MutationMatter

Acceptance and Framing

I think the terms I used in the pre-thesis booklet were conditions or conditional responses to an environment. I do not wish to abandon them but they need to be developed because I think they are parts of a larger inquiry of thought. I do not know this larger element is, but I think my interests in a site rest most strongly with the phenomenological -- the experience of a former, present and future self engulfed in the ephemeral qualities of light in a mysterious, yet familiar to memory, landscape. Materials, repetitive disposition (an object(s)' arrangement in space, by itself or shared by others) and qualities of presence (the quality of an object resting in space) act as catalysts for this phenomenological awareness. What interests me in this context is how to create a landscape familiar to someone who has never been there, and once he is acquainted with the site, that he would know where he is and know that he cannot be elsewhere.

There is no social agenda save for the encouragement of transcendent thought - to think beyond the needs and wants of daily living. The scale for this inquiry necessitates smaller spaces because it is reflective of the self. Smaller spaces create intimacy which create spaces for introspection of the self. That is not to say that these spaces cannot lie in a larger landscape, or are embedded or constructed over and connected to each other. Perhaps these are even spaces that are not permanent and only reach their ideal at a very specific time, as would a  solar calendar construct have its use only at certain points during the year.

Framing

Topics list:

experience of [discovery]

This term would include adventures around the corner, awareness of grade, awareness of presence and moments of pause. It can include a discovery of something as minute as the light's shadow scrapping across a material to something more profound as a new understanding of one's relationship to the world.

former, present and future self: memory

This term includes linkage to memory, linkage to present and shares moments of pause (that are given when a memory is triggered). It includes one's own experiences and relational experiences that are triggered by the experience of discovery -- creating both new memories and linking to past memories.

engulfed in the ephemeral qualities of light: transcendent radiance

I suggested in a theory paper that abandoned and unnoticed objects engulfed in this light become noticeable with a different history of memory that the object may have once had. An example of this is the weathered wood of a floating dock thrown across a beach -- it's present configuration and aging suggest a different history of purpose than the purpose for which it was built.

mysterious, yet familiar to memory, landscape

John Berger's writing "On the banks of Sava" epitomizes this quality of knowing where one is because of certain qualities but whose location is assured through these qualities as being nowhere else. Some of this mysteriousness may be coming from these abandoned and unnoticed constructs in a landscape that are only noticed from certain qualities of light.

overgrowth

I had a thought that overgrowth -- or over development of a process -- can act as a testing ground for this 'mysterious, yet familiar to memory, landscape. Overgrowth may be synonymous with the urban jungle of Duisborg Nord, but I think it is not limited to organic entities. If one were to approach an overgrown landscape a thought may be that this landscape is prototypical of such landscapes. But if that landscape had remnants of human use -- abandoned and unnoticed constructs in a landscape -- our perception would change to curiosity. So I think that the memory of human occupation is an integral component of overgrowth, that this quality is (perhaps) only noticed when organic and industrial are juxtaposed.

designed abandonment

To heighten the experience of discovery in a mysterious, yet familiar to memory, landscape, it may be necessary to design for abandonment. Instead of reclaiming an industrial site that has fallen into disrepair from neglect, designed abandonment would challenge how to create an artifice that accelerates decay while simultaneously accelerating spontaneous, and adaptive, development.

Analyze a Precedent through Drawing

duisburg_nord_interpretation