Thursday 25 February 2010
Week 5 (contd.): Kitsch...
Wednesday 24 February 2010
Week 5: Affect, Atmosphere, Sensibility
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Week 4: Programme, Event, Gesture
Sunday 14 February 2010
Week 3: Signs, Semiotics, Signification
Wednesday 10 February 2010
E-Day reviews, and couple of other things...
Thursday 4 February 2010
Week 2: Capsules, Networks, Surveillance
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Week 1: Fields, Diagrams, Mapping
The ideas of each of the authors help focus the design studio work, where we are trying to map aspects of Marseille. The Deleuze and Guattari introduction on rhizomatic thinking in particular has been inspirational, whilst the Corner reminded us that mapping is actually an incredibly creative act. In addition, the examples of contemporary mapping strategies, whilst familiar, were explained in a clear way, which made them useful precedents. I found the van Berkel and Bos essay frustrating in its reductive style, making leaps between ideas which were not well explained (perhaps I need to look into the examples of Foucault, Bacon, and Proust more myself in order to get more out of it). The fairly literal transfer of diagram to building also feels a little contrived.
The challenge has been taking these ideas into design. I suspect that however much we try, our maps still stay to some extent tracings of what we found on the ground.
Back in week 1 (this is a retrospective upload...), I was working with Thom on mapping the aural architecture of Marseille (above). This could be a narrow field of interest, but attempting to think rhizomatically opens the potential to connect threads of ideas about sound to other fields of interest, social, political and infrastructural amongst others. Now a couple of weeks later, with hindsight we are looking at the one of the same geographic areas from that time, but looking at the 'casing' and 'voids' within the city (below, in progress). For me, the casing is a direct follow-on from the piano metaphor I used last semester, the term is useful on several levels, including on a sonic level. As a method of mapping, this already seems more productive. It is a much more critical creation of a field, onto which extracts, as existing and new interventions are being plotted (Corner's terms). As a result of this careful selection of voids and casing, we are coming to understand the meaning these terms have in Marseille (a point that is very relevant to week 3's readings on semiotics).
Exposition
After attempting this as a diary, I felt the need to switch the format to something more dynamic, hence this blog. My observations on the first few weeks will have to be added retrospectively, as and when I find time amongst the studio chaos...
So, to start with: Janáček's 2nd String Quartet, 'Intimate Letters'
http://open.spotify.com/user/tomfoth/playlist/4x7bKzif9PY79truXaQSaB