What is all this psychogeographic stuff?

In the hopes of learning through making, I've explored a few possibilities for maps of my own.

This isn't really a map but I wanted to include it anyways because when I started writing this post I was reminded of it. My friend Betsy asked me to contribute to an exquisite corpse project she was working on for the Michael Rock lecture, and this is what I sent (above).

I handed this out for my presentation today - a map of my ideas in a Situationist style. I realized that psychogeography is an umbrella topic for many different things:
a. the personal experience of the street
b. the alternate experience of the street enabled by another person (artist/performer)
c. an artist who aggregates many people's experiences.

The experience can include emotions, atmospheres, encounters with people, play, and letting the contours of geography guide you.

Another topic entirely is the memory map - recording all of the associations you have with a place.

Ok, glad I got that all organized for myself. Here are a few drawings I made with colored pencils based on the symbol exploration (I posted earlier). Using the abstract grid and symbols I recreated my personal experience on Rivington street. So these are memory maps, not psychogeographies. But how can you represent the psychogeography you experience on the street? Through memory, unless there is a way to record it in real time. Oh, video does that. But video doesn't capture the moods, feelings and energy of a place as well as being there. I'm feeling the limitations of all mediums for this idea but I'm prepared to embrace those constraints. I have a relatively interesting idea for my next project, and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

There are three different types of symbols that I used for these: actual symbols, letters that are similar in form to the symbol, then a "free draw" of what I felt represented the symbol. I'm using the word symbol loosely here, and maybe I should look into other word options.

I'm not going to go much in depth about my critique with Bruce Mau last Friday, but the most important thing I learned was to NEVER say the word preservation in association with my thesis. EVER AGAIN.

Continuing on the road to abstraction

I had a great and productive meeting with Michelle Hinebrook today. She's not a thesis advisor but I thought I would benefit from her perspective so I asked her to take a look at what I'm working on. She thought I should feel comfortable to go further into abstraction and be limitless at this point. Every question I'm asking myself at this point is precious because this is the work that will carry me forward into my career. Given the topic I'm on now, I couldn't even cover it in a life's work. There's just that much you can do. The visual explorations of our surroundings are limitless, and my approach has been very open-minded and experimental. She made me realize that I should feel more comfortable showing process and talking about the questions I have.

What is my question for Bruce Mau's visit tomorrow? He's coming to give us all a short crit and I've decided to show him some of my process work for thesis. Using my shape abstraction tracings (from a previous post) as a jumping off point, I started sketching a series of symbols to organize the visual language in our surroundings. I'm interested in the legibility of the city and the mental map that lets us remember a place and navigate through it.

I paired the symbols with phrases from Jane Jacobs "The Life and Death of American Cities". I thought the language from the foremost urban planning critic would give the images a new context, bringing into light the neighborhood character that is in constant flux. All of these shapes are images taken on Rivington street.

The next phase was taking these images further into abstraction to get to the absolute simplest form. I still haven't gone far enough into abstraction, so I can do a lot more. This was a really fun process of seeing where the shapes led me, listening to "the yes or no of our material" as Anne Albers said.

Here's my question: I'm working a lot with abstraction, and I'm exploring it's communication value. Do you think complete abstraction communicates in that the viewer can insert themselves into what they are looking at? Richard Tuttle is an example of an artist that works with abstraction of the simplest shapes, and I see cityscapes in them. Someone else might see something else, so in that way does it communicate a message in it's simplicity?

I have abstract maps that I created today as well (need to think of a better word than map), and I will post them tomorrow with the feedback from the crit.

Richard Tuttle and notes from my thesis presentation

I found an artist's work that represents the ideas floating around in my head perfectly. Richard Tuttle abstracts form in such a basic way and creates dynamic, balanced compositions.

While I'm on the subject of abstraction of form, I should post the drawings I created last week. I used one image of the street in the Lower East side to analyze all of the shapes, patterns and interactions of form. There is so much more I can do with this project, and Richard Tuttle's work is an example of taking it to another level.

Some notes from the presentation feedback:
1. My previous work is a lot more related to my thesis than I realize. The folio is an exercise in psychogeography (I will post tomorrow), and possibly my Sun Day book from earlier this year.

2. I see two distinct directions: psychogeography/memory mapping as the intersection of all my ideas and exploring further with abstraction of form, or being more scientific and creating the system of symbols/typology of the components in our environment (this could be a comparison among cities or a system for nyc)

3. Engaging with the community: some ideas include asking people to define the boundaries of their "neighborhood", giving people cameras to record their own photos and tell their own story.

4. Incorporating the interior life of a building as well as the building from all angles and perspectives.

5. Defining my topic and creating a stronger argument will be key as we progress. I'm interested in recording the components that define the "essence" of a place; essentially telling a better story about a place in the way that artists like Edward Hopper have done (the block that he painted in Early Sunday Morning below was preserved mostly because of the value created by the artists depiction). I would like to create something that naturally leads to preservation through awareness of the unique value of the sensory experience of a place.

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning (currently on view at the Whitney)

Looking Up and Other Inspiration

So I found this project, Sketches from Street Level, on Flickr after I had just finished an almost identical one that I called looking up. This photographer and I definitely have the same interests! See below:

I'm thinking that I can use this project as a jumping off point to transition to looking out at the streetscape (angles and patterns associated with looking down a street or up an avenue), then looking in, which wouldn't be looking inside but instead looking at very simple and otherwise overlooked building details.












And then holy @#$% I found this. A link to part of Guy Debord and Asger Jorn's Memoires from 1952. The delicate placement of type with dripping ink patterns is beautiful and reminiscent of the journey along a path. I can't understand the French but I imagine them to be describing a daydream of the experience of the streets of Paris in the 1950's.

I also discovered Place Magazine recently, a now closed publication from the 80's and 90's on urban spaces and planning. This is an exerpt from the editor's letter Summer 1990 issue: "Places, like lives, evolve; sometimes uncertainly, sometimes abruptly, sometimes to good ends, sometimes for naught. Places though, carry our lives within them. They give structure to where we spend our time, what and whom we encounter, how much sky we see, how much green surrounds us, and how tightly or freely we conceive the community. Places form an armature for the imagination."

Along this same line of thinking, I would like to explore the geography of a place to uncover these qualities. I spoke with Leigh Okies today and she gave magnificent advice on this direction. She created a project during her grad school experience at Art Center that was based on the Situationist movement (which I have studied at length for my topic!). They were really interested in the idea of derive, and just going out and experiencing the world. Their project began as a series of observations, not idea based at all but more of a game to formulate the project around these observations. They drew the word 'gospel' on a map of LA and drove around to different points on the map, observing and doing experiments. Their project culminated in visual artifacts that represent this series of experiments and observations. It is so inspiring to hear that her project produced such concrete benefits for the designers involved, and started out so amorphous.

This project speaks to me because I am struggling with the theoretical nature of many of our classes, finding that the thinking in words is taking away from my visual experimentation. I think a lot of reading and theoretical assignments have taken up time when I could be making, creating interesting projects for my thesis. I've posted many of my drawings on this blog in previous posts but I will post a new series here. Also a couple sketches for ideas I have towards making abstract maps, or memory maps. I just put together an "exhibition" of 20 artworks around nyc around this theme and it's inspired me to create some of my own.

Mmm... Skyscaper I Love You just arrived as well, and it's giving me even more visual direction. One of the earliest projects of Tomato (Karl Hyde and John Warwicker) created a book that feels like a film, all in homage to the feeling of walking around New York City. The compositions are made up of simple elements and typography but the texture that is created with out using any actual textures or colors besides black and white is striking. This inspires me to incorporate my drawings into a very simple but impactful graphic landscape.

I visited the Whitney on Sunday, and was blown away by the Edward Hopper painting, Early Sunday Morning. He had this way of creating a feeling that was entirely his own creation but it still represents the place in a powerful way. So much so that people have made efforts to restore the building that he depicted in Early Sunday Morning. It made me wonder how can I capture the feeling and essence of a place to communicate to others? As a designer I can create strategies to keep the authenticity of a place alive, and to get people interested in historical and cultural concerns. Luigi Fusco Girard says in The Human Sustainable City, "The historical and cultural heritage, representing the collective memory of the city, it's specificity and identity, must be preserved and promoted as a key contribution to the humanization of our cities."

Part of me thinks that my thesis needs to look at decades of urban planning in NYC and all historical factors that contribute to a specific neighborhood. Along those lines, one of my ideas for a visual project is to take a streetscape (on Rivington or nearby) that explores all of the buildings, storefronts and signage, research all of the historical factors and engage the community in conversation.

Another project I'm considering is taking close-up shots of building details and place them along a specific route on a map. These details can also be interpreted by drawing or another medium. I really want to focus on drawing and painting as my initial mediums and use those explorations to create a final design project. I need to let go of the idea of having this final finished product and let all of these explorations naturally lead to it. I find that it's only through drawing the contours of an object or place that I recognize it's true beauty. Drawing allows you to move beyond just looking to see and feel the relationships in space, and this could lead to rich visual investigations and who knows what applications down the road.

A few references I need to jot down from thesis advisors:
pritzkerprize.com -- to understand how architecture is verbalized. Also Words and Buildings by Adrian Forty
Verbalizing the Visual by Michael Clarke
Delirious New York and Mutations by Rem Koolhas
Metropolis magazine (which I already love but need to look at more)
"Visual Acoustics" - a Jules Sherman documentary

Also:
The Architectural Review
Arch. publishers such as ACTAR
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
also look at how architecture and urban planning programs describe their missions and activities
ANY - Architecture NY (Vignelli-designed)
Tadao Ando
listen to interviews with Frank Gehry
check out architecture supply stores

I have many ideas for projects and have no idea where they will take me. Leigh Okies handed out an Anni Albers statement on designing when she visited our class last week. "We come to know in art that we do not clearly know where we will arrive in our work, although we set the compass, our vision; that we are lead in going along, by material and work process. We have plans and blueprints, but the finished work is still a surprise. We learn to listen to our voices; the yes or no of our material, our tools, our time." I love when she writes "the yes or no of our material" - we have such a close relationship with our material and awareness allows us to listen when we need to change direction or continue following a path.

Oh, one more thing. My interests lie on the border of art and design, so another thing I want to explore is how these two fields interact and complement each other.

Berenice Abbott/my obsession with historical images of New York

Over the last few weeks of summer, I created a project using historical images of New York City's Lower East Side. After a few trips to the NYPL Image Library (great resource btw), I found images organized by street name and neighborhood that would work. I wanted to capture the timeless essence of the neighborhood by using historical images, and drew the details on rice paper.

I found an incredible book that documents many of the photographer Berenice Abbott's works, and another called "Then and Now", which compares images of the same location at the turn of the century and the mid-70's.

The first image is the large sheet of rice paper with the images juxtaposed next to each other, but I see it as more of a book that you can flip through.

Observation drawings

I'm playing with the ideas of observational drawing and recording details of buildings and the inherent patterns in our surroundings. Also I started to create a personal geography of the Lower East side, so I roughly located points of interest in the area and recorded the most interesting detail I remembered from my experience. I worked on more abstract mapping in some paintings - one I included in my previous post.

Next I would like to do some more research on the historical importance of buildings to build more connection to the details, then draw and label them. The more delicate the paper the better, to represent the fragility of memory and physical history that surrounds us. I'm thinking this beautiful rice paper that I have might work.

Pursuit of Happiness

I feel that the last seven years of my life have been a search for the elusive 'happiness' that we all try to capture in a little bottle, to pull of the shelf and take a swig when we need it. Our assignment for Directed Research this week is to describe three pivotal moments of our lives that have led us on the path we are on today. I am on the path to become a graphic artist, and there are a few key moments in my search that have gotten me here:

Infographics I created to symbolize three pivotal moments.

One.
In 2002 I transferred to NYU to finish my undergraduate degree in Political Science but I was immediately impacted by the vibrant culture, street art and architecture of the city. Street artists like Swoon and Banksy expose truths about the political and corporate culture we live in and that spoke to me very much. I love how the integration of art with the crumbling old building and layer upon layer of posters and paint create a juxtaposition of old and new. Their beautiful illustrations, stencils and pastings collaborate with the building facade to engage the observer in an exploration of the experience of the street. Looking back, moving to New York City is probably one of the most pivotal moments in my life since it has provided inspiration and adventure for the past 8 years.

A Banksy stencil from last week in DUMBO. Side note: the quote on the bottom left was from a girl that wrote it with her lipstick while we were standing there.

Two.
Upon graduation in 2004 I decided to put aside my desire to save the world by becoming an environmental lawyer and discover the adventure of the screen and stage. I began an intensive study of film and theater, as well as body and voice technique classes. The study of acting is very much a study of yourself, since the actor's body and mind is the instrument - much like the guitar is to the musician. I also really enjoy character study, which requires observation of people and situations.

The films I am drawn to are controlled, meditative and searching for meaning in mundane reality. Some film-makers that made an impact on me at this time were Darren Aronofsky, French director Eugene Green, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Sofia Coppola, and Gus van Sant's Elephant. Many of these films confront the viewer to examine the limits of boredom, loneliness and beauty of everyday life. They test how much impact can be made with the smallest, most subtle actions

Also at this time I began the practice of yoga, mostly at Jivamukti, and most impacted by the teacher Ruth Lauer-Manenti. One day she told a simple story from Ananda Ma:

A wealthy merchant was traveling on business, and a thief decided to dress as a wealthy merchant and pretend he was traveling with him and steal his money. Every morning the merchant would get up and count his money carefully and tediously, while the thief watched on. Every night the thief would search through the merchants belongings, his clothes, his person even and could not find the money. This went on for many nights. Finally the thief could not continue in this way and he said to the merchant 'I have to tell you the truth. I have been deceiving you. I only wanted to come with you on this trip in order to steal your money. I have not been able to find it for all of these nights. Please tell me by what magic you have been hiding your money from me.' The merchant laughed heartily and said 'From the beginning I had a feeling you had these evil intentions. I hid the money in the best place I knew it would never be found: under your pillow.'

We search everywhere outside of ourselves for happiness, money, love, and peace. Everything we are looking for outside of us is already within. We don't have to look any further than our own person.

Ruth told our yoga class that there's no reason for people to be unhappy or dissatisfied with the mundane activities of life, because if you put your spirit into everything you do there is never boredom or dissatisfaction. Even doing the dishes can be a peaceful, happy experience where you simply focus on what you are doing and do not think of anything else. This is beginning to living a peaceful and fulfilled life when the smallest things are savored and considered just as important as the big accomplishments in life.

Three.
I learned perspective drawing in the summer of 2006. The insecurity of acting had finally worn on me and I began a job at momAgenda in the fall of that year. Needing to continue on the creative path, graphic design was the perfect blend of business thinking and application of artistic concepts. The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, as well as other classes over the next few years contributed to my development of artistic tools and the belief that I can have a career in graphic design.

These are two drawings I did in 2009 from the course Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain with Betty Edwards.

I'm on the right path now and feel good about it, and have since realized that always asking 'Am I happy?' 'Am I happy?' causes more unhappiness than just living my life and developing appreciation of what surrounds me.

"One of life's most fulfilling moments occurs in that split second when the familiar is suddenly transformed into the dazzling aura of the profoundly new.... These breakthroughs are too infrequent, more uncommon than common; and we are mired most of the time in the mundane and the trivial. The shocker: what seems mundane and trivial is the very stuff that discovery is made of. The only difference is our perspective, our readiness to put the pieces together in an entirely new way and to see patterns where only shadows appeared just a moment before."
-Edward B. Lindaman
Thinking in Future Tense, 1978