Thesis submitted for review May 18, 2012 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Architecture School of Architecture and Interior Design College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning University of Cincinnati Committee: Aarati Kanekar Michael McInturf Vincent Sansalone MATERIAL PERCEPTION: translating experience through Idea and representation Travis Hope _II ABSTRACTThe understanding of space has become increas- This work is an exploration in the inherent rela- Through the abstraction of idea and represen- ingly abstracted through signification and catego- tionship between the individual and space through tation, this exploration seeks to materialize a rization, distancing experience from perception. the everyday experience of life. By deliberately process for perceiving space. It is an apparatus for Through the diminished response to percep- using abstractions through the disassembly of observing the nature of the environment. It is an tion, the present becomes constructed through association and connotation it explores a way of exploration in seeking the literal. abstractions derived from past experience. The analyzing perception and materializing the experi- projected experience this generates distances ence of space. Structured within Mexico City, the connection between the individual and the which exhibits the daily inhabitation of space in environment. a physical and clearly present manner, it analyzes the visual works and process of Francis Als as a framework for synthesizing perceptual experience. C copyright 2012 travis hope III TO those who have mentored, loved, encouraged + questioned me along the way I am in a different place that when I started and for that I am extremely grateful _IV - - - - - - - - ALLOWING PEOPLE TO ALLOWING PEOPLE TO PERCEIVE THEIR PER CEPTIONS – MAKING OF THEIR THEM AWARE PERCEPTIONS. WE’VE DECIDED TO INVESTI THIS AND TO MAKE GATE PEOPLE CONSCIOUS OF THEIR CONSCIOUS NESS.... AS IF WE DEFINE ART OF THE REALM PART OF EXPERIENCE, WE AF CAN ASSUME THAT TER A VIEWER LOOKS AT A PIECE, HE “LEAVES” BE WITH THE ART, HAS CAUSE THE “ART” BEEN EXPERIENCED. WE ARE DEALING WITH THE LIMITS OF AN EXPE FOR IN RIENCE – NOT, WITH THE LIM STANCE, WE ITS OF PAINTING. - - - - - - - - - CHOSEN THAT EX CHOSEN THAT HAVE HAVE PERIENCE OUT OF THE REALM OF EXPERIENCE TO BE DEFINED AS “ART” THIS BECAUSE HAVING LABEL IT IS GIVEN SPE PER CIAL ATTENTION. HAPS THIS IS ALL “ART” MEANS – THIS FRAME OF MIND. MAY THE OBJECT OF ART BE TO SEEK THE ELIMI OF THE NECESSI NATION TY OF IT. THE WORKS OF PRE HAVE VIOUS ARTISTS COME FROM THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES OR IN SIGHTS BUT HAVEN’T GIVEN THE EXPERIENCE THEY SET THEM ITSELF. OF UP AS A SORT SELVES INTERPRETER FOR THE OUR INTER LAYMAN.... EXPERIENCE robert irwin seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees - - - - - - IS THE IS THE IS IN A FORM WHERE IS IN A FORM WHERE EST THE YOU REALIZE THAT MEDIA ARE JUST PER CEPTION. THE “THING,” EXPERIENCING IS THE “OBJECT.” IS EXPERIENCE, ALL ART YET ALL EXPERIENCE THE ART IS NOT ART. IST CHOOSES FROM EX WHICH PERIENCE THAT HE DEFINES OUT AS ART, BECAUSE IT POSSIBLY HAS NOT YET BEEN EX PERIENCED ENOUGH, OR BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO BE EXPERIENCED MORE. DIS ALL ART-WORLD TINCTIONS ARE MEAN INGLESS. SEEING IS FORGETTING THE NAME OF THING ONE SEES 94 v 9 CRITIQUES 4 PRINTED DOCUMENTS 72 ABSTRACTS THE WORK IS NEVER FINISHED IN PROCESS 72 VIII 001/ CONTENTS ABSTRACT _II METHOD ONE 002 ACTION WITHOUT INTENT LOS PASEOS 006 DISCOVERING THE KNOWN EXTRAÑO 012 BACKGROUND ALŸS 018 TRANSLATING EXPERIENCE MEANING & REPRESENTATION 020 OUTCOME TWO 033 TRANSFORMATION MEMORY 035 CONTEXT TEXTURE 040 TIME REHEARSALS 048 TEXT NOTES 059 IMAGES NOTES 060 BIBLIOGRAPHY WORKS REFERENCED 061 ONE section 1_ method 002 SECTION 1 Dwelling is the basic character of Being in keeping When we build, we do so to facilitate human We design and order space to accommodate Section one explores this way of thinking about with which mortals exist. existence. We cultivate what naturally grows and human experience, but to do so we must fully experience and space. It explores the ideas, construct that which does not. We define loca- understand the nature of human experience. We processes, and work of those who attempt to The relationship between man and space is none tions by ordering the space which occupies them. must question what it is to experience a place. understand the human experience within the other than dwelling… We must question how we perceive a space and environment at its most fundamental level. It We segment and join spaces, creating rooms, the way in which we come to understand place. explores the work of those who design space for The nature of building is letting dwell. Only if we buildings, and cities to facilitate human experience. We must question how we sense the environ- human experience. It analyzes the experience of are capable of dwelling, only then can we build.2 We inhabit and think within space, and delineate ment, how we interpret our sensory input, and we being within a place and a way of thinking about it to create and allow for the understanding of must question its translation into how we think building which allows being. place. about place in a complete, fluid, and experiential Martin Heidegger way. To question this, acknowledges it, and when The built environment allows for human experi- kept in consideration leads to building for the sake ence. Architecture allows for a deeper connec- of dwelling. tion to that experience. 003 à une passante a walker, stroller, idler walk as experience reading the people and objects of the city 1800’s float[ing] freely in the present tense4 Amid the deafening Graceful, noble, with a A flash . then night!- Somewhere, far off! LE FLÂNEUR`traffic of the town, statue's form. -O lovely fugitive, Too late! never, per - Tall, slender, in deep And I drank, trembling I am suddenly reborn chance! mourning, with majes- as a madman thrills, from your swift glance; Neither knows where ty, A woman passed, From her eyes, ashen Shall I never see you the other goes or raising, with dignity sky where brooded till eternity? lives; In her poised hand, storm, We might have loved, the flounces of her The softness that fas- and you knew this gown; cinates, the pleasure might be! that kills. walter benjamin5 004 richard long throwing water 2007 005 006 A WALK IS A SIMPLE WAY TO PASS AND ORDER TIME1 RICHARD LONG LOS PASEOS ACTION WITHOUT INTENT Walking is a simple act. If the goal of walking is to passes, a place remains. A walk moves through Walking through Dartmoor, Long experiences get from one point to another, the goal of wan- life. It is physical, but afterwards invisible.”2 Man’s Dartmoor Time. Dartmoor does not experi- dering is simply to wander, to experience the act experience occupies the pause amidst the change. ence the pace and time of Richard Long. The and the environment where it takes place. The The moving of earth and weathering of stone landscape defines the environment, and man walks of Richard Long lie in the realm of wander- occur in a time not experienced by the human simply chooses to engage or not. This exists ing, and his art exists largely as that experience. scale and senses. within a natural order, not generated by man but Defined by walking, it is action as experience as from something other. In the environment made art, which Long often translates through a physical WALKING THROUGH DARTMOOR “PASS- by man, in the city, time passes but the place is intervention within the landscape. The natural ING A PILE OF STONES [I] PLACED EX- not static. The pace of the city is inherently that 3 landscape Long engages is a slowly evolving place ACTLY SIXTEEN YEARS AGO” of mankind, not of one man, but of the collective. where human presence often occupies the space RICHARD LONG Man’s walk through the city alters his own experi- between change, experiencing transition. “Time ence, but also that of everyone around him. It is PA the collective walking, the actions of the people, tersecting writings compose a manifold story that which define the environment of the city. These has neither author nor spectator, shaped out of actions are constant and ubiquitous, they are fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: normal, and therefore become subconscious and in relation to representations, it remains daily background. In ‘The Practice of Everyday Life,’ Mi- and indefinitely other. Escaping the imaginary chael de Certeau describes the unnoticed nature totalizations produced by the eye, the everyday of the everyday actions which define the city. has a certain strangeness that does not surface, or whose surface is only its upper limit, outlining itself “The ordinary practitioners of the city live “down against the visible.”4 below,” below the thresholds at which visibility begins. They walk – an elementary form of this It is the accumulation of these actions, defining experience of the city; they are walkers, Wander- the nature of the city, which are hidden by their smänner, whose bodies follow the thicks and thins normality. The mundane nature of everyday life of an urban “text” they write without being able allows these actions to drift into the background. to read it. These practitioners make use of spaces It is the actions of the collective, executed unbe- that cannot be seen... It is as though the practices knownst by the actors, which write the story of organizing a bustling city were characterized by the city. As Long’s walks read the landscape, the their blindness. The networks of these moving, in- work of Francis Alÿs uses walking as a means of 007 EVEN IF I WERE A ‘COL- LECTOR,’ I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO DO IT IN A WAY THAT HAS TO DO WITH WITHDRAWING THINGS RATHER THAN ACCUMULATING OR ADD- ING THINGS..