Overlap – Overlay

overlap-

1.  to lap over; extend over and cover part of; imbricate

2. to cover and extend beyond

3. to coincide in part with; have in common with

4. to correspond in character or function

5. to have one or more elements in common

6. a representation of common ground between theories or phenomena

7. the property of partial coincidence in time

8. A part or portion of a structure that extends or projects over another

9. A suturing of one layer of tissue above or under another to provide additional strength.

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I started this post last week and then the computer went crazy and then life went crazy.  So where was I?  I’m working on concept to design.  Hopefully the last stage.  As you can see, the concept is overlap – overlay.  Last episode, I was working on these little hand-held models in the style of the larger model.  Some of them turned out pretty cool. 

     

Anyway, so back to overlap…  a while back, I had written about overlap in my sketchbook.  It was an interesting definition that I wouldn’t normally think of…  overlap, in yacht racing, is when one boat is going to overtake the other, the lead boat must fall back in order to pass on the other side.  I think this struck me as I was certainly surprised to see those huge yachts parked in the swamp when I was on the boat trip way back when.  It has also occurred to me that in some abstract sort of way, the modeling through this reminds me of sails and rigging.  So I decided to run with this a little and see if I can’t build on it.  So I looked at sail configurations, sail plans and yacht race configurations.

    

The lines created by the masts, the varying areas and the overlapping of the different sails really does remind me of my watercolor sketches and of the lines created in the swamp.  I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work in but I’m chewing on it a little.  If nothing else it has led to these beautiful sail plans which I really like the style of the drawing.  Simple linework, but highly detailed.  I think that this style could be something to take for the final drawings.  And this has in turn brought me to the yacht race configurations, which are usually based around a system of buoys.

So, buoys.  I have been thinking about device, ability to be placed in different areas and the fact that much of the swamp is boat access, especially in the area of my site.  Perhaps they are buoy-esque…  this is where I am…  thinking about buoys.  Here’s some pics I’ve found to demonstrate their characteristics and potential.

  

We’ll see what happens with this.

Interference Principle and Carnatic Music

Using pieces of the antipodal mapping and thinking about how we are going to be transforming the site through projections, sound and story, I decided to use the idea of carnatic music and the interference principle to explore how to create a surrealist space.  To mention some things that have influenced my thoughts, I’ve been reading Urban Toys which is a book put out by Nadim Karam about his sculptural works which create these back stories and also been looking at the video work of Diana Thater, Krzyszstof Wodiczko, Janet Biggs and Dawn Dedeaux.  These have all had considerable influence on the development of my thought processes.

Surrealism – stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions.

Our backstory of the site (which for super secret reasons I cannot post here) is based upon this idea of a real history, an imagined past set of events and present conditions culminating into this new space.  It is about layering these elements to create something that is a little skewed, a little wild.  Drawing upon this, I thought that the interference principle was a nice term to use where the addition of 2 or more elements creates a new waveform – the butterfly effect.  It is this “interference” that we are highlighting and using to create the space.

   

Carnatic music is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) forms of music in existence.  There are a few different takes on the etymology of the word which is now used solely as a location description of the area in Southern India.  Karnataka – Kanatak – Karnatik – Carnatic:  karna = ear, atati = he pleases  “that which pleases the ear” or kar = black, nadu = country or land “black soil” or karu = elevated, nadu = land “elevated (divine) land”.  The latin spelling from carnaticus = “pertaining to the flesh”.  It is said that carnatic music is of divine origin with connection to and immitation of sounds made by animals and birds.  The main emphasis is on vocalization and when instruments are incorporated they are meant to be played in a singing style.  Carnatic singers keep the beat by moving their hands up and down in a specified pattern, using their fingers to keep time.  It is notated by tonic solfa, kind of like Western music however the seven swaras (notes) correspond to chakras, animal spirits and the cycle of life and death.  There are two basic elements:  raga, or melodic formulae, and tala, or rhythmic cycles.

I have to make clear as well that, since I have reformatted my machine, my video editing software is acting up so these are all very rudimentary – windows movie maker at its finest!  They’re basically just sketches anyway, so enh.

 

Having previously documented the various sounds around the site, I took these into some ideas about how they can be reinterpretted through visuals and composition.  I also looked at the hand mudras associated with carnatic music, developing them into a more symbolic look which when cycled through kind of give this impression of motion and look a bit like animal representations.

To bring it all together, I have used this idea of rhythm, cycling and connection.  The rhythm and cycling are based on the carnatic music explorations obviously, but also from the initial sound explorations.  The connection part comes first from my documentation of physical “connectors” and then from this idea that we are layering these realities, histories into some sort of new interpretation.

After the “pin up” today, I am pretty excited that our ideas are really forming this nice whole.  No matter what KBen’s interpretation of whatever he chooses to listen to, our story is solid and the plans are coming together nicely.  The most immediate questions (other than how the hell are we going to do this in a month?)  are how to script the journey through the site without making the audience feel railroaded into some sort of museum tour and how to create participation elements, interactive spaces?  How do we navigate this sort of treacherous site?  How many yards of fabric are we going to need?

One thing I need to remember is that as a group project we are all playing roles – we don’t each have to do everything.  And I think I’m an idea person, a stimulus, the “ground-breaker” as the birthday book calls me.

Oh, and the lemur project…  heh.

Expose the site

Composite map of traces using my lovely watercolor thingies in illustrator.

Is this really all that I have to show for today?  Really?  There must be something else.  I suppose that I did take this thing into some of the diagrams to see if it told me anything.  I think there is good reason for my selection of the piece of the site on the pass.  Divided by the highway, there are two different forest ecologies, a line between marsh and swamp, a bridge between the two lakes.  Not to mention the multiple traces of human-made connections (stole that from Overlay). 

Some other things I picked out while reading:  bridging different spaces, connect the concrete and the ephemeral spaces, elucidate the connections between human-made and natural formations, walking in a familiar place is revelatory of the cycles – changes, the rhythm of walking – specificity doubling back to generality.

“One does not impose, but rather expose the site…” – Robert Smithson

The last part of the project according to the project statements is to identify spaces, volumes, dimensions associated with cycling.  (Does bi-cycling count?)  Where does the impact diminish and disappear?  The intervention = space to enter the swamp, a destination, a passage between.

“I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome alone in my way.” – Ani, current line as I’m typing…  seems fitting somehow.

Checking in

The getting-closer-to-finished user matrix:

And I decided to try KBen’s suggestion of inverting everything (even the already inverted inverts…heh)…  they are perty.

  

an old section… drawing… whatever.

New piece of really ridiculously long section (224 inches long x 8 inches high) that doesn’t tell me squat:

Seriously, this section actually melted my screen.  Feel like I am just re-working the same thing over and over.  I have no idea what to introduce here.  I think I’ve been doing the same thing for so long that I’ve lost all interest in even thinking about it.  Either that or the melty illustrator screen has infected my brain and it is getting melty too.  Maybe I’ll find something in a dream… 

New Swamp Stuff…

Well, new things are afoot.  Although I haven’t yet decided how to finish them… or if they need some extra tweaking.

New User Matrix – the icons should probably be smaller and perhaps something else, but I’m leaving it for now:

New diagrams – I decided to re-do the whole thing.  Scanning and sizing the old ones looked pretty dumb and would probably take longer than just doing it over.  I stayed with B&W for now… might change later.  I haven’t decided about the composite maps yet which will probably go on the bottom:

Matrix of traces…  Even though it is by far not done, I still love how they look.  Since right now it’s just basically two sets of the same information, I will end up having to get rid of part of it, but I’m working on how to give it hierarchy…  :

Next on the list… detailed and scaled map, sections… decisions.  But I switch to the rep animation for now…  working on the lighting and motion of the various devices.  

And what the hell is wrong with this internet connection…  tempermental, it is.

Swamp visit – take 3

Tribute to Messy Ecosystems

Thought I would put a pic up of the model for Frank’s class.  I don’t know why, but my models for his classes always come out very nice.  Fairly normal, but nice.  We’re working on designs for the new courtyard area at hilltop.  We’re in the modernist phase, so I was working toward a cubist design after my favorite Kandinsky.  I used one of his paintings to think about program and spatial areas.  And I used one of his markings based on Lotte Jacobi’s dance pictures (no credit given in the book, thank you very much) for the circulation.  I would like the design to mimic the dance…  using echoes of the elements and sweeping motions.  I’m using a mixture of prairie grasses – swishing and blowing in the breeze – to fill out the plant palette.  I think that the design will be pretty decent in the end.  I really like this class and it actually feels like we’re learning something. 

 

And a veggie burger stain, reinterpretted…  I may use this for rendering inspiration.

Hopefully I will get a lot accomplished on the swamp situation over the next week.  Who knows… maybe I’ll even clean my computer!

Overintense fantasy

 

I think I just got into the studio project.  First I decided to watch the Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (which is part of class, not some random thing I picked out) while working on my planting design.  It was actually pretty good and I stopped it before it was over so I can take it home and really watch it.

Some quotes that I think I should remember…

“events on the screen threaten to overthrow and grab us, the spectator.  The fantasy space gets too intense and reaches out toward us so that we lose ourself.”

“is it the brutal real that disturbs us or is it our fantasy?”

“we escape into a dream to avoid a dead look into our real life but then what we encounter in the dream is even more horrible so at the end we escape from the dream back into reality.”

“[it begins] dreams are for those who are not strong enough, who cannot endure reality and ends with reality is for those who are not strong enough to endure, to confront their dreams.”

the uncanny = where the fantasy space is already disintegrating but we are not yet back to reality

“Flowers should be forbidden from children.”

“The male fantasy can never catch up to the female fantasy.”

That was a lot, but I’m sure there are more when I’m actually paying attention.

Second bit of ah-ha space.  I figured I should try to do some of the digging about the site and after quite a bit of tangled research by using antipodal mapping (is that what it’s called?) I found that our site is actually linked to Atlantis.  Wow.  It doesn’t sound as good when I say it like that…  let’s try again.  Our site, located at 30d24′40.29″N 91d10′48.16″W is directly antipodal to 30d24′40.29″S 88d49′11.84″E which is right at the convergence of the African, Indian and Antarctic crustal plates on the mid oceanic ridge.  This is also said to be where “Kumari Kandam” or “Lemuria”, ancient land of paradise, sunk into the seas…  I believe that Nicole’s psychic abilities were active when she put up her comic last year…  “we’re lemurs!  LEMURS!”

 

In other news, I’m looking into Night Gardens for plant design and I’m really excited about the new shampoo I splurged on today.  No word on the rest of that list…  I’ll try again tomorrow.

Friday… er, rather Saturday

Where did this week go?  And how did this list of things get so long?  (Actually, I think it’s the same list from last week…  it looks the same anyway…)

Studio is just weird.  I can’t tell if I like it or hate it.  I like that we get to be weird… having psychics out to read the site, geomancy, looking for ghosts and UFOs and lines that don’t exist.  But there’s something annoying about being told to be strange… takes the fun out of it.  (maybe?)  Perhaps it’s just upping the ante…  now strange / weird isn’t enough…  have to be ridiculous.  Pics…

   

   

KBen keeps talking about all these “details” he wants us to do.  I was thinking of doing some sort of weird series with the photos.  Among (or is it amongst… I always get them confused) other things, I was taking pics of things that we can “hook” stuff to at the site.  Thinking maybe of doing a layout with the pics in color, then black and white, then a “detail” drawing of it.  Keep them small, say 2×3-ish.  I think it might be kind of perty.  We’ll see.  Not sure that is what KBen was talking about, but who really knows what he’s talking about most of the time… heh.

Tomorrow…  studio strangeness, plant design, some balloon / helium shopping, reading and more reading trying to get that thesis statement, think about STW (studio that was) and hopefully do something with it, research for Cat and…. hybrids.  Oh, yeah and have a lots of time left over to finish that rep animation…  and laundry… and buy ink.  What is this?  A grocery list?  Oh, and that too.  Bleh.  I hate shopping.

This video is just cool