Sachiko Kodama & Yasushi Miyajima

Barren Praries and Deserted Wastelands

This is the music of the sparse.

http://www.myspace.com/totemsongs

Architecture and Ruin

The world is young, we are gettting old.

What will we do when we begin to ruin ? More importantly, how do we treat something that is disintegrating around us ? More often than not, we try to encapsulate it in our panic - we clasp our hands together and hope to slow the sand from falling beteen our fingertips. This is merely an exercise in futlity, and knee-jerk reaction as a result of our conditioned tendency to attach.

It is interesting to think how to deal with this concept in an architectural context. What would the result be if we were to encapsulate an existing building in an attempt to prolong the inevitable conclusion of its disintegration ? If we were to de-construct a building would its phenomenon continue like memories of the deceased ? If we were to re-build an identitcal building to prolong its life by the length of its present existence, is it the same building ?

Something I have noticed within the psychadelic ethos is a connection to seperate realities and expansions of existence, it seems that this approach is intertwined with the investigation of memory vs physical nature. However, this exploration is invariably externally directed, an internal approach respects a scale that is impressionable on architectural thought.

A building adopts your memories. It reaches into your sub-conscious and attaches itself to the chronotopes of your past - forging new impressions and perspectives. By consequence, what happens when one structure adopts/envelops another ?

This man attempts to ignite similar discussion.

http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/locus-of-memory/

He is inspiring [although he has the advantage (?) of being closer to ruin than most of us]

High [Noon]an

These images are the works of contemporary Australian artist David Noonan. The layering/collage of images creates a complexity and depth that transcends into a dream, albeit a haunting one.

OP

Anomina Group were a US collective of the 1960s who dealt with the investigation of the psychology of visual perception. The latest scientific research formed the starting point for the majority of their artwork, which, through exploring optics, geometry and monochromatics, formed part of the movement of Op-art (Optical Art). Their artistic methods - modulations, repetitions, spatialization, transformations and subdivisions - foreshadowed what are taken as ground level rules in the current generative art trend.

In an artistic manifesto mode typical of the 1930s, the Anomina group were anti-gallery, anti-art competitions and did not believe in the commercialism of art. However, in a stance perpendicular to the likes of the Dada, Anomina did not stand for art for arts sake, or for the idea that any 'creation' might be art - but rather explored art as a tool which, alongside science, could move humankind closer to understanding the biological world.

A 1964 Time article on Op-Art, featuring Anomina Group, can be found here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,897336-1,00.html

M I N D / M A T T E R ( ? )

A simple story based in philosophical antiquity from the 5th Century BC -

Assume two characters, 'A' and 'B', are having an arguement and A is in debt to B by, lets say, 5 dollars.

B comes to A and says:
"give me my 5 dollars back."

A replies
"What 5 dollars ? Let me ask you a question . . .
If we had a pile of pebbles with three pebbles and we took one away would we have the same pile or different ?"

B : "Well, different."

A : "Right, and if we added a pebble would we have the same pile or different ?"

B : "Well, different. "

A : "Aha! You see a human being is like a pile of pebbles, there's matter flowing in and out and each time the quantity changes we have a new and different person. Therefore it was not I who borrowed the money but someone else altogether so you can't possibly ask me to pay you the 5 dollars that the other being owes you . . . "

At which point B, frustrated, punches A in the face -

A: "Why did you do that?"

B: "Who, me ?"

The joke within the story is irrelevant, however the inherent arguement is valid - is it the mind or the matter that, well, matters ?

I Think Therefore I Am Part Deux

"A narrative view considers that individuals are both actively engaged with the external environment and are internally reflective and aware. As a result, humans are integrating multiple influences in the process of creating their own existential reality. This complex reality is continually being constructed and represented through one's personal narrative."

- Cathy J. Ganoe

See also, John Locke's stance on identity.