New Topic

I have just recently (Tuesday night) changed my topic. The inspiration behind it was a talk by Matt Clark given on Tuesday night at the Design Museum which I attended. Matt Clark is one of the co-founders of United Visual Artists (UVA) and he talked a little bit about his background and some of the projects he was involved in at UVA. Although very inspiring and interesting that was not where my idea came from. At the end of the lecture there was the question-answers procedure by the audience towards the speaker. His last words were Loss As Beauty. That immediately triggered something inside me. I absolutely loved the oxymoron of this phrase and as I was not happy with how my Future Houses topic was progressing I decided to switch subjects.
Although it is a wide issue I will try to use word generation method as part of my design process just to see the different meanings that can relate to the word loss. A good (in my opinion) method to start brainstorming on the subject.

Loss---death - life - people- person - empty - mourning - earth - graveyard - resurrection - coffin - maggots - food - soil - hopeless -

Loss---sences - blind - touch - darkness - smell - brain - handicap - assistance - wheel chairs - old - rusty - dirty - disease - deceased - not for granted -

Loss---objects - lose - cry - feelings - attach - journey - new - old - character - borrow - yours - mine - everybody - possession - eternity - permanent - temporary -

Loss---identity - character - new - name - tradition - modern - globalisation - regional - community - habits - neighbours - home - family -

 (PLS! Feel free to add some more ideas and word generations!Highly appreciated!)

What I want to achieve is the oxymoron of the sentence loss and beauty. So either category I will choose depending on which interests me more, I will try to look at the positive side of it. The research just begins!

Immigration | Traditions and new technologies

This is an article I just found from Elephant magazine. It talks about (you are more than welcome to read it) about immigration of artists and how their art has traveled in space. Also how they mix tradition with modern techniques and create something new.

Why it interests me so much is the immigration part, I ve started reading White Teeth by Zadie Smith which talks about immigration and the other element is the use of historic artifacts in new technologies. Something that I am thinking about my project, according to domestic appliances and how we see them now but how will they be seen in the future. Also about immigration, because my self is a student immigrant to UK (if we can use that term) I still do not know what to call home and where home is. Of course family, friends is an important element to this question, I spent little time back home. My daily routine is fixed under British laws now even though I always bring my Greek mentality.

 http://epub01.publitas.nl/46/50/magazine.php#/zoompage/7/

This is the link to the specific page of the digital edition of Elephant magazine if you want to read it.

Brief

This is the brief that I made for my final project. It is the first draft so it is not the final thing just yet. Still more exploring to do and focus on a specific (if possible) aspect of it. It is still quite broad and I feel very lost.

The speculations and possibilities that can happen to houses in the future are many and they all have different factors. It is a collective thinking of society, finance and environmental issues.

So there is still a lot of way to go. And a lot of research to do!

About literature

A book which shook me to my very core was The Trial by Franz Kafka. I remember reading it with great passion and anxiety. The main character of the book Josef K. is being arrested one morning without having done anything against the law, but almost straight away he is released. He is told that he needs to wait for instructions about his trial from the Committee of Affairs but he is not told the day of his trial and what his charges are.

He then starts wondering about his trial and tries to find why he is being charged and when.

It is a book about the power of the law, the authorities and bureaucracy. Through this book Kafka critises the power of authority and how people feel week against it, without event the hope of resisting and finally the ultimate crush of a person's rights and will to live.

It is a strong book and sometimes quite difficult to understand. But I remember though when reading it that I not only felt sorry for him but also I could see myself in his shoes in many occasions of his short life.

 This book is an inspiration to me in a way of trying to be alert. To see and try to make a life in which I will feel free and not restricted in any way by any one. It shares my notion towards any sort of law enforcement  and establishment.

Modern or not?

The ultimate aim of all creative activity is the building! 

This is how the Bauhaus manifesto begins. Staatliches Bauhaus or just known as Bauhaus began life in 1919.  It was a school which combined crafts and fine art and was closed down by the Berlin police on 11 April 1933. Its founder was Walter Gropius a german architect. The noun Bau literally means building and haus is house.  

(Bauhaus) created the patterns and set the standards of present-day industrial design; it helped to invent modern architecture; it altered the look of everything from the chair you are sitting in to the page you are reading now

Wolf von Eckardt

 In this post I will not go on about the history of Bauhaus, I am only going to mention why I think it is inspiring to me and my work. What amazes me the most is how most of the ideas and artifacts produced in Bauhaus still look modern today.

 The Wassily Chair (1925) by Marcel Breuer named for Wassily Kandinsky

The use of bent tubular steel in chairs (reportedly influenced by the handlebars on his Andler bicycle) and the use of leather as support for the body.

Poster for Kandinsky's 60th birthday exhibition in Dessau design by Herbert Bayer

Bayer was a typographer and used simple typefaces, heavy rules and asymmetrical compositions. Himself was influenced by Moholy and De Stijl.

Is the multidisciplinary approach to design that I myself can relate to Bauhaus with my studies in Goldsmiths University. The creative approach of the masters of design was not one-sided but approached and fulfilled a more generic character which in my eyes makes absolute sense.  

On the other hand there is Dada, a cultural movement that was involved with arts, crafts and politics. The movement had cores in different cities (Europe and North America) which all produced cultural influences, some of them more political and social and others more artistic.

If you have serious ideas about life,
If you make artistic discoveries
and if all of a sudden your head begins to crackle with laughter,
If you find all your ideas useless and ridiculous, know that

It is dada beginning to speak to you

Dada Manifesto, Paris France 12 January 1921

What influences me in Dada is the take nothing for granted and question everything in life approach of their mentality. A method which I find a good starting point for projects and research in my personal work.

Guillaume Apollinaire

Calligrammes 

   

Dada's Abc pt1

   

Jean Cocteau and Hans Richter 

8x8 A Chess Sonata

Shhhh

A captivating theme for me is silence. Silence is the lack of any audible sound. Yet we do understand it. When we do not hear anything we simultaneously understand the state of silence. But since we all seem to understand it and use the oxymoron of hearing the silence, what is then the sound of silence? 

Silence can be so full of communication either with the use of image, text and body movements or it can refer to the absence of it as well. On my second year most (if not all) of my projects included some how sound. I got really fascinated with sound and how I can create it with the use of different objects and incorporate new meanings and new technologies to "read" sound. Now I am mostly inspired by the exact opposite.

Even though silence has absolutely no sound it can be a fascinating tool to look at. I want to explore silence and see what I can find in meanings not just audio but communication as well. Silence is used in society as a remembrance of tragic victims moment of silence. Also how chaotic can silence be. Even there is no sound to it (which means no frequency, no tune) is there harmony or chaos hidden inside it? Another interesting part is to see silence from the eyes of people that have never experienced the sound. How do they see the world and how common is their silence with the people that live within sound. 

Another interesting aspect would be as well to look at the exact different, noise, and how harmonious or chaotic it can be.

Or what it means to be silent in society.

An example of sound and silence.

Stills and Inspiration

What I think is absolutely inspiring is fashion photography. Having worked in fashion for two months I sort of changed the idea that I had before. Fashion is glamorous and a for a girl is a very attractive thing. But on the inside is completely different. Long hours, long days...even though I was in charge of the graphics for the company I used to work still the stress and the shifts are just unbearable.

But even after this experience I still like fashion photography. It might be pretentious sometimes and story-less but still it catches my eye in the most obvious way sometimes, but the scenery and feeling behind it sometimes is absolutely breath taking. 

I am a big fan of Dazed and Confused (among others) but this is my absolute favourite magazine. Even though the last issues seem to have changed their old aesthetic (I used to like the old ones better) they are still captivating. I don't know if it's because Rankin created it but the photography is top of the class.

Also the techniques used are innovative and try to push the boundaries every time.

I do not know how I can corporate a final year design project with fashion photography, but it can give stills filled with imagination.

Patrick Demarchelier for Pirelli

The colours are able in this example to express the feeling

One of my favourite covers ever

Magic | Une Machine A Habiter

A house is a machine for living in...An armchair is a machine for sitting in and so on...Our modern life...has created its own objects : its costume, its fountain pen, its telephone...Our epoch is fixing its own style day by day. It is there under our eyes. Eyes which do not see.

 LeCorbusier

In the 1850's, a French magician and inventor Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, filled his house with electrical and mechanical gadgets including a system of centrally-controlled alarm clocks to wake the servants, an automatic horse-feeder and a complex system of bells to detect visitors. The magician used to invite many of his friends over to his house in order not just to host a nice dinner or tea party but also to show his inventions and how they work. His house appears to be in some sense a stage on which a technological magical wonder was realised.

Houdin's entrance gate arrangement


Then in 1931 The Apartment Charles de Beistegui was constructed by LeCorbusier. A small rooftop addition to an existing 19th century building in Paris. The roof-top addition did not function as a machine for living, it incorporated  rather extraordinary mechanical services away from the standard domestic technologies. As the owner (de Bestegui) was interested in surrealism, the gadgets and of course their effects were a direct response to the client's interest. Electricity was used to power mechanisms for moving interior doors. The Paris view from the windows was manipulated inside the apartment. Scenes were collected with a periscope on the roof and projected onto an interior screen which appeared through an automated mechanism.

 The apartment by LeCorbusier



Moving into the future the house acted as a site of experimentations, for interaction between private inhabitation and public consumerism. The House Of The Future 1956 included features such as domestic gadgetry, self washing glass walls, self cleaning bath. These innovations were more evocative.

Jacques Tati's film Mon Oncle (1958) presented a comic/satiric perception of the modern house. The kitchen was presented with an automated steak-grilling flipper, in the front garden a fountain in a metallic fish shape.

Jacque Tati's Mon Oncle

Today's house is all about technology, luxury and sleek lines. The transformation of the dumb box into the smart house.

My question is what is the house of the future today. Is it possible that the machines or gadgets have taken over our lives entirely that we need a new word for what we mean house now. But the limits of differentiation between inhabiting a space and living within a space are very thin. Is it possible that today LeCorbusier's addition to an already existing house is the house of the future? Are designers the new magicians? Where does the theatricality of technology stop?

Little People

I come across the same problem everyday. Whether I am in the tube, on the street or even in a cafe enjoying a large hot cappuccino. Little people. It is not about them specifically (even though the yelling, crying part is not what I consider fun), it is about the fact that even being so small, tiny and cute they take over so much space!
I don't get it!How can a person which is as tiny can be taking over the space for 2 (and even in some cases 3) adults. Don't start calling me names now (baby hater and things like that), on the contrary, I think they are quite amusing (of course that's when they are already fed, about to go to sleep or playing quietly with their toys).
I know that strollers, baby car seats and all the rest of products are created for the baby's safety and comfort.

Back in the day the strollers used to be even larger than today.









1847 stroller






Try to compare an adult seat and a stroller. Again the stroller takes up more of the space. Another thing as well besides space, is the unwritten law of a person with a baby always has priority. I sometimes am in a hurry but I know that for whatever the reason, the baby always comes first. And in most cases they are just out for a stroll.
I just would like to see other products suitable for little people that they are considerate to adults around them as well. Just imagine how life would be if there was more space for everyone everywhere. The people who would first I think be pleased would be the baby makers. And also the effort of carrying such equipment would be minimised.

 Do you see what I am talking about?

Life In The Void

Above all peaks
Is repose,
In the treetops
You trace
Scarcely a breath;
The songbirds are silent in the wood.
Only wait, for soon
You too will repose

Wanderer's Nocturne

Johann W. von Goethe

Try to imagine a dark empty space, where no life exists, an endless corridor. This is at least my idea of the void. I had always a great appreciation of what I (at least) call the void. How can something as empty be as scary at the same time. As I was doing my research about it I came across Martin Heidegger's writings on Nietzsche. A theory that I never thought before. Being as the void and as abundance. I never thought that by actually naming something or even by placing it somewhere (e.g. "the dog is in the garden") we give to it shape and existence. Being is the most elemental factor.
nihilism

n.

1. Philosophy.
   1. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.
   2. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.
2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief.
3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.
4. also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination.
5. Psychiatry. A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.             

  But for Nietzsche, the word nihilism means something substantially more. 

So I think it would be absolutely inspiring to search more the meanings void, nihilism and eternal. The oxymoron between empty and full, life and death.

Crossing the boundaries?

Architecture only survives where it negates the form that society expects of it. Where it negates itself by transgressing the limits that history has set for it.

Bernanrd Tschumi

What lies beyond the limits of architecture? Besides the keystones of the Modernist architectural ideology: hierarchy, purity, functionalism and formalism, the answer also is society. Bernard Tschumi (French - Swiss architect) believes, architecture seems to survive where it transcends its paradoxical nature by negating the form that society expects of it. The starting point for me, in order to look into the ideological work of Tschumi, was the notion of sickness whenever entering an establishment where refreshments or meals are served to paying guests (restaurants)(Britannica Concise Encyclopedia). It is not the fact of being inside such places that makes me sick to my stomach, is the actual action of public eating. There is always a choice of not going into such spaces but because it is part of today's  (and not just today's) culture of socialising it is almost unavoidable. The act of pleasure is in many cases a taboo. Hedonism and eroticism is singly connected indoors and considered to be private. Anything open to the public to see  is considered violent or out of order. Why is it then that certain needs and human functions are done and sociably accepted in public? Why when one eating alone consists of a freak? 

So who determines the space and therefore architecture itself? Who is ready to break boundaries? Maybe though by breaking boundaries that already exist, new boundaries can be invented. A new social behaviour catalogue.