Chaser

The final review went really well IMO.  It was fantastic to have David Baird and Jim Sullivan there to get new thoughts and different perspectives.  I was really impressed with everyone’s work.  It was surprising to see the progression since we really haven’t gone over each other’s work much in the end.  I decided that reviews make me crazy because it’s like standing up there in front of your conscience.  While I think overall my project went well and I did as much as I could, there are still some pieces that were missing – some things that could have been done differently.  I wish I had found a way to make the overhead better.  My first attempt may have worked better than what I ended up with.  I thought about rubberbands at one point or some sort of strings/weaving.  They would need some sort of structure to hold them – need to find something clear that is like the dowel rods and drillable. 

I wish I would stop thinking about it.  I tried to drown it last night, but that didn’t work.  It just made me stupid.  Now I’m going to catch up on all the sleep that I missed and get ready to write that history paper.  I would really like to add more info to my boards and a decent perspective.  I also need to find a way to fit that overhead thing onto the plan.  Something bothers me about the way the plan is rendered – it kind of looks cartoony.  I think it’s the roads that bother me the most. 

So…  yeah.  What a year.  Crazy to think back to the first Quad project.  Who would even recognize us?  Whoot!

Update on the plan

The crazy overhead…  thinking the silverish might be transparent, the other not.  They weave in and out of the interstate structure and amongst themselves at varying heights, paying no attention to the ground below or the structure of the pillars. Thinking the silver is lower than the other.  The spaces underneath are sometimes bubble-ish, sometimes more open – the lines of the material drawing your eyes with it.  This thing will probably go through another incarnation or 10.  We’ll see.  Know of any material that is corrugated, transparent and sewable??

The groundplane – some are pavements, some are garden-type areas, some have benches and seating, some are simply borders.  The colors are arranged so that the active reds and oranges on the west side meld into the calmer blues and greens in the east.  In the day, when you can see all the textures in natural light, the west will be more active (as it is now somewhat sleepy in the day) and the east will be more passive (as those businesses tend to be more active in the day).   Perhaps the night will be transformed with lighting, but that is to come later as I have way more things that are important at this point.  

And it all together…

Home stretch???? Time for the sprint.

The Plan (without the overhead)

What is it?  A journey of texture, color, spaces – created with sound in mind.

23

23 really is the magic number.  I finally have the base for a plan.  We’re movin’ now!

top is the ground.  bottom is the overhead.  now that makes sense…  I love the overhead drawing.  It reminds me of muscles, sinew…  it’s fluid and organic and yet, has some nice lines too.  They may not be all the way figured out, but it’s good to be moving. 

Pinups today were amazingly helpful.  I think getting away from my desk and drawing on the table upstairs helped me out a lot too.  Change of scenery and less likely to play with the computer. 

Back to work!

Trouble afoot… trying to work out the issues

(I gave myself a headache writing this, so be warned.  I don’t even think there is an order to this ramble.)

I’m having trouble deciding how to structure everything; trouble making decisions about what this space is supposed to be about.  I have at least made progress in developing a plan for the ground, but it is still structured by the existing forms.  (Sorry, Brad – I still can’t get away from that circle on the right – I’m smitten with it apparently.)

 

The overhead structure is really giving me problems.  In thinking about how sound travels and trying to develop some idea from this while still using the existing highway structure, I get trapped into trying to figure out if I’m trying to abate the noise or utilize it.  Even if there is some sort of overhead structure, IMO the view down the middle is an important keeper.  It provides sunlight as well a frame for sky gazing.  So, do I try to keep it open, knowing that no matter what else I do, the noise will come through it, negating any measure taken to avoid it OR do I think about a transparent something there that allows for the view yet keeps the noise down?  And how do I incorporate this into the rest of it?  The underneath of the highway is particularly ugly – would glass distortions make it less so?  Perhaps some paint up there plus the distortion would be cool.  Or maybe that glass piece could be some sort of digital screen that transforms the entire upper view by the reverberation bouncing around up there.  Trippy.  (Sounds like Brad’s waterfall… )

And then there is this thought about creating spaces and how to vary them by using the overhead.  How is the overhead structured?  Let’s try “easy”.  Maybe it’s just flat glass, with crazy paint on the underside of the interstate.  Maybe the structure of it is flat, but the visuals created by the reverb of the highway, make it look curvy/crazy.  And they can change as the traffic does – the visuals tell you when it’s rush hour.  But then what if the glass moved too…  so that at if there were times you wanted an amphitheater/market space, you just reconfigure the overhead to give you better acoustics - otherwise, it creates smaller and larger cubby holes for people to hang out.  (Can I borrow your lighting project, B?)

And then there is the device… the thing that relates to the sounds and makes them less intrusive or creates beauty from them.  I’ve been mulling over wind harps in my head…  not really a wind harp, but rather a reverb-activated harp – chords created by the different traffic above.  I’ve been listening to some wind harp recordings – kind of creepy.  David Lynch would definitely display his art in my “sound garden”.

My devices are the ground and overhead.  The overhead not only creates the spaces by the form it takes, but also becomes the device that connects the surroundings to the intervention, to the ground device.  The ground is created by the need for better organization, but also should relate to that peculiarity that I have chosen as my inspiration and to the overhead.  Visually, there should be some reason to connect this site to the sounds you hear; audibly there should also be cues though, too.  So maybe the reverb “harp” and the ceiling activate together, perhaps even traveling down the pillars onto the ground plane, creating lighting, atmosphere, a great place to eat mushrooms.

All things… overlap.

“Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life, just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path. To see the reasons why all things happen. To consider whether the path we take in life is our own making, or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop? Pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And seeing those choices…choose another path?”

-Scully

I build each one of my songs
out of glass
so you can see me inside of them
I suppose
or you could just leave the image of me
in the backround, I guess
and watch your own reflection superimposed

-Ani D.

If I said any more, it might be telling…

Sound garden?

Every idea really has been used….

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/hart221.shtml

At least it doesn’t have a highway running over it.  Lucky me.

Like a 2 year old

Everyone is posting all this beautiful stuff…  me?  Here’s my marker and pencil… 

Moving toward a plan…

Imperative Foundation

I’ve been avoiding Wordfest because I can’t find my direction at the moment.  With Brad’s help, it’s starting to come back, but I’m still having trouble thinking about what I want to do with this space under the interstate.  I keep trying to remind myself of all the things that have been said throughout the process…  What would make people want to come to this space?  What would I like to see there?  How do the initial site investigations figure back into the picture?  How is the space organized and what determines this organization?

So far I’ve gone to the crazy…   

gone back to the current status…

redrawn some thoughts trying to find an organization… 

And been drawn back to Kandinsky by the forms and layering and color and shapes…   

I think the form drawings are coming along to help me think about how the space is organized by the sound explorations and the desire for better circulation, but as I’m looking at them, I keep wondering about textures, materials, spatial qualities.

And then there is the thought about device that relates to the sound created by the vibrations of the highway.  There is definitely rhythm and tone in the “noise”, so I think random is out of the question.  Wind chimes (as Joan suggested and Brad has brought up again) might be an interesting starting point.  The chimes can be tuned to so many different moods, interacting with each other.  They can be soothing and a nuisance.  If you listen to them for a while, you start to hear patterns depending on the wind.  Perhaps the “wind” can be the cars as they pass over.

Or maybe we can hook the highway up to some sort of device that controls the volume of Woodrow’s headphones.  When there is a lot of traffic, it will be lower the volume. When there is little congestion, it will raise the volume, making me more prone to leave studio…

Look at me, back at starting points and it is so very close to next Friday.  I just love to torture myself.

Fox News Sparks Coalescence

Hum drum has been my feelings about this project for a while now and it has resulted in my wondering if I will ever get out of this rut.  And then there was Fox News.  My alarm clock is set for the Fox Radio Station.  Why?  Because I fall asleep to Coast to Coast AM at night.  So every morning I wake up to right-wing radio (gets me out of bed faster anyway).  This morning I hit the snooze button when I heard the Imus bomb.  Nine minutes later, I hear “…it is always a North and South thing here.”  And for some reason this statement hits me like a duck in the face.  Even though I’ve been spending time going through the inventory and analysis parts, I seemed to have forgotten the part about disconnection and the history of the highway.  I don’t mean really forgotten, but- “yeah, yeah put some sidewalks in” forgotten. 

This site is all about disconnection – as Nicolasa hit on from the beginning.  North and South divided by the highway.  Land and sky and visual distraction again by the highway.  And, of course, the sound that disconnects from the landscape surrounding – again by the highway.  Where does this leave me?  Well, I’ve got a couple of hours before desk crits so…  I play with Sketchup, of course, instead of doing what I should be…

My thoughts – taking the pillars / columns / megaliths and running with them.  Maybe they can be “tuned” to each other so that you hear the highway all over the place…  maybe they can be tuned to people’s brains so that when EM goes to George’s, Copa Cabanna welcomes her to the evening.  Okay, seriously…?

Sorry ahead of time for the disappointing desk crit, Brad.