Rollo's Ridge and Schedule

Thursday, 21 April
Work on notebook, answer email questions on Rollo's Ridge, and final project. Wilson is available in office during class. No regular class.

Tuesday, 26 April
Bring final project and all the elements to class ready to present.

Also bring notebooks and be ready for discussion on Rollo's Ridge and Schwitter's Merzbau. Full class day.

I will order pizza.

Thursday, 28 April
Notebooks are due. Wilson is available in office. No regular class. Go online and rate class.

David

Some Thoughts

After the discussions on Thursday some thoughts on the final project in Space:

The central aspect of the project needs to focus on Space.

If the project involves everyone, everyone needs a meaningful role.

But scope of project could be large, but, to avoid confusion, keep the premise simple.

Our guest lecturer offered the possibility of subtraction and the possibility of alteration to emphasize/enhance/clarify Space.

The project should emphasize/incorporate what you do best.

Please consider these thoughts when we come together again on Tuesday.

Merzbau and Rolo's Ridge

Merzbau

Rolo's Ridge

On Tuesday we will finish up with the projects and have a work session on the final project.

On Thursday, Professor Habel is presenting.

Please review the two sites above and read over the Merzbau article in listed in the section of the blog for Thursday's class. Be prepared for questions on the relationship between Rolo's ridge and Merzbau.

We will also have time for workshop on the final project.

For class Thursday, 24 March

Spring break stories.
Any project presentation/changes/adjustments? Discuss in class.
Space/place and space/notion.
Discuss schedule for semester.
Discuss possible group project.
Review artists
pae white
zilvinas kempinas
and video
tumble room
the curve
cloudscapes.

Tuesday, 1 March

Presentation of documentation of documentation project - Nourah, Sarah, and Brandon.

Tour of Old Gray Cemetery.

Read the wikipedia page.

People buried in Old Gray.

Find a grave.

Thursday Class

What we will do in class:
Talk about field trip to Knoxville Underground. Context discussion with Paris Underground.
Talk about documentation projects we have not discussed and projects as a whole.
Planning for rest of the semester (field trips, projects, other).

Knoxville Underground

Read, watch and listen to the report on the Paris Underground before we meet on Tuesday. Be underneath the bridge at Gay St and Jackson Ave before 1PM. We someone check to see if Original Mr Freezo is selling frost freeze ice cream on Tuesday. We can also to to Old Gray Cemetery on the way back. Check out the wikipedia link.

Second Space Project

Project choices:
Turn one space into another
Activate a space
Miniature/model

22 February: Announce which project criteria you chose and whether
collaboration or individual.

1 and 3 March: Preliminary presentations.

Botanical Gardens Notes

Read the history of Knoxville Botanical Gardens.
Bring notebooks to class to take to garden.
Decide where the "navel" of the garden and why.
How does this garden reflect the points in the Third Principle and how does it not?

Third principle. The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater brings onto the rectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that are foreign to one another; thus it is that the cinema is a very odd rectangular room, at the end of which, on a two-dimensional screen, one sees the projection of a three-dimensional space, but perhaps the oldest example of these heterotopias that take the form of contradictory sites is the garden. We must not forget that in the Orient the garden, an astonishing creation that is now a thousand years old, had very deep and seemingly superimposed meanings. The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space that was supposed to bring together inside its rectangle four parts representing the four parts of the world, with a space still more sacred than the others that were like an umbilicus, the navel of the world at its center (the basin and water fountain were there); and all the vegetation of the garden was supposed to come together in this space, in this sort of microcosm. As for carpets, they were originally reproductions of gardens (the garden is a rug onto which the whole world comes to enact its symbolic perfection, and the rug is a sort of garden that can move across space). The garden is the smallest parcel of the world and then it is the totality of the world. The garden has been a sort of happy, universalizing heterotopia since the beginnings of antiquity (our modern zoological gardens spring from that source).

Mirrors

Mirror Paintings

There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places - places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias. I believe that between utopias and these quite other sites, these heterotopias, there might be a sort of mixed, joint experience, which would be the mirror. The mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror, I see myself there where I am not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface; I am over there, there where I am not, a sort of shadow that gives my own visibility to myself, that enables me to see myself there where I am absent: such is the utopia of the mirror. But it is also a heterotopia in so far as the mirror does exist in reality, where it exerts a sort of counteraction on the position that I occupy. From the standpoint of the mirror I discover my absence from the place where I am since I see myself over there. Starting from this gaze that is, as it were, directed toward me, from the ground of this virtual space that is on the other side of the glass, I come back toward myself; I begin again to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute myself there where I am. The mirror functions as a heterotopia in this respect: it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there.

Field Trip to Knoxville Botanical Gardens

On Tuesday, 8 February, we will meet in class (be on time) and then drive in various cars to the Knoxville Botanical Gardens. The Gardens are located in East Knoxville and open five days a week, 9 - 5.

Do we want a guided tour?

Chandler's after?

Underground Gay Street

A tour of Under Gay Street is looking probable.
I am hoping for Tuesday, 8 February.

City of Knoxville on the updated construction on Gay
Underground Video

Possible Field Trips

Underground Gay Street
I have the # of the person in charge of the spaces under Gay Street. Left message. Will call again on Monday.

Mr Freezo on Central.
This is easy.

Still working on a place on campus.
No success yet. This is hard.

Any thoughts?

Does anybody know of an interesting space?

Does not need to be indoors.

Future Projects

The final project will be open. Please consider collaboration as a way of realizing your project. It is a great way to differentiate expertise, share resources, brainstorm, and clarify ideas.

We need to nail down the schedule this week if possible.

Possible second projects :
Turn a space into an object

Turn an object into a space

Turn one space onto another (layer/exchange/make/re-make)

Activate a space (events in space)

The miniature/model

Thoughts and comments.

Readings for Thursday, 3 February

I will send a PDF attachment through email of a few pages from the book Poetics of Space. Please read along with the two pages already assigned for Thursday. Come with notes, thoughts, and questions.

Poetics of Space and Of Other Space (1967), Heterotopias

Please read the two texts in the title that are new pages on the blog. Focus on the highlighted parts. Make notes and come to class with observations and questions.

We will go over the text on Tuesday, 1 February, after the project presentations.

Olafur Eliasson

Please review for Thursday. Make notes to bring to class. Have questions and observations. We will have a discussion before we look at any visuals.

olafur eliasson

olafur eliasson - ted

weather project

weather project2

For Thursday, 20 January Class

Please view the following webpages/videos on the links page. Make some notes and have questions/observations/insights as to how eliasson's work relates to the class and what aspects are for you the most compelling.

olafur eliasson
olafur eliasson - ted
weather project
weather project2

For Tuesday, 18 February Class

For Tuesday please read the Inverted World pdf I will send via email and review the links below. I would like to start talking about the nature of space and how we will engage it in this class. Be prepared to start that conversation.

Inverted World is about a city that is being transported on tracks chasing an phenomena called the "optimum." Please read the text and take notes.

Two questions:
What does this have to do with space?
Why am I having you read this?

rachel whiteread
id #6

Documentation of a Space

Choose a place to document. The space you choose does not have to be extraordinary. How you choose to document is what is the most important aspect.

Think of a way to represent the space through transformation.

Use a selection of essential elements inherent to the space.

Collaborate with class members. There is nearly an even mix between designers and media artists. At least one designer and one media artist in each collaboration group. There can be three members in a group.

Present a preliminary plan with visuals and speech (due 25 February).
This is a formal presentation with visuals, sketches, text, etc. Can be presented through projection or objects/images. You will make an convincing, compelling argument as the strength and viability of your project.

Present the final articulation (due 15 February)