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.

The thing is...

In my thesis I don't want to put more printed matter into the universe or send more needless messages. I want to create something of value, that hopefully decreases the high concentration of visual stimuli in our lives. Today I sat and drew a lamp post in the Lower East side, and was so annoyed at the bar across the street for erecting this cheesy sign of photorealistic monkeys (and blasting bad techno). The reason I was so bothered by it is that they had absolutely no awareness of the historical building in which they occupied the street level space, and the architectural details were obviously not considered when hanging this sign, or the other hideous one that reads 'Hungry? $2.95' with a picture of an unappetizing sandwich.

I couldn't bring myself to post the hideous signage from the bar, but this is the building I was admiring. What if there was a way for store signage to connect with the surroundings and incorporate historical detail? For a neighborhood like the Lower East Side with rich history this would add so much value to the area and connect residents and visitors to the place. This idea is related to the theme of localization because using local/historical patterns is parallel to using local materials for building, local food for eating, and local artists for murals. These are all ways to add value to the community and bring awareness to the unique characteristics of the neighborhood.

I could use the inherent patterns and designs on surfaces and from overhead (i.e. Google Earth) to create place-specific artwork (in many forms, one of which would be signage). Actually, this is a photo I took of the restaurant Spitzers across the street from monkey madness. They did a good job of connecting with the place to deliver the appropriate style of signage, but I wonder if there is more to it than just something hip/urban. I love the lamp posts by the way.

I really want to work with maps in some way. I'm always fascinated by the idea that we're these tiny specks walking along, oblivious to our orientation in the greater surroundings. The awareness of the massiveness of our place/the Earth makes us realize that our lives are actually much simpler than they seem. An artist in Brooklyn seems to think along the same lines. We saw this cool mural, which was really a collage of many different artists, on the way to the Botanical Gardens.

Color Workshop Wrap-Up (and related ideas)

During this course I began to develop an awareness of subtle colors in my environment. For example, the million different whites that are available or the various different yellows developed from the reflection of sunlight. In my future work as a designer, I would like to explore the concept of beauty in the mundane, everyday observations that are so easy to take for granted. I've discovered that there can be beauty in the most banal of things and I would like to explore my everyday environment more deeply to discover the details, colors and experience that I would normally just pass by.

There are a few ideas that this concept reminds me of. First, Tara Donovan is an incredible artist that uses everyday items in her artwork to create ethereal spaces and environments. She transforms drinking straws, styrofoam cups, scotch tape and fishing wire into billowing, organic shapes and experiences.

T

Tara Donovan

Second, this concept is loosely connected to a localization movement encouraged by many people including John Thackara (and reinforced by the most recent Good Magazine neighborhoods issue). He emphasizes the importance of place, and where things come from as an integral part of what they are and how we connect with them. (the slow city movement is an interesting side note on this topic. To become a slow city there are certain restrictions so that nothing is outsourced and resources need to come from within the boundaries of the city as much as possible. A real grass-roots anti-globalization effort.)

Lastly, and most relevant to a graphic designer, Thackara encourages people to be with "real people, in real places, who are changing their lived material reality" - this is more beneficial to society than just emitting messages. This is a crucial point for designers, since we may be the biggest message-senders of all.

This also reminds me of a bumper-sticker that I may still have (from my Colorado days)! It is a Margaret Mead quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has."