Crevice

Have been reading:

Pallasmaa, Juhani (2005). The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley and Sons: Chichester, UK.

Quotes/extracts …

p.10: “The primacy of the tactile sense has become increasingly evident. The role of peripheral and unfocused vision in our lived experience of the world as well as in our experience of interiority in the spaces we inhabit, has also evoked my interest. The very essence of the lived experience is moulded by hapticity and peripheral unfocused vision. Focused vision confronts us with the world whereas peripheral vision envelops us in the flesh of the world.”

pp.10-11: “Our contact with the world takes place at the boundary line of the self through specialised parts of our enveloping membrane.”

p.11: Quote from Ashley Montagu - anthropologist - “[The skin] is the oldest and most sensitive or our organs, our first medium of communication, and our most efficient protector … Even the transparent cornea of the eye is overlain by a layer of modified skin … Touch is the parent of our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It is the sense which became differentiated into the others, a fact that seems to be recognised in the age-old evaluation of touch as ‘the mother of the senses’.”

p.11: It is evident that ‘life-enhancing’ architecture has to address all the senses simultaneously and fuse our image of self with our experience of the world. The essential mental task of architecture is accommodation and integration. Architecture articulates the experiences of being-in-the-world and strengthens our sense of reality and self; it does not make us inhabit worlds of mere fabrication and fantasy.”

I wonder about this last quote - and in considering the fusion of ‘image of self’ (as represented underneath the floorboards by ‘fleshed’ being), with ‘experience of the world (as represented by video images/animation above the platform). In this respect it invites possibility of video world not ‘making sense’. With uneven (or impossible) perspectives, overlaps, scales.

I also find myself wanting to react against the last part of that quote - of, instead, making a world (of/or architecture) that is fabrication and fantasy. To make an anti-architectural world in the sense that Pallasmaa describes it. In other words, to move towards fabrication, and to decrease our sense of reality …

In considering the underPlace

Pathways of underworld.
Faces of viscerality.
Who is this for?
How private is this space?
It has come to this.
Or everyday? Or just existing? Resigned. Not pedestrian.
Coming to a head.
Knife edge - between privacy, desire, revelling, resignation.
Basking/uncertainty.

Not escaping.
The obvious ‘reading’ is of confinement. Or having been sent to this place.
How to ‘push against’ the normal readings of such a confinement?
Revelling, but not gloating.
How might this person under the floor be there by CHOICE?
monk like. hermit. ascetic life. The asceticisation of movement? Meditation of underworld/confinement.
This was my choice. A retreat (verb and noun).
Retreat from what?
Did it take time to reach this stage (of revelling) or was it always like this?
Is there anywhere else to go?
Anything more to want?
Am I content?
How do people ’show’ contentedness?
Is it to be shared?
Does it imply the ’static’?

Homeostasis.

Questions of agency. Who would put themselves underground (in this position).?
Shannon’s default reading: He has been forced/put there, but has made the best of it?

THIS IS MY CHOICE.

To generate tension/provocation between how it is likely to be read, and how it is being experienced by me underthere. To consider the what of being under there, and the how. To question and understand the choice to locate myself there. To prevent (or perturb) the simplistic notion that he is confined, and cannot choose to leave (and did not choose to go there).

This opens up many possibilities — alternatives.

And David - how might this reconfigure homelessness? To consider the possibility of choosing such a state?

These are a couple of trials with ‘grid dance’. Note as follows:
~ enter then exit with other body part
~ fold/unfold
~ pace - slow, always looking/finding
~ confined to 3 x 3 grid
~ fitting body to grid
~ exposing chest, neck, head/face … slow
~ altering lines - along edge, then diagonal (e.g.) - cutting space.
~ legs not too far apart
~ folded inside out
~ like negative space is causing me to reverse my skin/organs
~ returning to restful

 5 Dec 06 Grid Dance [1:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 7 Dec 06 Grid Dance [2:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

More work from 5 December. This emerged from ‘image’ from first improvisation. Playing with being caught in breath between ’stages’ of rising and lowering from ground. Kind of ‘caught’.

 5 Dec 06 Stuck Lying [1:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Some sample footage of first improv from first day of rehearsals. Working with score: finding, noticing, observing, experiencing, generating ‘intra-crevices’ … within and around the body.

 intra-crevice improv [2:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You see - I realised yesterday, whilst talking to Shannon, that you can take the boy out of the 80s, but you can’t take the 80’s out of the boy. I have a feeling that the very worst we could do is emulate this paragon of video/animation/audio technology.

Enjoy (or not).

Go here.

PS. It’s also a good reminder at just how bad this video/animation idea could be.

I’ve lost track of where these came from - but one of the clothing/architecture books previously cited.

p.2: “… both disciplines remain rooted to the basic task of enclosing space around the human form”

p.25: “… transforming the figures moving through urban space into walking signifiers of it.”

What is denoted by this animated space?

p.260:
“There is an emphasis on the appearance of fragility, expressed in multiple, often transparent or translucent layers. These seemingly delicate layers, however, may actually be fabricated out of steel mesh or tempered glass or, in a garment, a sheer microfiber that resists tearing or repels stains. Layers - within both built and sewn structures - remain distinct and are repeated, sometimes extravagantly, for in stance, in the work of Shigeru Ban. … In both building and clothing designs, the generation of layers - whether wrought out of glass or silk georgette - suggests that there is strength in resilience. Fragility if first acknowledged, even embraced, then defied.”

“The repetition of edges is a strategy used sometimes by painters (Paul Cezanne, for example) to convey the difficulty of identifying with precision just exactly where the body and its clothing meet the spaces and objects around it. How does one distinguish the place where a person’s back actually touches a chair? Where does a head end and a hat begin? What is the line between figure and ground, self and world?”

Some images of two houses/buildings designed by Shigaru Ban. The first three images are of “Curtain Wall House” (Tokyo, 1993-1995), the second two of “Naked House” (Saitama, Japan, 1999-2000).