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design portfolio

kim walker

the bartlett school

of archi-tecture

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kim walker,winter term 2010shaun murraykimberlycwalker@gmail.comwww.kimberlycwalker.tumblr.comwww.paperspaceinspire.tumblr.com

TuTorelecTronic mail

design workreference caTalogue

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+++ part a, record of work01 [prelude]

02 [setting the stage, a frame for social performance]02.10 what is the staging area?02.20 where is the staging area? 02.21 the plaza, covent garden 02.21 the grand hall, royal opera house02.30ebb&flow,expand&contract02.40 elements as choreography02.50 forming an audience02.60 to see & be seen

03 [definingthecharactersthroughtheiractions]03.10 patterns of behaviour; passing movements03.20 character development 03.21 character one; the crowd, as a collective 03.22 character[s] two; mother & son, break/reconnect 03.23 character[s] three; two strangers pass/glance 03.24 character four; a lady, as if in a dream

04 [constructing the scene]04.10 movements connote forms/ forms connote movements 04.11 forms, the crowd 04.12 forms, mother &son 04.13 forms, two strangers 04.14 forms, a lady04.20 composed scenes; blending of characters and forms

05 [ending]

+++ part b, catalogue of interests06 [references]

07 [beginnings]

08 [photo series]

09 [bibliography]

INDEX

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part a[record

of work]

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Architecture plays an animating role in society. Spaces, as they are composed through layers of vertical and hori-zontal surfaces, influence people sensorily, determining how a person chooses to place themselves in the world at that moment. Architecture is formed through the daily participation and engagement of people with their envi-ronment. It is never perfect - it is untidy and it is messy, but therein lies the beauty and spirit of a space, found through being a part of it. When experienced close up, a building in a way disappears and becomes something which guides and forms movements within the spaces. It is these idiosyncrasies of a real human-made experience - the imperfections and their corresponding adaptations made on a daily basis through the practical engagement with a context - that give form to a lived space. A lived space in which people are at the foreground and the buildings are their backdrop, and it is the interactions between the two that become points of interest.

This project looks at architecture through the lens of choreography. ‘All the world’s a stage,’ as Shakespeare eloquently tells us, and thus the city is examined as an ongoing choreographed performance made up of characters and the crossing of their particular rhythms and movements. These everyday movements are seen not as mundane but unique, the commonness of the ordinary as uncommon. When the familiar is noticed it becomes new and surprising. The architecture is com-municated through the human language of small habitual stories that are based in the contemporary urban land-scape, and is defined by these specific instances and the movements they produce.

These particular notions are continually considered by Diller & Scofidio as they re-question the role of people as both participants and observers throughout the multi-disciplinary work that they do crossing performance and architecture.

‘Perhaps it is the personal interaction with the meaning of a narrative, in film or other experience, which is the pre-eminent concern today. The fixed scene and action of the theatre is discarded for the reactive improvisation of street performance. The emphasis like jazz is on unique event, not bounded by a closed form but constructed around a recognized format. The spectacle includes the spectators who define it by their presence and active interpretation… The ritual in its present sense exists not in the activities of fire-eaters and jugglers, nor even in their interaction with prom-enading tourists, but in the ability of the crowd to witness itself in its individual and collective pat-terns. What it sees is an unstructured performance set within limits, a picturesque disorder which challenges curiosity but not security, and never disgusts.’ (Architectural Review Feb. 1989, p54)

An architecture that communicates and makes visible the fleeting forms of these human movements is to be developed in three parts. The first, defines the location and elements of a staging area where space is continu-ally being shaped and reshaped by people, acting as a frame for social performance. The second part locates specific human sequences found in the staging area and defines them as characters through their actions and movements. Lastly, the third part deals with constructing the scene by first using the movements of the characters to connote forms and then recomposing the forms and characters together, through the orchestration of human movements and the patterns that are found in-between them.

01.0[prelude] a

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marco polo describes a bridge, stone by stone.‘but which is the stone that supports the bridge?’ kublai khan asks.‘the bridge is not supported by one stone or another,’ marco answers, ‘but by the line of the arch that they form.’kublaikhanremainssilent,reflecting.thenheadds: ‘why do you speak to me of the stones? it is only the arch that matters to me.’polo answers: ‘without stones there is no arch.’Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

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02.0[set-

ting the stage]

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all the world’s a stage, and all the men and womenmerelyplayers:theyhavetheirexitsandtheir entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. William Shakespeare

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02.10 whaT is The sTaging area?

The staging area is both socially constituted and situated in the public domain. It has a seemingly chaotic, uncon-trolled aspect to it but is actually, imperceptibly, quite directed. It is engaged in a dialogue: a dialogue between the environment and the people within it, and a dialogue between the mixture and crossing of people with other people in the space, wherein these parts are continually interacting and adjusting with and shaping each other. Here the spaces expand and contract as bodies move, giving a thickness and particularity to it. It is a destination

place with a discernible rhythm throughout the day. It has a long history in which the architecture tells the changes over time. There is an aspect of performance within the ways people are in contact with each other, through their participation in the space, and as they animate the space through their movements, momentary traces are left lin-gering behind.

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02.20 where is The sTaging area?

The area of Covent Garden, specifically the west plaza in between the market building and St. Paul’s church and the grand Hall of the Royal Opera House are the locations of the staging area for this project. Within these two places the focus is on the people who are watching the performance; the audience as an integral part of the show, giving it a rhythm and depth; the audience as both a body in itself and being made out of individual bodies to form the whole.

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02.21 The plaza, covenT garden

The street performers use the street as their stage, with props and costumes to deliver their acts. Their audience is not required to pay and is simply made up of pass-ers by whom the performer collects together to create a crowd. As Covent Garden is a well known attraction, many of the people found there are tourists from all over the world. The collected audience becomes an entity itself, with a life of its own. It can be unpredictable and fickle towards the performer and the performer has to learn how to read the body language of its audience.

The system behind the street performances is much more constructed and controlled than seen from the street. Covent Garden is one of the only parts of London licensed for street performance, the performers must obtain a permit and have auditions with the Market’s management and representatives of the performers‘ union before they can perform there. Once through the

auditions, the performers sign up in timetabled slots for a number of venue locations around the market. The loca-tions are marked for a certain sort of performance, such as only classical music is allowed in the courtyard space and the louder, larger crowd gathering acts are in the east and west outdoor pitches; each pitch has its positive and negative aspects depending on the characteristics of the day. The performances go all day long with two perfor-mances an hour from ten-thirty in the morning till it gets dark, all year round. (http://www.coventgardenlife.com/info/street_entertainers/misc/rex_boyd.htm)

The life of the individual street performer is of interest in itself: these performers are part of a community of performers, they must be quite established and skilled as performers to work in covent garden, and they have gained an intuitive understanding of how to control or influence a crowd with their body and voice and how to create space.

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02.21 grand hall, royal opera house

The Royal Opera House attracts a paying-theater-going public who has come there for a specific performance that takes place most evenings. Its setting is a much more formal atmosphere than that of the street, situated in a grand building which was designed specifically for producing and performing an elaborate show to an audi-ence. The ticket holders to the theater are a vital part of the performance, mingling and socializing in the grand Hall before, during intermissions, and after the show; they attend to see and be seen.

The grand Hall originally opened in 1860 and was intended as an exotic fruit and flower market by day and a venue for balls and concerts by night. A fire in 1956 destroyed the original barrel-vaulted roof, during the redevelopment of the 1990s, half of the original structure was raised four metres above above the street-level and the barrel-vaulted roof was reinstated, a mirrored end giving an illusion of the original size. This space is now a foyer and bar, and is also used for concerts and events. (Royal Opera House brochure)

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01. the performer - using his/her whole body: arms, hands, voice, eyes - begins to gather the people in and around the plaza around for the show.

02. a semi-circle is formed, with a tighter ring in front and bystand-ers spread out around the back. the show begins.

03. the show is in full swing, more people have stopped to watch, and a defined room has been constructed around the performer. the audience is part of the show, and the performer uses individu-als from the crowd as characters who are part of the act.

04. upon the show ending, the performer calls out to the audience to support and contribute to the show by giving donations please. the circle is broken and people diverge, moving here and there, into the center with the performer or away in every other direction.

05. people walk through, wander around, stand along an edge, sit where there’s a place to sit, and watch the plaza while the next performer begins to gather them around again.

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02.30 elemenTs as choreography

The layers that go into a production at the opera house - composer, director, set design, costume design, light-ing design, choreographer, music - are all likewise found within the act of the street performer. These same ele-ments are all a part of the everyday choreography of the city; people are part of an ongoing performance in which their movements, actions, mannerisms, gestures, and styles not only add to, but also define the life of a place. People create a space through their presence and how they situate themselves within it in relation to the inani-mate contextual structures and elements.

Architectural elements suggest certain actions. In Diller & Scofidio’s Para-site installation project at the Museum of Modern Art they use the physical construct of the build-ing to interpret and recontextualize the visitor’s viewing of the institution. Starting at the entrance they note that in substitution of ‘the ceremonial grand stair of the historic museum, which elevated art into a privileged domain above the abject street, is a set of escalators within the museum lobby... Their slow mechanical motion, how-

ever, perfectly updates the grand stair’s other function: to serve as a stage for the exhibitionistic display of moving bodies.’ (Diller & Scofidio, Flesh. p166)

In both spaces, the hall being an interior and the plaza an exterior, there exists a variety of heights and levels - steps, balconies, stairs, mezzanines - as displays for the actions of people.

02.40 ebb & flow, expand & conTracT

The crowd is an entity moving through the space; it changes the sense of the space depending on how it is formed within it, giving the space a sense of expansion and contraction as it ebbs and flows moving throughout. As an entity, it contains echoing patterns of collective behaviour, repeating rhymically as time plays out. The crowd has a way of making both chaos out of order and order out of chaos, as it becomes one mind made from many.

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02.50 forming an audience

The performer uses the movement of his whole body - hands, arms, eyes, voice - to direct people together, to form a circle encompassing him, collecting an audience person by person, redefining the space through collec-tion of an audience for the performance. Throughout the day there is a rhythmic pulse to the performances: the performer gathers people together around him and begins performing his act during which more people gather round and become engaged as a crowd with the performer, the crowd is one voice who speaks together,

the performer may then pick one person out of the crowd to assist him with an act, making the crowd a part of the performance. When the act ends, the performer collects donations and the crown disperses, changing the plaza from one which contained a distinctly formed space into one of people dabbled around the edges and wandering through. Then it all begins again with the next performer collecting his or her crowd together.

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02.60 To see & be seen

The grand hall within the royal opera house contains many different levels and edges through which a person can participate with the space and with the people in the space in numerous ways. People move up into the hall through a ceremonial staircase, in the middle of the great volume of the hall is the champagne bar around which people mingle, situated on a second level around the edges is a restaurant from which diners can look into the space, on one edge is the escalator moving people up to the third level mezzanine bar above, where a glass

box projects into the volume of the hall and in which people are on display themselves as they look at others below. One is always watching what others are doing while those same others are watching you; it is a circular system. The performance extends outwards from the theater into the grand hall which acts as foyer, bar, res-taurant, stair, all as a stage where the audience becomes the performers and the performance.

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The space between people working together isfilledwithconflict,friction,strife,exhilaration,delight,andvastcreativepotential.Bruce Mau

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03.0[defining

the char-acters]

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23definingthecharacters

03.10 paTTerns of behaviour;

passing movemenTs

Within the staging area people behave in certain ways and passing movements, actions, and gestures of indi-vidual people are captured and examined. These cap-tured instances reveal something of what lies beneath the surface of what we see, shaping a temporary space that is continually changing, imitating itself over time. In reducing the speed of time, fragments of a story are found that tell not the whole picture, but of the spaces which are less seen or known, the fleeting spaces which are always there around us, which form our everyday life. These gestures which evolve from the body can, in turn, become used as as architectural elements, helping to define the space.

In his book Lights Out for the Territory, Ian Sinclair explores those marks people leave behind, discovering that ‘the physical movements of the characters across

their territory might spell out the letters of a secret alpha-bet.’ When calibrating human sequences, the movement or action becomes a language, as a diagram in time, slowing everything down and measuring the incremental individual gestures that are combined together to form a whole movement.

03.20 characTer developmenT

In observing, replicating and composing the movement, gestures and orientation of a body caught in an action, a story emerges that describes a character. The cap-tured sequence is further articulated by measuring the step by step motions and calibrating the shifting space and sense of expansion and contraction in between the movements, giving form to the actions.

‘The physical movements of the characters across their territory might spell out the letters of a secret alphabet.’ Ian Sinclair

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03.21 characTer one; The crowd, as a collecTive

The crowd is one, as one it negotiates and manipulates its spatial setting, be it in the plaza or the hall. it cannot be hurried, it moves of its own accord at its own pace, but it can be prompted and encouraged to do as one outside the crowdwishes.Thecrowdmingles,mixes,blends, weaves and merges; in one moment it is still and close together and in the nextitopensupandmovesagain.Withinthe crowd there are heads and there are feet: heads of varying heights always scanning what’s around them, and feet, as footsteps upon the cobbles, standing, swaying, walking, perceiving the surface beneath them.

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03.22 characTer[s] Two; moTher & son, break/reconnecT

The small child, eyes wide taking in theexcitementoftheplaza,sneakshishand from his mother’s grasp, running, stumblingawayfromherandfindingthebrick wall, placing his hands on the brick wall to steady himself. The mother, watches, then as instinctual habit, as protector, follows after, gathering her child’s small hand back into hers.

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03.23 characTer[s] Three; Two sTrangers pass/glance

in opposing directions they pass under the arches of the portico, she walking towards him moving from inside to outside, he walking towards her from outside to inside. eyes looking straight ahead, they pass, conscious of but paying no attention to the other, continuing on, through the space that the other one just came from.

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03.24 characTer four; a lady, as if in a dream

under the golden lights of the lavish grand hall, she glides as if in a dream. elegantly winding her way through the mingling crowds, eyes looking forward, her skirt sways in that ballerina-esque way. it is as if she is both a part of the backdrop which is the crowd in the vast, multi-leveled space and as if she is completely alone and it is only her in that grand space full of other people.

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bodies produce space by introducing direction, rotation, orientation, occupation, and by organizing a topos through gestures, traces, and marks. The formal structure of these actions, their ability to refunctionalize existingurbanspaces,and the visual power of the supporting props contribute to the creation of public space.Susana Torre Claiming the Public Space: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

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04.0[construct-

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35constructing the scene

04.10 movemenTs connoTe forms/ forms connoTe movemenTs

The ways people move their bodies are expressive of how they feel, what they want, what they’re thinking, what they’re about to do, of an individual personality. These movements can connote forms, and vice versa the forms can connote movements. WIthin a larger framework, architectural spaces can be designed to suggest different gestures or ways of being within them, one says to ‘come in’ another ‘stay away,’ one implies ‘slow down’ while another cajoles to ‘speed up.’

The actions and interactions of the characters are turned into an architectural language through the forms that are found in their movements. Our bodies weave various folds into the world which are retraced, noting places of overlap and intersection. These forms reveal the simple but generally unnoticed human made moments that are in synchrony with each other.

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37constructing the scene

character one; the crowd, as a collective

mingles, mixes, blends, weaves & merges

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39constructing the scene

character two; mother & son, break/reconnect

shift apart, again as one

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41constructing the scene

character three; two strangers, pass/glance

closer, look, cross,fade away

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43constructing the scene

character four; a lady as if in a dream

gliding, slipping, floating

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04.20 recomposed scenes; blending of characTers and forms

The reconstructed scene is expressive of an orchestrated dance of everyday actions and gestural movements of bodies in a space as seen incrementally through time. It is footsteps and hands clapping, an arm wave and a head shake, a smile of recognition and a look of confu-sion. It is interested in not one or the other, but in the shared space between, the space between people and their context, between animate and inanimate. It is per-formative and it is personal space as seen through the subjective. This new scene is that which Paul Shepeard speaks of,

‘the idea... that [architecture] is really the conclusion of some dramatic impulse, made specific by the circum-stances that surround it.’ (What is Architecture?) The recomposed scenes explore a sense of the spatial environments created by people through their incremen-tal movements and their ‘dramatic impulses.’ Combining the individual characters’ calibrated instances creates new sequences that blend together as one. Traced marks that embed the movements and gestures into a surface create forms and shapes. Composing these scenes involves the mapping of geometries and patterns which people generate in space and building up layers of information within and around them in order to visualize the space in-between. People, as characters, are con-tinually moving, changing, editing and redefining spaces that they are within.

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55constructing the scene

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05.0[ending]

The urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher, William Whyte conducted an extensive study on the social life of plazas In New York City, analyz-ing many variables of why some were used consistently and others were not. In the end he came to a simple conclusion:

‘People tend to sit most where there are places to sit.’

This perfect statement speaks succinctly to the the basic exploration of this project: the idea of a lived space. If there is a place to sit - a bench or a step, a ledge or a patch of grass - people will sit there, if there is not, they will move on. A lived space is a simple thing, it is how people actually use a space. People form and reform the lived space everyday and the lived space likewise forms the actions and movements of people. It plays out as if choreographed; people move about their day, small instances combine to form actions, individual moments and characters combine as a performance in the life of a place.

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part b[cata-logue

of inter-ests]

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Time can be a meTaphor for all of culTure. i.i. rabi, a physicisT, said ‘The real answer was given only in This cenTury by einsTein, who said, in effecT, ThaT Time is simply whaT a clock reads. The clock can be The roTaTion of The earTh, an hourglass, a pulse counT, The Thickness of geological deposiTs, or The measured vibraTions of a cesium aTom.’ They all have one Thing in common: each is a physical mechanism, however, culTure’s clocks add dimensions To physical Time.Edward Hall, The Dance of Life

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‘If you’ve ever wanted to see the interior of the Guggen-heim Museum in its pristine state, now’s the time. For the solo show of the young European artist Tino Sehgal, the great spiraling rotunda, recently ablaze with Kandinskys, has been cleared out. There isn’t a painting in sight.

Yet the space isn’t empty. On the rotunda’s ground floor, a man and woman entwine in a changing, slow-motion amorous embrace. On the ramps above, people walk and talk in pairs or clusters at a leisurely pace, with new participants periodically joining conversations as others drop away.

Mr. Sehgal’s art is made up almost entirely of such balletic tableaus and social encounters....

still, at the end... i felt stirred up, but light and refreshed, the way i sometimes — but not that often — do when i feel that i’ve met art in some very bare-bones way. it really is about life. it really is about communication. it really does have no answers.’Holland Cotter, The New York TImes, ‘In the Naked Museum: Talking, Thinking, Encountering’

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The world Steve McQueen depicts – of a beetle wandering over a flow-erbud, of a worm slinking through a lamp-lit puddle – is a world of small things barely, if ever, noted during the hustle and bustle of the Biennale.

“it is about looking, what it does is encourages you to look again.”Steve McQueen

1 The Map as Art

2 The Hidden Dimension, Edward T. Hall

3 The Dance of Life, Edward T. Hall

4 Tino Sehgal, Guggenheim

5 Louise Bourgeois

6 Steve McQueen, Girdiani

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public space is produced through public discourse, and its representation is not the exclusiveterritoryofarchitecture,butistheproductoftheinextricablerelationshipbetweensocial action and physical space.Susana Torre, Claiming the Public Space: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

gesTural momenTs in archiTecTure

An investigation of the gesture and personal exchange of the Grand Bazaar was taken to the urban transaction identified to exist in Galata Bridge.

The Bazaar is a wonderful labyrinthine box enclosing over 4000 shops, sixty streets and alleyways punctured with courtyards. People hustling, bargaining and arguing. The hypothesis under investigation is that gesture exists, as a condition, before language.

an archiTecTure of Thread and gesTure observes architecture from a different perspective. Moving away from built materials, Ainslie Murray proposes a refreshing alternative: to map the human body’s articulation of space through movement with softer and finer materials.In a series of created spaces, Ainslie unveils the hidden motions behind simple everyday activity, such as walking or the wave of a hand, ‘tracing’ these unseen actions with thread and light.

With meticulous detail and precision, Ainslie creates graceful lines of interaction between body and space, illustrating this with various methods such as stitching and perforation, embellished with the clever use of shadow and light.

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milan kundera, slowness

there is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. consider this utterly com-monplace situation: a man is walking down the street. at a certain moment, he tries to recall something, but the recollection escapes him. automatically, he slows down. meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has just lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time.

In existential mathematics, that experience takes the form of two basic equations: the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.

le noTTi di cabiria

Todd williams & billie Tsien, a slow way of working

our desire to continue to use the tools of of the hand, even as we… use the computer, has to do with their connection to our bodies… as our hands move, we have time to think and to observe our actions… so, decisions are made slowly after thoughtful investigation, because they are a commitment that has consequence. It is bet-ter to be slow.

In the buildings we design, we struggle to achieve a unity and sense of wholeness that can come from a balance of individual gestures within a larger and more singular container.

in theatrical space, music, choruses, masks, tiering - all such elements converge with language and actors. a spatial action overcomes conflicts,atleastmomentarily,eventhoughit does not resolve them; it opens a way from everyday concerns to collective joy.henri lefebvre, the production of space

7 Nigel Peake

8 Ainslie Murray

9 Frederico Fellini

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diller + scofidio, refresh

For each of the dozen sites located in the US, Europe and Australia that Diller + Scofidio selected for this project, they have constructed fictional narra-tives using text and fabricated images. For every site there is a grid of twelve images, one of which is live and refreshes when clicked; the other eleven have been constructed for this project with the aid of hired actors and Pho-toshop. None of the people from the actual location appear in the fabricated images; however, the juxtaposition of the live and the fictional establishes a provocative correspondence. The stories, which range in time from a single day to several seasons, concentrate on subtle changes in behavior as a consequence of the acknowledged presence of the camera in the office: a gradual shift in dress style, the activities of an after-hours cleaning crew, a ritual of stacking paper, one person’s discreet and incessant ordering of take out food, and a potential office romance unfolding by the water cooler. There is nothing shocking or dramatic, rather, everyday conventions are slightly modified, either to perform for or to hide from the camera.

koolhaas houselife

This is a film on one of the masterpieces of contem-porary architecture of recent years: the house in bor-deaux. unlike most movies about architecture, this feature focuses less on explaining the building, its structure and its virtuosity than on letting the viewer enter into the invisible bubble of the daily intimacy of an architectural icon. this experiment presents a new way of looking at architecture and broadens the field of its representation.

and if ila bêka and louise lemoine are interested in understanding what happens “as soon as a person starts inhabiting a place”, rem koolhaas, watchingtheirfilm,said:“whatIfindinterestinginyourfilmisthewayitshows daily participation. Itisnotflattering,butis realistic, and with no bad intentions. Just a sort of documentary on practical engagement and on its results… and for me it is very beautiful because it creates a certain stability, it stabilizes the image”.Roberto Zancan, ‘Stabilizing the Image’on the film ‘Koolhaas HouseLife’

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67reference catalogue

voyeur

viewing into the hidden lives of people

The royal balleT, Three shorT works: as one/rushes/infra

infra, by choreographor Wayne McGregor’s:

‘Most radically, it has a very human narrative. A raised screen above the stage functions like an overhead walkway, supporting a sequence of bright electronic figures, designed by Julian Opie. As they march and stroll in confident progression, they are like a neon abstract of a city crowd. And it is McGregor’s 12 dancers, in the shadows below, who embody the tumult of thoughts and emotions that seethes beneath their skins.

Much of the work is divided into small sections, each of which cap-tures a moment or a mood. Playing over these emotional snapshots is Max Richter’s score. Richly melodic piano and strings are overlaid with sampled sounds of urban life to shuttle us between delight in the ballet’s beauties and anxiety for the characters it creates. At its climax, one dancer sinks to the floor as her body is racked with some sudden grief. We stare at her, shocked and uncertain, then suddenly the stage is flooded with lines and lines of dancers, mimicking Opie’s figures as they march unseeingly past. It is an astonishingly bold and precise image - the intensity of personal anguish located within the blind, daily routines of the city.’

as one, by choreographor Jonathan Watkins:

‘Watkins says that he was inspired by watching a block of flats from the outside, witnessing so many people inhabiting separate spaces, side by side, without connection. The action is thus divided into five ‘slices of life’, representing typical urban living patterns: from the sociable to the isolated, the career-obsessed to the couch potato.

The work is primarily about ‘knowing who you are,’ says Watkins. Its title is thus understood as a reference to both man’s unique identity and place within a wider social group.’

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whaT does movemenT look like?

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‘subsTiTuTing for The ceremonial grand sTair of The hisToric museum, which elevaTed arT inTo a privileged domain above The abJecT sTreeT, is a seT of escalaTors wiThin The museum lobby. like revolving doors, escalaTors are conveniences of commerce, used for The expedienT TransporT of consumers Through reTail

space. Their slow mechanical motion, however, perfectly updates the grand stair’s other function: to serve as a stage for the exhibitionisticdisplayofmoving bodies.’

para-siTe insTallaTion,

modern museum of arT

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14 Etienne-Jules Marey

15 Diller & Scofidio

16 Diller & Scofidio

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reference catalogue

slow house

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glidingshe glides by as if in a dream. walking noT briskly, walking noT slowly, JusT walking, eyes looking forward, her skirT swaying in ThaT ballerina-esque way. iT is as if she has become a parT of The backdrop which is The building behind her, as if They meld TogeTher inTo one in ThaT momenT, as she passes.

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forwards, backwardshe TroTs ouT of The Town hall, down The sTairs and inTo The square, his legs leading him forwards onTo The nexT Thing. once on The sidewalk, he sTops for a momenT and glances backwards aT where he JusT came from.

beginnings

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twoperfecTly cenTered, in The middle of The bridge, They sTroll, arm in arm, across The large body of waTer running underneaTh. TogeTher Their heads frame whaT is The dome of a greaT caThedral in The disTance.

73

dissolvingher brighT pink (or maybe They were a vivid red) Trousers are lefT as a Trace behind her, dissolving, weaving, and fading away inTo The person who follows behind her.

beginnings

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handholdThe small child, sneaks his hand from his moTher’s grasp, running, sTumbling away from her and finding The brick wall, placing his hands on The brick wall To sTeady himself. The moTher, waTches, Then as insTincTual habiT, as proTecTor, follows afTer, gaThering her child’s small hand back inTo hers.

75beginnings

passiT is by way of The break in buildings ThaT They cuT Through, in opposing direcTions, she walking Towards him, he walking Towards her. eyes looking sTraighT ahead, They pass, conscious of buT paying no aTTenTion To The oTher, conTinuing on, around The corner ThaT The oTher one came from.

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photo series one: shifting landscapes, sunset

photo series two: shifting landscapes, twilight

photoseriesthree:icereflectionsinacanallandscape

77photo series

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photo series four: staring up at a turning ball

photoseriesfive:brightlights

photoseriessix:slightlyoutoffocus

79photo series

80

:: TexT

Benjamin, Walter. ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.’

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing.

Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. London: Random House, 1997

Capra, Fritjof. The Hidden Connections.

DeLillo, Don. The White Noise

Diller & Scofidio. Flesh, Architectural Probes. 1994; Princeton Architectural Press, New York, New York.

Hall, Edward. The Hidden Dimension. New York: Double Day, 1966.

Hall, Edward. The Dance of Life. New York: Anchor Books/Double Day, 1983.

Harmon, Katherine. The Map as Art: Contemporary Artists Explore Cartography. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2009

Helfand, Jessica. Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture.

The Pentagram Papers. London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.

‘Ritual, Diller & Scofidio’ The Architectural Review February 1989, p. 54-57

Shepheard, Paul. What is Architecture? An Essay on Landscapes, Building, and Machines.

The Endless City: The Urban Age Project by the London School of Economics and Deutsche Band’s Alfred Herrhausen Society. Phaidon Press, 2007.

Whyte, William. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. New York: Project for Public Spaces, 1980.

:: world wide web

dance notation; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_notation

Improv Everywhere; http://improveverywhere.com/2009/03/18/subway-art-gallery-opening

voyeur; http://archive.bigspaceship.com/hbovoyeur

proxemics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxemics

gesture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture

street performers, http://www.coventgardenlife.com/info/street_entertainers/misc/rex_boyd.htm

81bibliography

:: arTisTs, archiTecTs, exhibiTion, film, performance

Baldessari, John. Exhibit, ‘Pure Beauty’ at Tate Modern

Bourgeois, Louise; tate modern installation: I Do, I Undo and I Redo

Brand, Steward. Book, How Buildings Learn.

Calle, Sophie. Book, Double Game. Exhibit, ‘Talking to Strangers’ at Whitechapel Gal-lery, http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/sophie-calle-talking-to-strangers

Diller + Scofidio, Refresh; http://awp.diaart.org/dillerscofidio/intro.html

Halprin, Lawrence. Landscape Architect. http://halprinlc.org/halprininportland/

Heath, Claude

Hendricks, Jochem; http://www.jochem-hendricks.de/englisch/w_zeitung/non_index.htm

Hockney, David

Horn, Rebecca

Forsythe, William. Choreographer

Koolhaas HouseLife, film; Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine;, http://www.koolhaashouselife.com/html/the_film.html

Kundera, Milan; Slowness

Lead Pencil Studio

Lefebvre, Henri; The Production of Space

McQueen, Steve; film, Girdiani; http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/29/arts/20100129-giardini.html

Murray, Ainslie; http://www.jpf.org.au/02_events/facetnate/architect.html

Pacaud, Julien

Peake, Nigel

Richardson, Emily; film, Transit

The Royal Ballet, As One/Rushes/Infra

Infra, choreographer Wayne McGregor’s, http://www.roh.org.uk/discover/ballet/asone.aspx

As One, choreographer Jonathan Watkins, http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/nov/15/dance

Sehgal, Tino; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/arts/design/01tino.html?pagewanted=1

Sinclair, Ian; Lights Out for the Territory

Susana Torre; essay, ‘Claiming the Public Space: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo’

Todd Williams & Billie Tsien Architecture

Whiteread, Rachel

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