1. Reflect & Try Out (if you haven’t) on your intervention between two persons + ask what senses you are manipulating and how does this change your sense of emotion or feeling in space? Think of this reflection as helping to narrow the set of conditions that you can use to develop your first assignment.
2. VISIT + DOCUMENT + CRITIQUE the Singapore Heritage Light Up Singapore event.
You have until August 30, 7:30pm-12am daily (FREE)
This year, as part of SG 55, architectural landmarks were “lit up” to commemorate National Day. Such culture and heritage initiatives are just one way in which our public spaces and monuments are refashioned using technology. These events are curated to convey certain meanings and to make us consider our public spaces differently.
– What is it that is being communicated?
– What might the “curators” have to consider to plan such a transformation?
– What alternate ways could YOU imagine transforming these sites to communicate something unique or unknown about Singapore culture?
2. READING:
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (1958), section 4: Nests
The Poetics of Space is a 1958 book by the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard.
Nominally presented as a study of architecture, the book is widely considered as an important work about art in general. It is a phenomenological* journey, from cellar to attic, showing how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams.
Bachelard founds his thinking and discussion on lived experience in architectural places and on their contexts in nature. He focuses on the personal, emotional response to buildings in life, in prose and poetry, and in visual arts. He implicitly advises architects to model their work on the experiences it will engender rather than on abstract rationales that may or may not affect the viewers and users of architecture.
The selected chapter Nests, as well as the whole book, is a rich, meandering narrative. It brims with references, observations and themes which can inspire your interactive space works. These include: Memory (unreliability of), Love, Construction, Intricacy, Childhood, Abandonment, Discovery, Aggregation, Intimacy, Ergonomics, Security, Concealment, etc. I suggest you read and discuss it primarily on the inspirational level rather than studying it analytically.
Further reading, to get the broader context of the book, and more references:
Ockman, Joan. “The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard.” Harvard Design Magazine, No. 6.
* Phenomenology (from Greek phainómenon “that which appears” and lógos “study”) is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.
Examples within this context
Gregor Schneider – 1985 – Haus u r: Art Safari Excerpt, Full video (in German).
Gregor Schneider – 2001- Totes Haus u r: YT video of experience (low quality).
Related:
Urs Fischer – 2007 – You
Hans Haacke – 1993 – Germania