Rem | MutationMatter

On Critique (Feb 18)
By Rem / in thesis / February 18, 2010
It would appear that I am too much the observer, and not enough the maker: the person engaged in the site. I need to be more explicit in the datum of the 'level of experience' (right now I don't have one -- how do you measure someone's perception and relationship to space?) I mentioned to Mikyoung that my site is a school, but when I said that the, er, pupils, are 'intellectual outcasts of society', she was alarmed and responded that there's something very 'Dickinsonian' about that. That is, there is a potential negative aspect of placing a school in a ruin (what is the interface between those people and the ruin?); especially if I will be putting them underground as that can be viewed as controversial from many historical perspectives -- sequestering, refuges for refugees, etc. I also described the considerable proliferation of manholes and stormwater drainage devices in the street and on site; to which I received a response that I should be aware of the probable complex infrastructure that exists below grade. Here are the rest of the questions I should consider:
How do I study excavation?
What is the interaction between ruin and intervention?
What is it about that (be specific) condition to retain a ruin? When does it end; when it is completely demolished?
I need to make models of my understanding of how site and ruin is built. What are the material connections between new and old? Does something get discovered through ruin? (also, due to the nature of a ruin, I need to make models over time).
Are you looking for an environment that starts/ questions our need to maintain it? (Death and closure are difficult to talk about in our society)
How is the vehicle of thesis leading you toward to what I am reacting to you?
What is the adventure? (I need to answer this for the 'Midterm' critique next week)
What is the verb? I do not have an action to describe the 'rejuvenation' of the ruin? My previous verb was to 'narrate', but, that is still from the context of an observer, and not an operator on the site.
Public space has the potential to change society; so what am I trying to change by doing this thesis?
[note] Pin-up with Mikyoung Kim 12pm Feb 18 [/note]
On Site
By Rem / in thesis / February 11, 2010
I visited the site on February 6th. It took me four days on Bing and Wikitravel to find the site (from January 27th to 30th). It was a blustery cold (23 F) Saturday afternoon that I spent an hour taking over 220 photographs, video and sound recordings. This is a 13 minute transcript (edited for readability) of a voice recording I did once safely and warmly back in the car:
The vast salt flats of parking...
I'm really excited about the site. There's a lot of lower income people moving around on Parker Street with a fair amount of students. The site is surrounded by parking lots to the North; they're owned by Wentworth Institute of Technology. There's a gigantic pile of dirt on the site -- it looks like it was transfered from the adjoining lot used for storage/construction by the MBTA. There's a lot of topography I can work with. The building is still here [note: this was a worry of mine due to ruins constantly finding themselves on the short end of the stick], still boarded up, but there's construction vehicles next to the building [note: bobcats and portable sanitation]. There was a Comcast Van parked for the whole time I was there -- there was no one in the cab, so I assume they were all in the back. There was a rubber tube sticking out and into the ground [note: so there's sub grade possibilities?].
The various stormwater devices on Halleck Street
There's lots of manholes and stormwater management devices, drain inlets [note: archeology of site may now be necessary]. A lot of these are on Gurney meets Station St as well as on Halleck St (which is one-way, towards the southwest). There's lots of junk and overgrowth with decrepit pavement. There's a strange wall against the rail line -- it has a bridge like character too it. That's a potential sub site. The rail line itself has potential for sound overgrowth: when the train comes in/comes out, you can hear the sound from the vent at the High Voltage Building -- a subway sound appears to emanate from the vent as well as bouncing around above grade. You can hear an echo, a reverb of this subway sound in the courtyard between the big building and the small building.
The Wall to nowhere, abutting the retaining wall to the below grade rail line
There's some trees on the periphery of the giant landfill that there is. They seem to be relatively new growth, ten years or less, in random arrangement. When I first came in [into the courtyard] I believe there was a falcon sitting on the outcropping of the freight elevator of the big building. There was also a squirrel that climbed up into the eave of the small building; when I approached the building from Halleck Street, I heard this mysteriously frightening howling that made me briefly stop before completely crossing the street.
The "Small Building"
On Halleck Street there were some homeless people -- one with a shopping cart... but most walk on Parker Street; that seems to be the main road. You wouldn't be walking on Halleck or Station Street unless you were walking to/from your car parked in the lots.
Minidoro's Streets Potholes, Transformer, and Permit Parking
On the far end, next to the rail line, there's a power transformer -- there's parking there too, but you need a permit. The lot is much worse in its disposition [note: crumbling].
If you look closely, you can see the man hole cover center left, and to the right, the different inlay pattern suggesting an arch. A pipe may have been over said arch.
On the site there's some interesting things. For example, in the courtyard, there's this one spot in which you can tell from the building there used to be a door or a roof that connected to something else -- but all you can see is the upper reaches of the vestige of what remains. So it's quite possible that there is a basement or other kind of subterranean structure that is now either covered over or filled in. The smaller building may have been used as a garage or warehouse because there is a remnant of a concrete plinth, a chain-link railing, and barriers on the edges of a bricked-over garage entrance.
A stopover site to the main site perhaps? The building is massive. It's on Terrace Street, still in Mission Hill.
Next time I go visit the site, I'll have to take the train to Ruggles and then walk over, mapping the experience. Another note: When I was driving up Route 28, across the way, about 3/10 to 1/2 a mile to the site there's this ruin of a factory building along the rail line. It's at the bottom of Mission Hill.
On Zazen
By Rem / in thesis / January 26, 2010
As I mentioned in my last post, I was reading some texts on Zen Buddhism to acquaint myself with how a well-known practice of 'meditation' (Zen being more than just the English word of 'meditation') could be used in a ritual landscape. As I quickly found out, Zazen (the practice of Zen) can be done anywhere and is not a practice to be done as a hermit in a remote location. Thus, Zazen's role in a ritual landscape is diminished, but the theory behind it bolsters my thesis as I will now make note.
1. The Spirit of Zen by Alan W. Watts (1960)
Frequently the Zen Masters used to refer to each other as 'old rice-bags' and with other uncomplimentary terms, not out of any professional jealousy, but because it amused them to think that they and their wise and venerated brothers were supposed by ordinary standards to be especially holy, whereas they had all realized that everything was holy, even cooking-pots and odd leaves blown about by the wind, and that there was nothing particularly venerable about themselves at all. (34-35)
Sudden vs gradual realization (Hui Neng):
Life is moving too swiftly to be approached tentatively and gradually, for while one makes elaborate preparations for enlightenment the immediate truth is slipping away all the time. (41)
For man's apparent humility in thinking that wisdom is something too sublime to reveal itself in the ordinary affairs of life is a subtle form of pride... and nobody could expect to find enlightenment in a hermitage unless he was capable of finding it in the life of the world. (47) But I haven't thought of the site and its rituals as a hermitage...
...To hear the whole symphony one must concentrate on the flow of notes and harmonies as they come into being and pass away, keeping one's mind continuously in the same rhythm. To think over what has passed, to wonder what is about to come, or to analyse the effect upon oneself is to interrupt the symphony and to lose the reality. The whole attention must be directed to the symphony and oneself must be forgotten. (54)
...The Zen Masters have always insisted on a severe training as a prelimnary to the practice of Zen... There is a remarkable series of pictures known as the 'Ten Stages of Spiritual Cow-Herding' which demonstrate this point particularly well.' (62-63) These ten illustrations can be found in Suzuki's Essays in Buddhism.
Satori - sudden realization of truth (65)
...as though the oppressiveness of the outer world had suddenly melted like a vast mountain of ice, for satori is release from one's habitual state of tenseness, of clinging to false ideas of possession. (68)
Koan - a puzzle with no intellectual solution meant to baffle the intellect (69)
...For the koan is not a means of inducing trance as if some kind of trance were the highest possible attainment for human beings; it is simply a means of breaking through a barrier, or as the Zen Masters describe it, it is a brick with which to knock at a door; when the door is opened, the brick may be thrown away, and this door is the rigid barrier which man erects between himself and spiritual freedom. When the door is opened at the moment of satori, the disciple passes not into trance but into a new attitude towards life which reflects itself in a character of remarkable beauty. (71)
...thus when the disciple comes to the final point where the koan absolutely refuses to be grasped, he comes also to the realization that life can be never grasped, never possessed or made to stay still. (75)
There are some 1,700 koans. (76)
There is a famous Zen parable which fitly sums up this particular attitude to life. It is said to those who know nothing of Zen mountains are just mountains, trees are just trees, and men are just men. After one has studied Zen for a little time, the emptiness and transcience [sic] of all forms is perceived, and mountains are no longer mountains, trees are no longer trees, and men no longer men, for while ignorant people believe in the reality of objective things, the partially enlightened see that they are only appearances, that they have no abiding reality and pass away like drifting clouds. But, the parable concludes, to him who has a full understanding of Zen mountains are once again mountains, trees are treees, and men are men. (79)
The Five Meditations on Eating:
Firstly, let us reflect on our own work, let us see whence comes this offering of food;
Secondly, let us reflect how imperfect our virtue is, whether we deserve this offering;
Thirdly, what is most essential is to hold our minds in control and be detached from the various faults;
Fourthly, that this is medicinal and is taken to keep our bodies in good health;
Fifthyl, in order to accomplish the task of Enlightenment, we accept this food. (89)
A man may be free to travel where he likes, but there is no place on earth where he can escape his own karma and whether he lives on a mountain or in a city he may still be the victim of an uncontrolled mind. For man's karma travels with him, like his shadow. Indeed, it is shadow, for it has been said, 'Man stands in his down shadow and wonders why it is dark.' (97)
2. Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (revised translation Ma Wang Tui 1989, originally 6th century BCE)
I picked up this volume because I really appreciated the (faded) quality of its foil stamping. Only one passage, number 71, was the most accessible to me:
One who is good at traveling leaves no wheel tracks;
One who is good at speech has no flaws;
One who is good at reckoning uses no counting rods;
One who is good at shutting uses neither bolt nor lock yet what he has shut cannot be opened;
One who is good at tying uses no cords yet what he has tied cannot be undone.
Hence the sage is always good at saving people, and so abandons no one; nor does he abandon any useful material where things are concerned.
This is called following one's discernment.
Hence the good man is the teacher of the good man
While the bad man is the material for the good man.
Not to value the teacher
Nor to love the material
May, perhaps, be clever, but it betrays great bewilderment.
This is called the subtle and the essential. (71, Tao Ching; p75)
3. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki (1970)
I didn't derive anything substantial from this text as it was mostly about the practice of Zazen; posture, breathing, bowing and not-thinking being the focus. It was still a good read; it's just that the prior readings covered what I have already understood of Zazen so this seemed to be duplicate knowledge to me.
I am now left with two more books to read and another thought on my structure of ritual. Next post! (Lately my posts have been averaging 1,000 words: why is that?)
Trial of Passage (of my own)
By Rem / in thesis / January 24, 2010
I had a sudden thought that I need to reevaluate my focus. For more than a week I have been reading on Zen/Zazen because I thought those writings would help me develop a structure of ritual so that I can begin to develop program and site considerations. I will write about those readings in the next post, but I will henceforth question the relevance of this kind of meditation to my thesis. My understanding was that, depending on the interpretation (i.e., one is who is centered versus one who is trying), zen is found in everyday life (such as cooking pots) and going to a remote place and 'meditating' is not true Zazen. This will not work for the site. Furthermore, one does not pursue Zazen to become enlightened nor is it done strictly for pleasure. Again, if I want the operators to transcend their existence... this is not going to work either. Finally (but not finally), clearing one's mind as necessary to achieve Zazen means achieving a void mind without thinking of it, or thinking to hope that you are not thinking. I understand the concept of becoming 'one' with what you are sensing (but not thinking about), and that a clear mind, in theory, readily accepts new things, but I can't agree that having no thoughts whatsoever will lead to becoming enlightened. Because, how would you know that you have become enlightened about something without thinking, realizing that you have?
My sudden thought was not entirely on my misgivings of Zazen's relationship to my thesis, though Zazen has already influenced and bolstered it (via Satori and Koan). Rather, I reminded myself that the stratified overgrowth component of the thesis intends to set the conditions for these trials of passage. Overgrowth provides the structure for the ritual, I just need to figure out---
Well. What do I need to figure out? Consider a misty room where you can barely see the walls, you cannot see the ceiling or the floor but can see a lighter glow ahead of you. Would this environment suffice for a trial of passage? Do I need more 'furniture' in the room; such as a special garment to be worn, or a practice of movement (posture, breathing, humming, dancing) or devices, obstructions that are completely mysterious? There are apparently 1,700 Koans for Zazen, and they are designed to baffle the intellect and these puzzles have no intellectual answer as they are absurd. Modern science has confirmed that thinking of the absurd, or, not thinking about it, helps the brain make new connections and understandings to various things. From that perspective--the mysterious, the uncanny, the absurd-- all have the capability to trigger a Satori moment (sudden enlightenment). But what I'm not clear on is if I have to design for this. Can this happen naturally in such a landscape of ruin (but wait, that means it can happen anywhere) or maybe it does not because, for example, an absurd overgrowth (the mist) triggers the satori in this misty room?
Landscapes of Fear
By Rem / in thesis / January 21, 2010
I finished reading Landscapes of Fear by Yi-Fi Tuan (1979). It was a fairly exhaustive look at the broad range of fear(s); from predatory fear, fear of darkness, fear of absence (i.e., fear of not finding the walrus versus hunting the walrus itself), fear of disease (and of the diseased), natural disasters, witches, ghosts to the sounds and devices of urban areas and the countryside. There was nothing here that could directly influence my current problem of finding a structure of ritual (what people would be engaging in to transcend their level of experience) but I found some interesting thoughts:
If we had less imagination we would feel more secure. (6)
People shun [snakes] less [not] because they may be venomous than because they look repulsive and evil. (14)
In a natural disaster such as flood, authorities and populace fought against a common external enemy. In an epidemic, human beings themselves were a major cause of fear. People feared the sick as well as those suspected of being sick. And they dreaded the vastly expanded power of the authorities, who could impound them in filthy hospitals that were in reality death traps or shoot them when they sought to enter a barricaded area. (104)
Ghosts in backwoods America, as in Europe, most frequently visit man-made features: in the United States these include old or abandoned houses, old mills, covered bridges, and country roads. Ghosts also appear in natural settings such as hills, hollows and woods. Wherever a ghost is reported, that place acquires a numinous cast; it is set aside from the ordinary world. A landscape, to stay haunted, must be maintained by the art of storytelling, which until the Second World War was a popular pastime in many homes and country stores. To people who disapproved of dancing or cardplaying, swapping supernatural tales was almost the sole form of social entertainment. (128)
The countryside nearly always exudes an air of innocence. Even abandoned cottages can look picturesque. If, from the window of our speeding car, we happen to see the bent backs of men, women, and children picking tomatoes in the field, our immediate response is more likely to be "the wholesome life of outdoor labor" rather than "oppression, pain and fear." ...suffering leaves no mark in the country. The processes of rural exploitation have been "dissolved into a landscape." It is in the city that they emerge conspicuously as law courts, money markets, political power, and the arrogant display of wealth. The city, in many ways the supreme achievement of humankind, also stands as a monument to human greed and guilt. (144)
What does society do with such fringe members? In the past, if they were not violent and had some legitimate means of support, their presence was tolerated. ...most societies had two other methods for imposing order or forestalling the dangers of internal chaos: exile and confinement. With exile, danger is expelled from the communal body; with confinement, it is isolated in space, thereby rendering it innocuous. (187)
H. Bosch - The Ship of Fools
...Mad people are those whose minds wander. Without the control of rational minds, their behavior is erratic, either harmlessly adrift or violent. From ancient Greek times to the late medieval period, madmen received--other than medicine of a magical or sacral nature--two basic kinds of treatment: the violent were chained in private houses and religious institutions; the harmless were lightly supervised and allowed to mingle with the populace. When the insane became too numerous and troublesome, they were ejected from the city and encouraged to drift through the countryside. The step of transporting lunatics farther afield was undertaken between the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth century. City authorities hired sailors and merchants to conduct the mentally confused to distant towns where they might in the most literal sense be lost. (188)
...In the "ship of fools," the images of madness and water were aptly conjoined: water, a fluid medium signifying a state that lacks definition, is an appropriate symbol for madness. By contrast, sanity is the firm land the drifting mind hopes to reach and anchor itself in. (189)
Decline into schizophrenia is often preceded by a growing sense of "queerness" in everything. Objects come to have a "deeper meaning"; they seem mysterious and sinister. Such is not the world of the normal child and adult, and yet it does have something in common with the world of exceptionally gifted people. They ask strange questions. What we take for granted they find queer; what we accept as stable and closed they perceive as changing and open. Unlike schizophrenic patients, however, geniuses welcome--or, at least, are highly tolerant of--uncertainty. The circle is breached, but they believe it can be healed at a higher level of generalization. (204-205) Note: higher level of experience?
For geniuses, venturing beyond the familiar circle entails, of course, the risk of pushing to the edge of madness. Blaise Pascal, certainly a genius, is widely known for writing, "The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me." To the schizophrenic at one extreme and to someone like Pascal at the other, the world is vast, unstable, and frightening. Pascal spoke for fearful people when he wrote:
We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach overselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes for ever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses. (205)
On Permanence
By Rem / in thesis / January 19, 2010
Are these spaces permanent, however? Ritual spaces and the operators who inhabit them change over time, so does the site change with them or is it discarded or abandoned when its (newer) use is obsolete? Michel Conan brought up an example of Niagara Falls (Conan, 6), whose dramatic presence was a destination for transcendental experience. Until the tourist industry ruined it and that transcendental experience moved out west to the national parks, where, probably for some, seeking out transcendental expectations came to happen elsewhere.
I had a thought sometime on this -- a site that is abandoned, decays, but is not reoccupied. Not until the memory of what was there disappears, physically and ephemerally from the minds of man. Not until the site has been overgrown by various 'things', not until the site has once again become a 'blank slate' despite its once prior state of being, can the site become usable again. By then, it is ready to be occupied by a structure of man.
On Ritual and Agency
By Rem / in thesis / January 18, 2010
I took a break from thesis for a few days, but not before reading Zen in the Art of Archery on Thursday. My musings on that short work are in my thesis journal (this blog not being a mirror of such content; merely another medium for which I can deposit my ideas). I also took out six other books from the library; I hope to finish reading them by next Sunday. I think it's time to seriously delve into Michel Conan's Ritual and Agency as I have been putting him off for far too long (seemingly thick volumes scare me):
I took a look at Conan's introduction and three chapters that he describes; of which I will write of below. There is an attempt to define what a ritual is and that brings us to rites of passage. The traditional model of this had involved three stages: the first being a 'life-world separation', and the second is to pass from one experience or status to another and the third is the 'reintegration [of] a new social identity into the life-world.' (5) A more modern approach such as that suggested by anthropologist? Catherine Bell defines rites of passage under certain categories: the rite of passage, calendrical rite, rite of exchange and communion, rite of affliction, rite of feasting and fasting, and political rite. (5)
Before reading this text, I was assuming that a rite of passage was a progression from one (social/cultural) status to another; but if I were to accept this newer thinking, only the rite of affliction has the most weight and importance for the thesis. As I have written in the past and (likely) elsewhere, the operators in the thesis site are outcasts of society, whether by their choosing or others. I do not believe that these outcasts would like to remain in their state; it is highly likely as man is a social creature that these outcasts would either want to create their own community or somehow reach an understanding that would enable them to rejoin the society from which they left.
As an aside, I just looked up Thoreau and his Walden Pond experiment because I was not certain of his view on solitude. Somehow over the years I assumed that the outcome of his experiment was that man cannot live alone. It seems I was mistaken; although rightly so man cannot live alone without hardship, Thoreau was suggesting that man needs to learn solitude to contemplate on life in order to transcend his normal existence.
In Conan's introduction, the rite of affliction is defined as being a way of restoring the self so that the affliction that prevented active participation are nullified to enable return to a 'harmonious' community.
1. 'Sacred Texts and Ritual Spaces in RamLila of Ramnagar' by Sarah Bonnemaison (173-190)

There is a Hindu epic tale known as the Ramayana in which a Ram must come to age, battling evil and finding love as he travels across India. A festival at the end of the monsoon season known as RamLila ("Ram's play") narrates this story. (173) The public performance of this in a town called Ramnagar, famous for its lavish representation of the RamLila, purposes that the participants are not only the audience, but 'find [themselves] acting in it.' This is realized as the stage of the play is not in a fixed location, rather there are over forty settings '...installed in the gardens, courtyards, temple grounds, and open fields of this small community.' In addition this, a kind of 'temporary urbanism' is constructed at these sites due to adjacent refreshment stands popping up for the audience's enjoyment. (174)
Yet it appears that as much as the RamLila is a dramatic and sacred narrative, it is also a processional pilgrimage:
'...The audience follows the actors, sometimes chanting, sometimes in silence, while at other times they simply experience the passage of time within the narrative. The journeys wend their way in the night through narrow alleys and around the natural contours of the land, taking detours and often stopping to witness small scenes enacted along the way.' (178)
Reading to the end there was nothing else of note to help my thesis, save for the Lila adapting to its players; an anthropologist documenting the Lila year after year became known as 'the anthropologist with a note book' whereas the author of the text, an architect, was asked to strengthen walls and redesign an entrance gate. (190)
2. 'Africans Discover America: The Ritualization of Gardens, Landscapes, and Seascapes by Suriname Maroons' by Richard Price (221-236)
Suriname is the smallest South American country with a population of 470,000, speaks Dutch but is not a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is larger than Nicaragua, which is the largest country in Central America. (Wikipedia)
Maroons are descendants of escaped slaves and did not come from any particular African culture but did share their past with many ethnic groups sharing common principles of life from West and Central Africa. (221-222) Priests, princes, princesses, and tribal groups from those countries were transported over but not their physical counterparts of temples, courts and living quarters. Therefore, the Suriname Maroons needed to create new rituals in an unfamiliar (both geographically and bio-culturally with a forest environment) landscape. They designed these rituals, with much trial and error, after discovering, among other things, 'forest spirits' which told them how to survive in this unknown wilderness. (223)
Early rituals included 'communal divination', asking these spirits for guidance. These spirits were important to enough to consider them as necessary adjacencies; scouting for garden plots included looking for boulders or silk-cotton trees which represented these spirits. Next they asked these spirits for permission through another ritual. (223-224)
The rest of the text is immaterial for me as it delves into specifics of the Maroon spirit-deity cult. I did like a quote in the last paragraph: 'There are no useless plants... only uninformed people', spoken by a Saramaka Maroon 'ritual specialist'. (236)
3. 'Devotional Landscape: Ecology and Orthodoxy in the Work of Marietta Pallis' by David Matless and Laura Cameron (263-294)

In the mid 20th century, a strip of land in Norfolk, England became a personal refuge for ecologist and artist Marietta Pallis (1882-1963).(263)
Most notable and relevant was the construction of a 'Double-Headed Eagle Pool' which involved a 'sacramental dip [in the] nude' as a Greek ritual of bathing. (276) Strangely, even though this was a personally sanctified place for bathing, in 1957 Pallis obtained permission to bury a close friend in the middle of the Double-Headed Eagle, in which this place then became ritual bathing in a space of solemnity. (279) Pallis herself was eventually buried here.
The Uncanny
By Rem / in thesis / January 13, 2010
Leonard suggested that I read "The Architecture of the Uncanny: The Unhomely Houses of the Romantic Sublime" by Anthony Vidler, in Assemblage #3 (1987). The focus is on the "uncanny" or the "das unheimliche" , on the contrast between nostalgia and the terror of superstition. Heimlich means "homely" and its opposite, unheimlich, "unhomely" were written about in length by Freud and the brothers Grimm, and theorized that this contrast first began as nostalgia (the homely) before gradually becoming its opposite, the unhomely. (11) The idea of superstition originated at sites that appeared desolate and vacant and in the case of using Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", a family that was in decline in a home that would eventually become a tomb and disappear into the landscape. (8) I remember thinking about this some time ago in that taking a known ruin and letting it decline even further so that it becomes unrecognizable as such. So it would remain until no one remembers what was there and the land could once again be considered for (formal) habitation.
Vidler writes that Victor Hugo, who had a similar interest in the uncanny, proposed that only exiles, fugitives and those on the margins of society could feel at home at such a place. (9) This is of interest as well, in that the operators of the thesis site are more apt to be "marginal" persons, in their thinking and awareness, not that they would be fugitives of crime. Exiles of communal society perhaps.
On page 12, I came across a passage in which a definition by a philosopher named Schelling suggested that unheimlich '"is the name for everything that ought to have remained ...secret and hidden but has come to light.'" (12) To this, Vedler wrote:
"Indeed, his formulation, anticipating Nietzsche, asserted the necessary existence of the uncanny as a force to be overcome, a first step toward the birth of poetry." (12)
If the uncanny is a force to overcome -- that is, if stratified overgrowth sets the stage for a "rite of passage" -- an event/process/challenge that needs to be overcome -- in a 'desolate' landscape of ruin then ... well, that's something when I read that the uncanny is a form of the sublime, as much as a fairytale is a sub-genre of the sublime. I don't know yet if a form, any form, of the sublime is truly a part of my thesis because a part of the definition of it is that is something unattainable. A transcendence of thought is something attainable in this landscape, but I don't know how to make it so.
Thinking on program
By Rem / in thesis / January 1, 2010
A few days ago while I was in San Diego, I was thinking that "ritual/rite of passage" is my program, and not a direct focus of my thesis. I may now disagree with the latter, but the former has merit if I consider what do with stratified overgrowth in a landscape of ruin. By itself it is a wondrous, mysteriously aggressive and dangerous landscape but what (designed intent) can you do with it? This is where these "rituals" of experience come to play. Perhaps I was subconsciously thinking that I was already thinking of program months ago with these rituals, but I felt it important to proclaim that I am.
The next step in this is to categorize the types of "rituals/rite(s) of passage" that would work with the three levels of experience, such as basing them on emotion(s), logic, etc. A sudden thought came to mind -- I've been playing recently Dragon Age Origins, a phenomenal RPG that, like all RPGs, involve directing a character which gains experience by accomplishing certain tasks like quests and battling monsters. Each "level" of "experience" has a certain amount of points that you must fill to progress to the next level. At the point of "leveling up" you have the option to pick new attributes for your character for strength, mental and physical perseverance and so on. Choosing new skills for defeating more powerful enemies is also possible. Thus, what I am attempting to design for my thesis is much akin to the narrative and mechanics of an RPG. But that is not the sudden thought that came to mind. Rather, particularly for Dragon Age, there is a type of enemy called a demon (part of a larger force called the darkspawn which of course you are battling) which assumes five different "strengths." From weakest to strongest: rage, hunger, sloth, desire and pride. Therefore, a rage demon is significantly weaker and easier to defeat than a pride demon. The sudden thought is this: what if I categorized a type of "ritual" as not only being a certain emotion but one that cannot be conquered until the adventurer has attained a new level of experience. For example, taking the above example, perhaps rage and hunger are only available to overcome for those who have reached Goethe's first level of experience (making observations of the world around them). To reach sloth and desire, one would have to defeat the first two and reach the second level, which is questioning the conditions of those observations. Finally, defeating/coming in terms with pride could only be reached once all previous engagements are complete and one has reached the highest level of experience, which is questioning the observations themselves.
A New Year brings New Ideas
By Rem / in thesis / January 1, 2010
This morning I had a mild epiphany in regards to my thesis. Over the weeks of December I was thinking about the core concepts of the thesis: stratified overgrowth as a condition/process which allows for "rituals/rites of passage" to happen and whereby transcending our level of experience through this narrative of "ritual". And it can only happen in a "landscape of ruin." I wrote in my thesis proposal that I am not designing a rite of passage, rather that I am designing for a rite of passage.
Back in December during our thesis proposal review, I was challenged with the question of what rituals/rites of passage do I want people to engage with in this landscape. Was it to be for passing from one status to the next (child to adult, single to married)?
From that perspective, I was uncomfortable with the notion that I was designing for, let's say, a marriage ritual. And this thinking cannot conform (easily) to transcending one's level of experience. I do not wish to force things to fit. I feel that Goethe's three levels of experience is absolutely essential in knowing this possible landscape, not just experiencing it. Therefore, perhaps I should be more aggressive, but not forceful, of the idea that I am designing a ritual in that I want people to transcend their way of knowing the world through this landscape. Existing rituals do not exist for this purpose, unless one is to consider going to a mountaintop and not eating for three days straight as they await an epiphany. It is unrealistic for the layman to engage in such a determination of will, as the precedent for embarking with the mountaintop ritual is usually done by a person with an already high level of (Goethean) experience. Therefore, I must design for spaces of incremental significance and then spaces that test the occupant so they may continue on to greater challenges.