and celebrate — the geographical, historical and human resonance of design: what can they tell us about their place of origin or their previous sociological context and even their previous owners? For me, the stories behind the chairs are as important as their style or even their function. I wanted the project to stimulate a new form of design-thinking and to provoke debate about the value, functionality and the appropriateness of style for certain types of chair. What happens to the status and potential of a plastic garden chair when it is upholstered with luxurious yellow suede? The approach is elastic, highlighting the importance of contextual origin and enabling the creative potential of random individual elements spontaneously thrown together. The process of personal action that leads towards making rather than hesitating."
Taken from the book 100 Chairs in 100 Days
" I didn’t make one hundred chairs just for myself or even in an effort to rescue a few hundred unwanted chairs from the streets. The motivation was the methodology: the process of making, of producing and absolutely not striving for the perfect one. This kind of making was very much about restrictions rather than freedom. The restrictions were key: the material, the style or the design of the found chairs and the time available — just a 100 days. Each new chair had to be unique, that’s what kept me working toward the elusive one-hundredth chair. I collected discarded chairs from London streets (or more frequently, friends’ homes) over a period of about two years. My intention was to investigate the potential of creating useful new chairs by blending together the stylistic and structural elements of the found ones. The process produced something like a three-dimensional sketchbook, a collection of possibilities. I wanted to question the idea of there being an innate superiority in the one-off and used this hybrid technique to demonstrate the difficulty of any one design being objectively judged The Best. I also hope my chairs illustrate — and celebrate — the geographical, historical and human resonance of design: what can they tell us about their place of origin or their previous sociological context and even their previous owners? For me, the stories behind the chairs are as important as their style or even their function. I wanted the project to stimulate a new form of design-thinking and to provoke debate about the value, functionality and the appropriateness of style for certain types of chair. What happens to the status and potential of a plastic garden chair when it is upholstered with luxurious yellow suede? The approach is elastic, highlighting the importance of contextual origin and enabling the creative potential of random individual elements spontaneously thrown together. The process of personal action that leads towards making rather than hesitating."
Taken from the book 100 Chairs in 100 Days
A City re-presented
Guy Debord's Psychogeographic guide of Paris
"The map of Paris has been cut up in different areas that are experienced by some people as distinct unties (neighbourhoods). The mentally felt distance between these areas are visualized by spreading out the pieces of the cut up map. By wandering, letting onself float or drift (dériver is the French word used) each person can discover his or her own ambient unities of a specific city. The red arrows indicate the most frequent used crossings between the islands of the urban archipel (seperated by flows of motorized traffic). "
"The map of Paris has been cut up in different areas that are experienced by some people as distinct unties (neighbourhoods). The mentally felt distance between these areas are visualized by spreading out the pieces of the cut up map. By wandering, letting onself float or drift (dériver is the French word used) each person can discover his or her own ambient unities of a specific city. The red arrows indicate the most frequent used crossings between the islands of the urban archipel (seperated by flows of motorized traffic). "
On Rear Windows and Front Windows
Rear Windows....
and Front Windows:
and Front Windows:
You will not be surprised to learn that the net curtain is a British, or, specifically, English device, as it allows examination of the outside world without permitting introspection.
The net spread with the rising urban middle classes, who began to worry that their betters might sneer at their interiors and their inferiors might steal from them.
Originally made of lace, the introduction of light polyester nets increased opportunities for hidden observing, and the net assumed its role as a cipher for suburbia and its supposed narrowness and nosiness. Now it is rarely met without its default adjective, "twitching", emphasising that it's seen mostly as a means of prying rather than protecting.
Its more organised consequence, Neighbourhood Watch, hasn't attracted the same opprobrium. The upper classes prefer shutters. Continentals, who largely operate an open-curtain policy, are puzzled by all this obscurantism. But then they, palpably, are not British.
Article from The Independent
Article from The Independent
The Blossoming of Perspective
A selection of image of perspectival devices from Dr Penelope Haralambidou's research output the 'Blossoming of Perspective'
Here is a link to her exhibition pamphlet: link
Sequences of Space in the White House
Well worth watching if suffering from a creative block...(skip to 7:22 if needs be)
Departure Point: On Casting....
Some modes of casting we should (or should become) acquainted with:
Max Lamb's Hexagonal Pewter Stool
Guiseppe Penone - Spazio Di Luce
Rachel Whiteread - Whitechapel Facade Commission (follow link for video )
Chriso and Jeanne Claude - Coast
Tuesday 1 October 2013
Three Minute Movie - Rebooted
All,
Further to our presentation last week regarding the three minute movie we would like you to being collating for your portfolios, please refer to the film references below:
and some others:
Nave Yutes: Flores Prats
Bornholms Museum: Flores Prats
At this stage of the year we ask you to use film as a way of recording and interrogating your work; allow the camera to reveal and present new ways of viewing your work.
We will be expecting to see you all use film in this way throughout the year and ask that you bring in snippets along to tutorials, be it films of processes of making, drawing or just light dancing across a room.
As we progress through term one we will begin to explore film editing software and discuss the role the films could take in our portfolios/crits etc...
For clarity the premise of the 3 minute movie is to alleviate the restriction on the number of portfolio sheets and models you are permitted to submit. As such we envisage that the 3 minute movie is intended to act as a supplement to the portfolio.
Any further questions please ask.
J
Further to our presentation last week regarding the three minute movie we would like you to being collating for your portfolios, please refer to the film references below:
and some others:
Nave Yutes: Flores Prats
Bornholms Museum: Flores Prats
At this stage of the year we ask you to use film as a way of recording and interrogating your work; allow the camera to reveal and present new ways of viewing your work.
We will be expecting to see you all use film in this way throughout the year and ask that you bring in snippets along to tutorials, be it films of processes of making, drawing or just light dancing across a room.
As we progress through term one we will begin to explore film editing software and discuss the role the films could take in our portfolios/crits etc...
For clarity the premise of the 3 minute movie is to alleviate the restriction on the number of portfolio sheets and models you are permitted to submit. As such we envisage that the 3 minute movie is intended to act as a supplement to the portfolio.
Any further questions please ask.
J
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