Crit 17'10'2012

 

Space- Time Analysis Docklands Light Railway

My first attempt at a film- A work in progress,  recording the DLR thematically & representationally

'A space exists when one takes into consideration vectors of direction, velocities, and time variables. Thus space is composed of intersections of mobile elements. It is in a sense actuated by the ensemble of movements deployed within it.'  Michel De Certeau - The practice of everyday life 

I am interested in our awareness of our bodies in space and our awareness of our surroundings/locality & how we experience the world around us both through body & mind. How do we measure the mind body connections?

I start with the coordinate- Mapping our locality on the earth, are we aware of our directional movement, speed & time?

I am inside & then I am outside, how do we respond to this- an unspoken reaction? If my environment is unfamiliar is this a conscious thought? Is it a conscious awareness of my current surroundings or am I using what is imbedded in my unconscious mind,my nature, is it part of my biology & physical memory? Entering, departing both geographically and physically in person.

Your feet, why are we aware of them on a train?Stepping on, stepping off, standing still sitting down. Is it because our feet aid in our balance when we move or is it because our feet touch the ground and collide with solid matter? Or is it that we are simply looking down connecting our bodys location with our mind?

51° 30′ 44.64″ N, 0° 2′ 22.92″ W 5:55.50 PM.......A flood of bodies from all walks of life appear each to their own with their own background, culture, knowledge base & experiences. All beings become aware of their breathing, sense of smell and owns body in space, where is my hand how should I stand...? 60 seconds pass the push & throw......25 second stop....

The disorientating effect of unpredictable events make me loose my awareness of self. One moment its still silent, the next overwhelming with events, colliding bodies and the space is transformed into a space made by the beings & movement of bodies. 

Tada Rasa- Clean Slate (Audio By Avro Part)

Based on a theory that individuals are born with out  built in mental content, knowledge comes from our experience. 

Avro part quotes 'it is like that magic experience when you speak to someone in a language they don't speak but they understand all you say... Communication happens on another level, somehow we all are one... Although musically from different worlds the feeling is the same, the desire is the same it is as if we are on different trains but going to the same destination.'

Is our experience therefore purely instinctive & primal? Something which our bodies inherit and learn over time, a knowledge base that is biologically stored?  Is there therefore no norm of representation, as communication happens instinctively, is our perception measured by what we hold within ourselves rather than the fact of position & orientation? How do we represent our architecture to reach this level of instinctive communication? Can we create an experience that builds our knowledge base connecting the architecture with the user.. like a language? especially since all beings are individuals but are we really? ..... The feeling is the same... how can we be certain??

Mapping the Journey on the DLR showing speed, direction, location & travel time, entry & exit - to be updated after crit 17'10'2012

Robin Evans Translations from Drawing to Building- Text 05'10'12

'To translate is to convey, It is to move something without altering it.'

Quotes from this text which I have found interesting;

Before embarking on the investigation of drawings role in architecture a few more words might be spent on language... the common antilogy that would have architecture be like language but also independent of it. All things with conceptual dimension are like language.

With our minds prefixed on the predominance of language we might even risk enclosing architecture...denying it communication with anything else to preserve its integrity. This is unlikely.. there is one unfailing communicant and that is the drawing. 

To insist on direct access to the work may be to designate the drawing as the real repository of architectural art.. earth art, performance, installations constructions.. architectural themes, several are remarkable not just for the fact that they make little or no use of the drawing, but for the impossibility of their development through the medium.'

Turell's work 

'if drawn up within current architectural conventions, could only construed as indicative of witles simplicity. Their effect as installations can none the less be completely overwhelming..... Observers not being able to believe their own eyes..

 it is impossible to envisage its depth even by an act of conscious will'

'Involvement, substantiality, tangibility, presence, immediacy, direct action vs disengagement, obliqueness, abstraction, mediation & action at a distance.

The Campanile drawing- 'required two imaginative steps never before taken together.. a completely abstract conception of projector lines... an ability to conceive of the thing being represented (the surface of the building) as not equivalent to the surface of representation.'

Evans, Robin.  Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays. Cambridge:  The MITPress, 1997

A Notation - Representing Chemical Brothers Star Guitar

The above attempts to represent the film by Chemical Brothers star guitar- please scroll across to see the whole drawing.

From slowing the film down it is evident that the film was created with a series of still images set in a sequence and then repeated and layered.

The strip on the right of the drawing represents this repition of sequence repeat together with the cameras drawn in plan.

 Relationship of the viewer to the moment- The cross section of the eye how our eye translates the image to our brain via our optic nerve, orientation is blurred by the repetitive nature of the images and the altering of scale. The outside space moves into the train through the motion.

The Absence of bodies- The absence of bodies in the drawing within the train is deliberate , the film was created using a series of still images, the environment within the train is therefore calm, still & timeless there is no movement at the point in which the images were taken as the train is not actually moving, an illusion of it doing so has been created. Time at the point of capturing the landscape is 0.00.00.00.

The atmosphere created by the film gives the feeling of chaotic disorientation and movement; the opposite to how still a still camera is when taking a photograph. Objects are synced with sound as they form the landscape.

Representing motion through using light & Dark- Landscape in the drawing has been drawn using charcoal shadow lines & sight lines. When the light hits the landmarks, resulting in shadow it forms the landscape as it moves through time.