function follows form 02.

function follows form 01.

Day 10.
girl in a glass house. staging system diagram (form => function). Allan is risen.

Day 09. Part 02.
Chess in a glass house writing.

The daily archive: Last night we continued our discussion of the modern and the postmodern but wove it into our performance work. The group was asked to do a viewpoints movement exercise consisting of two parts: 1) embody the feeling and idea of modernism in your movement; 2) embody the feeling and idea of postmodernism in your movement. After they presented their work, I gave them the following lines to layer into the piece:

Part 1:

+ A house is a machine for living in.

+ Less is more.

+ Ornament is a crime.

Part 2:

+ Less is a bore.

+ Design decorated sheds, not ducks.

+ Democracy creates chaos. That chaos is beautiful.

They quickly re-worked the piece to accommodate these lines and we ran it again.

Next the group divided in pairs and they played a game of scene writing “chess.” One in the pair was the architect, one was the client (the inspiration of course being Mies van der Rohe and Edith Farnsworth). They had to write a scene called “Living in Glass Houses,” each writing one line at a time, with absolutely no consultation or collaboration between them. They would write until they felt the scene was done. Interestingly, although the action of the two scenes was very similar, Lindsey and Allan’s scene was dramatic and Rachel and Andrew’s scene was satirical, almost farcical.

For the last 25 minutes, we discussed the concept of the “golden section.” How can we turn this idea into a performance text?

I had a very strong response to Erin’s post about going backwards as captured in running video of a building’s demolition backwards.  She described the feeling it prompted in her as a combination of “hope and grieving,” and I agree that it evokes a very complex and contradictory emotion.  To add to her thoughts, it might also be that demolition itself has a double emotional life.  Although sometimes the wholesale destruction of something like a building can be terrifying, mournful, maybe even sublime, it also offer hope that whatever seemingly indestructible structure we manage to erect, we can always tear it down and start over again.

I don’t think we have the time left in this residency to explore this, but I think it’s very ripe for the next time we work on the project.  I would be especially interested in collecting video of exploding buildings.

Day 09. Part 01.
Modernism v post-modernism viewpoints.

Day 08.
Farnsworth House. Sketches of Frank Gehry. Discussion.

The past few days I have been thinking about the demolition of a building, but in reverse.
The videos I could find on line don’t really do justice to the pictures I have in my head, but they still give me an emotional reaction that is some combination of hope and grieving. This is not what I am thinking of, but of everything I could find it generated the closest emotional response: http://au.video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=227254 I think what I like about this is the explosions—everything all at once.

Perhaps that is interesting to me because we can’t go back in time (of course) but when things end, when relationships fall apart, when disaster strikes and the boat sinks, all I can wish for is to have had more time when things were good and solid. The tension between desperately wanting to go back and knowing wholeheartedly that I cannot is what breaks my heart.

Is that why we rebuild things in the same place? To make it better, to fill the whole left by the destruction of something we loved in our past?
Sometimes we are the destroyers and sometimes it Is the wind or the water or time or perhaps your husband’s secretary.
I think we are builders. We are always building in order to feel eternal, to make things make sense. To bring the horizon closer, to wrap it around ourselves is comforting for some reason. When the walls have crumpled and we are alone, isn’t that terrifying? We start again. We build again. This time bigger, better. We learn from our mistakes. We say
“I’ll never let that happen again”
So that maybe by the end of our life we might have built something so beyond beautiful that our children can be proud of it, and we can point and say
“There. This thing right here.
I can see this and touch this and it makes sense.
This is evidence that I have lived and struggled and failed and tried again and again. This is the sum of all of my parts.
This is my best effort.
I can remember when I scratched this wall here and how awful that day was, or the day I knocked out this wall to make more light in the baby’s room.
I needed to be contained here in order to feel free”

Back to going in reverse: There is a song that I like. The lyrics go “Since then it’s been a book you read in reverse/ so you understand less as the pages turn”

When you start to read the story, it is the end of something. It is complete. And as time goes on, everything kind of unravels and ceases to make sense. As you go forward, you kind of retrogress….. I don’t know. I just like it.

Ok.

As Lindsey mentions in her post, we spent the day traveling to Plano, IL, to see Mies van der Rohe’s famous Farnsworth House, the glass house he built for Dr. Edith Farnsworth in the forest in 1951. When we returned, we counterpointed that experience by watching the documentary film “Sketches of Frank Gehry.”

After dinner, as Lindsey notes, we had a 3 1/2 hour discussion that began, more or less, with the history of modern architecture and ended, more or less, with an attempt to suss out why we make art, and specifically, what kind of art BPG wants to make. What does is mean, as our mission statement declares, to “see differently”?

I won’t even begin to recount or summarize the conversation her. I will say that it was exhilarating, and provocative, and, of course, inconclusive. But it must necessarily be inconclusive, mustn’t it? A lockstep agenda would prevent discovery, and it’s difficult to imagine, for me at least, creating anything of much interest if the end is preordained on the first day of the process.

Because of our field trip yesterday to Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, I wasn’t able to post the archive from day 7 until today.  It seems so long ago now…

Andrew kicked us off with his deconstruction monologue.  Picking up on the idea of feedback loops as a kind of perpetual re-structuration mechanism, he used a swinging microphone over a speaker to embody the text about feedback in the “space between” two people.  The feedback loop is a very provocative structure to explore — does it ever happen in literal architecture, in buildings?

We followed with more viewpoints work.  The prompt was that the group had to construct, in movement, their ideal space, and then destruct that space.  Question to spur the process: What does the space look like?  How do people interact in this space?  How does the space feel? How does the destruction happen?  Is it erosion or cataclysm?  What is left after?

After they had presented the piece, I gave them 6 lines — 3 pertaining to the construction and 3 to the destruction — and asked them to re-work the piece layering in these lines.  The lines were:

Part 1:

1. The enormous windows let in the sun and the moon.

2. I stood in the center of the room and felt the universe spread out around me.

3. The air was light and sweet, and when I inhaled I could feel myself levitate just a bit.

Part 2:

1. The roof leaked disappointment in great puddles on the floor.

2. The stairs collapsed under the weight of unfulfilled expectations.

3. The fetid breath of resentment clouded the windows.

To facilitate the process, I stepped in this time to suggest one way to go about layering.  What I think is key is that text should not just be plugged into the existing structure, but that the structure should be open to revision to accommodate the text.  This does not mean that the movement structure should be made comfortable for the text, but that the text provides an opportunity to complicate the structure in productive ways.  The result of this second go was a piece containing a lot of counterpoint and a lot of tension — productive complexity.

Following this we did a ten-minute timed writing in which everyone had to write 10 classified ads hawking imaginary pieces of real estate.  Andrew and Allan have posted theirs.

Erin and Rachel read their “relationship form follows social function scene” about a businesswoman and a bagwoman.

We finished by doing some work — structural revision — on what we’re now calling the “program” scene: the listing of the relationship programs while Allan builds the cardboard house around Lindsey.

Yesterday we went and saw Mis Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, watched the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry, and ended the day with a three in half hour conversation that entertained such subjects as the history of architecture, modernism, post-modernism, current paradigms, political art, democracy, Marxism, open-sourcing, etc. I am sure Roger will summarize more fully later.

Last’s night conversation was exhilarating, frustrating, confusing, enlightening and continued to leave me thinking throughout the night. It exposed and investigated questions that I have been living with in close proximity for the past two years or so. At times I felt so “in my head” last night that it was all I could do to focus and actively listen. Later, on my nightly drive home with Rachel, I was able to process things a bit….

A couple of questions and realizations I came away with that I am now able to articulate somewhat here….

1. The word political is tricky. In my mind there are two major schools of difference. Political in the active purpose and engagement of asserting ideas, agendas, reform, and in the raising of questions dealing with the historical and current political and cultural landscape. And then, political in the sense of a basic interaction between peoples, culture, and ideas that results organically from life and is inherent to the structure of life.

2. Having said that – Is all art political? Should all art be political? Questions I continue to deal with.

3. With the understanding that art can and should have other functions, I believe a basic function of art is to remind us of our humanity, our uniqueness and our solidarity.

4. More and more I want art to mean something. I want art to be political. I want art to be purposeful. More and more my most profound artistic moments, both as a producer and receiver, have come by accident and experimentation, resulting in an experience.

5. All art has a function that can, but does not have to, work outside of itself. However, architecture is unique in that it has an inherent function that is always present and vital to human life: it exists to provide shelter for living, working, dreaming, playing, producing, and consuming. As Rachel said, “architecture is a public space.” Who has the authority to create public space? How do we create political public spaces without creating a totalitarian idea of that space. How can we dialogue with a public space?

6. I consider my-self to be a liberal and progressive person. I value democracy and border on the line of a socialist. I believe that the artist has the power and responsibility to question, inform, and change the world. Saying that, I kept thinking about this last night – we were talking about the art critic Hal Foster and his belief that art should be political and that it should be liberal. We were talking about how the subversive has become the norm and the pop, i.e Wooster Group. But I ask for whom? I would contend for small circles of intellectuals and artists, who for the majority have had the best educations and privileged upbringings. Is it possible to be so elite that we become that which we want to fight against?

7. I responded to Andrew’s idea that what Big Picture Group hopes to do is to illuminate through art the conversation we had last night. I think this is the right track. I keep thinking about the word transparency.

Day 07. Part 02.
Ideal lover list staging revisit.

Day 07. Part 01.
Erin and Rachel ’social function 3rd person.’ Viewpoints ‘de/con/struct’.

nurbs (day 06)
A short video I took of the max/MSP 3D mapping Roger mentioned in his day06 overview.
The video is mostly unedited, so it can be boring at times, hence the music. I’m fascinated by these structures of chaos. I’d love to have the time to edit something like this synesthetically.

The music is Notwist (Four Tet & Manitoba).

A posting of my 10 minute FOR RENT writing exercise unedited:

FOR RENT - 2,000,000 sq. ft. loft in beautiful midtown Manhattan. Sporting events of all kinds on premises. Close to all shopping, restaurants, bars, homeless, prostitutes, murder. All within 5 mins!

FOR RENT - 1 Bedroom share in Murray Hill. All male building with female building access across Lexington. Cable, high-speed internet, and Jäger shots included.

FOR RENT - Fifteen room luxury house in Eastern Mass. No pets, no smoking, no drinking, no sublets, good references required, no pool, 1 half bath, no visitors, no parking, no loitering, not close to anything, 3 year security deposit required at signing. Eat-in kitchen.

FOR RENT - Three (3) cu. ft. of air space 750 ft. above old World Trade Center site. Great views, plenty of light, thriving neighborhood.

FOR RENT - 300 individual one (1) ft. sq. rooms for rent. must rent entire lot. priced to move. $2.00 per mo. per room.

FOR RENT - Shopping Cart. Fully furnished with blankets and cans. Mobile. Beg for rent!

FOR RENT - Heaven Lofts. Spacious lofts at the height of being. Only two (2) units left!

FOR RENT - Shitty.

What follows is a loose guide of words for a short interlude with an audience. Today, although not documented by video, I tried communicating with an audience these thoughts. This communication was complimented with a microphone hanging from the ceiling and swinging like a pendulum inches above a cone speaker. This produced an effect of timed feedback which, over time, would eventually lead to pure feedback.

(shh. shh. shh.)

light. silence. shh.
yeah.
hello you. it’s me. hello. you. me. here. silence. white. light. silence. shh.
shh.
here we are. hi. shh.
here we are. here we are. here we are and here you are and nothing. silence.
silence. nothing. silence.
white.
click.
shh.
white.
click.
white.
shh.
yeah.
no shadow and no angle and no corner.
no space.
silence.shh.
light.
space.
between us now.
space.
light.
silence.
click shh.

inevitability.
between us.
between space.
between waves of light.

nothing can stay anything forever.

a spot
a gap.
space.
space between us.
space between one wave and the next.
i happen to you in the past.
you happen in the past.
click.
shh.
we are us and we are looping and we are light to eachother.
you are light in my eyes and electricity in my brain.
shh.
close your eyes.

we’re still here.
space is still between us. we’re still light.
but we are gone.
light is gone.
electricity is gone.

we are you and me.

me.

you.

seperate.

click.

dissonance.

nothing can stay anything forever.

Experimental 3 bedroom commune in Humboldt park.  Free.  Recipients only allowed to have 1 pair of tube socks, 1 pair of black pants, 1 black shirt, a beret, and a mac computer.

Extended family housing.  2 very large bedrooms.  No laundry.  Situated just across the border.  Passports not required.  Cost: 3 kilos of working class citizenship.

Buy this house!  It’s cheap, it’s modern, it’s the perfect home for the creative middle class family.  So what if it looks like the one next door!  It’s only 1 million dollars!

4 walls and a roof over your head.  What more can you ask for?  Come to your local Jewel and pick up the highest quality cardboard boxes on the market!  Sale exists only as long as our diaper surplus.

2 bedroom condo on Michigan and Randolph.  3000 sq ft, marble counter, ivory lined bathroom, floating bar, fountain, and a separate 50×50 ft room just for the lady’s clothing.  Price: Your hand in marriage.  Need not apply if over the age of 30, male, or over 5’6”.  Headshots can be sent to 30 N Michigan, Chicago, IL 60606.

The market’s down.  Buy this house.  Beat the boom that’s gonna make real estate sky rocket all over again.  Only 400k.

Don’t buy that house.  Buy this one.  It’s next door.  Selling for 399k.  What a deal!

The daily archive: Andrew began by showing us a computer modeling program that essentially created 3-D space by creating a set of points outside a matrixed plain and pulling the plain toward those points.  Data can be fed into the algorithim that sets the external points, thus altering their location and the 3D model.  What this means, essentially, is that anything that can be quantified as data can be represented as 3D structure — i.e., architecture.  So, if we developed a set of mathematical quantifications of, say, the dynamics of a relationship between two people, we could create a model of the architecture of their relationship.  How would we establish those quantifications?  What other uses might this tool have?

We next reviewed the “viewpoints,” which I have been resisting because they have become almost a cult fetish.  And because much of the composition work I see coming from viewpoints seems to have a generic feel to it.  Still, we did a viewpoints/composition exercise: the group had to create a movement piece based on the buildings of the future.  How would these building look?  How would they be built?  How would people interact with them?  The 25-minute time limit turned to 1:45, but with interesting results.

Andrew and Lindsey then performed their social function = relationship form scene, and we all read our texts exploring the destruction of our ideal room / space.

Some basic text prompts I wrote as fast as I could think of them. Thought here would be a good place to put them:

a text to be read in front of a fire
a text to be read in front of a book burning
a text to be burned
a text to self destruct
two text less than ten words each about the exact same thing without using any of the same words
a text to be inserted secretly in to the back pocket of a lover before an intercontinental flight
a text to be slipped into a stranger’s book at the coffee shop
a text to be read at a funeral
a text to be read at a podium
a text written in absolute darkness
a text to be inserted in to the pocket of a dead man
a text to be read before a war
a text to be read at birth
a text to be written in blood
a text to be traced on water
a text to be whispered during a starting contest
a text to be shouted to a lover but never heard in a too-loud club
a text to be secretly inserted into a single frame of a major motion picture
a text to write down and eat
a text to cross out
a text to be put in a safe
a text to hide in plain sight
a palindromic text
a text to be translated in to another language
a text to be saved for your child when they turn 18.
a text to be sky-written
a text that is 100% true
a text that is 100% false
a text to be spelled out in vanity plates.
a text to hide under a lover’s pillow when leaving in the morning
a text to send to yourself in 10 years
a text to be read backwards
a text to insert into flight safety cards
a text to scroll along the bottom third of the NBC evening news
a text to scroll along the bottom third of the FOX evening news
a text to be written above you
a text to be written below you
a text that is the first thing you can ever say to anybody
a text that is the last thing you can say to anybody
a text to be discovered in 25 years
a text to be discovered tomorrow
a text to never be discovered
a text to be discovered in 3,000 years
a text to be send back in time
a text to be sent to space
a text to be put in a bottle
a text to be put online
a text to be written in magic marker on a passed out friend
a text to be written in magic marker on a passed out stranger
a text to be whispered in the ear of a sleeping enemy
a text to be mouthed across the room to a stranger that is longer than 500 words
a text to be written in chocolate on the torso of your lover
a text to be split up, rearranged, and not make sense
a text to never be written
a text describing the saddest place you’ve ever been to a blind person.

Day 06.
Viewpoints. Social function 3rd Person. Ideal room destruction.

Day 05.
Model presentation. Model fly-through’s. Projection experiments.

HiZgh ZatZop ZthZe oZnlZy mZouZntZaiZn iZn CZhiZcaZgo, ZloZokZinZg oZveZr tZhe ZlaZke ZanZd iZn tZhe ZheZarZt oZf tZhe ZloZop, ZreZstZs a ZsiZngZle ZroZom.  ZIt’Zs ZmaZde Zof ZwhZitZe ZstZonZe.  FZouZr ZpiZllZarZs sZtrZetZch ZsiZxtZeeZn fZeeZt hZigZh, aZnd ZatZop ZthZem ZreZstZs a ZglZasZs cZeiZliZng.  ZA dZog Zis ZasZleZep Zin ZthZe cZorZneZr.

High (atop the only mountain) in Chicago, looking over (the lake and in the heart of) the loop, (rests) a single room.  It’s made of (white) stone.  (Four pillars stretch sixteen feet high, and atop them rests a) glass (ceiling).  A dog is (asleep) in the corner.

Daily archive: Began where we left off the night before — building individual scale models of our ideal room/space.   Can we now shoot video of ourselves living in these spaces and project ourselves into the models?  Let’s try.

Next split into couples to develop a written dialogue in which the social function of the character dictates the form of the interaction.  E.g., Policeman and Criminal.  P sees C spraying graffiti on a wall and actually admires it.   But P is constrained by his social function to arrest C….  Will continue these tonight (Monday).

As Louis Sullivan, the famous Chicago architect, dictated over a century ago, “Form ever follows function.”  Can function follow form?  The structure we built on day 2 looks, when lying flat, suspiciously like a paper airplane.  So we folded it, reinforced it, and created an airplane 17′ 5.5″ long with a wingspan of 9′ 3.5″.  We hauled it up to the 3rd floor balcony of the building and threw it off.  Did it fly?  In the  interest of marketing, we decided not to reveal that information here.  Video of the event will be played at the workshop performance on the 12th.

My ideal room…  Then, the destruction of it.  In text.

High atop the only mountain in Chicago, looking over the lake and in the heart of the loop, rests a single room.  It’s made of white stone.  Four pillars stretch sixteen feet high, and atop them rests a glass ceiling.  A dog is asleep in the corner.

In the middle of Chicago, a black tower houses a room. The building is so high that its tip touches the clouds, a black obelisk in the metropolitan skyline.  The room has no windows but has many doors.  The room is large enough to work.  In the center sits a man on his computer.