Open Re/Search Personal Evaluation

I think I accomplished more than I thought I would during Wintersession. Although I changed my goals and produced two projects instead of three, I feel like I have gotten to a point where I am comfortable working with the methods and ideas I am proposing in my thesis study. 

ADAPTATION OF FIT

In the first project I completed during this open research period, I returned to a writing exercise which helped me to develop ideas about my thesis study. By applying the methods of visual systems and chance operation I was able to develop two clear, written expressions of my work. This project was a breakthrough for me. It allowed me to discover through writing and organization of thought through the graphic form and the written form. I am glad I finished this study, and was able to come to some conclusions.  

IN MEMORY OF...

This project is one I will continue with. I think I was just beginning to unravel a specific methodology and way of working which is not yet complete in this project. This study was mainly about process. I wanted to be able to develop a graphic form by letting each step in the process inform the next as well as moving back and forth between two media (writing and graphic design). This became an extension of earlier thinking I pursued during my undergraduate thesis study where I used graphic design and architectural design to inform one another to create form. 

Form making was taking place throughout the study and an unfolding of sorts led to more and more discovery. But I feel I still need to let the form go further...whether it is through the narrative or through the graphic form...there needs to be further development. 

I am also unsure if the form I created for the purposes of this course fulfills the requirements I had made in my mind for where this project should culminate. So for this reason I need to continue with it, to see where it can evolve. 

Ultimately, memory was the subject of this study. Why does memory exist? Why do we need it? and why does it fade? I started to answer these questions through the graphic form and the narrative.

WHERE I WANT TO GO

I want to push forward with the the ideas of working in multiple media and multiple methods. I find I am most content with my work and most surprised when I find connections between unlikely pairs. Finding the common ground between multiple areas of study is what is exciting me now. 

WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN BEFORE MAY 15-16

I think I need at least two or three more projects (or project development) which will support my ideas about the merging of methods and the exploration of cross media creation of form. I have many projects which are either systems based or chance based, but projects where both are at hand are minimal in my collection right now.

I need to write more. I have started to do that a bit more during Wintersession but it needs to become a larger part of my process. I have things to say I am just always hesitant to record them. I need to improve on that.

A Rhode Island Apology

The following is the narrative which emerged from the Open Re/Search project In Memory Of... which was the subject of the previous post. The narrative developed along with the graphic form. Both informed each other throughout the process of design. 

A relationship lost. A brother has gone, and is nowhere to be found. The memory of this relationship is on a very thin line where if crossed, it will no longer be. Does the memory of something long gone need to be kept? Is it better to let the memory fade away?

Do the words count in keeping the memory alive? The memory of love lost. The words count. YES. They are the measurement of the love. The words say sunny day, but they mean it is cold.

Why was the relationship lost at all? Who made it go away? In surviving in an off center world one looks for a center. Small emphasis on a name, is how it appears to others but the name of the lost one can become the center for the one left behind.

Then there is a mother who spent time writing to people, and not to things. No space for words, only feelings. Realizing while they were written, the fortunate memory of space seeped into the mother's mind. Writing the name with care, the mother is allowed to slowly forget.

But allow us to the remember the name the mother spent time writing. Maybe it was the brother. There was a backward moment in time where he was there and then gone. He is fading through the lines and the tangles.

Perhaps a gentle force moved through her when she left her memory on the page. Remembering optimism with mixed emotions. Writing she felt slightly off, so it was difficult to see the larger picture. Where was the time when he was near to her? Where had he gone? What can be done to remember? Should she remember? He is slipping through.

It becomes a mystery. Why is he not fortunate enough to be forgotten? A sweet memory is jokingly named. The mother writes it down. Funny she thinks, a note to a person gone from her. Writing not to the public but to him. Life, me, you, because he is the remembered moment, needing to be left behind.

It was part of a person... this relationship. This moment of explanation is written as a secret. The numbers of them to remember. What is memory for? Above all it could be a whisper. She is losing a grip on something so deep she cannot find it. There are periods of doubt and mixed emotions. This is a sad memory, the relationship lost. She is losing her grip. A secret moment of explanation, to herself. An apology of sorts. She is not surviving without him. The symbol of optimism is near, although she feels another sad memory approaching.

Why do they need to know? It is a stage name for the relationship. The Rhode Island Apology. She needs to know providence. She needs direction with wise benevolence. Providence lets her feel something greater. Not the place, the feeling. Perhaps she does not deserve providence, because she is letting him go... perhaps she deserves providence because she is letting him go. She needs to leave an apology.

She is slanted and hurried, she is in a worried state of mind. This is not meant to be a project of attention. Why does she need to be worried. She is meant to worry because there is doubt. Hurried. Slanted. She shouts: "Where is he?" "What do I do?"

She is not surviving without him. Periods of something missing. What did he say to make her leave? Did she pass away? He is made important by passing... through this period of Apology. Let it fall. Close it. Light a candle. Walk away.

Open Re/Search: In Memory Of...

In Memory Of... is a study of the process of using visual systems, chance operation and writing, to create new form. This project began as a public art piece of sorts. A group collaboration in my Public Art Graduate Seminar yielded three vernacular style of the "instant memorial" which were placed throughout Providence, RI. The memorials were surrounded by candles, faux flowers and displayed boxes in which a person could leave a memory. The memorials were to nothing in particular, but memory.

Each box contained paper, pencils and a space to leave a memory to share. The act of recording the memory became the main focus of the project, and it ended up being a collective project with the citizens of Providence and the members of the group.

Please see images  HERE

I felt however there was an opportunity to study these memories and find a deeper meaning and form. The collection of the memories was a chance operation. I did not know what kind of notes I would receive but I knew there would be value in them, as a subject matter. I had found what I was looking for in a subject. It came to me by trusting that the people of Providence would contribute.

      

  

Collecting the memories was the first step. This whole endeavor was a chance operation. Who would contribute? Would people contribute? The three memorials which were created yielded a selection of memories. Notes to loved ones, recollections of times gone by and epitaphs were among what was left behind in the boxes. This made me think about what these memories were for and what they meant to people. How could such emotion be expressed by putting pencil to paper? I wondered why people felt the need to leave a memory at all. I hoped they would... but wondered why.

After collecting the memories I started to organize and archive the memories. I observed handwriting styles, placement of words on the page, color of the paper and so forth. Then I began to dissect and ask questions of these memories. I started to use a notation system to organize my thoughts and try to find some order or common ground in the collected memories. A collective memory was emerging. 

    

Then came the moment of being stuck...

I found I had the notes and then my notes about these memories. I started to organize the notation system and overlap it to find consistencies. This lead led to a moment where the form began to develop... as well as a narrative. I notice my notation system began to tell a story, so I extracted it from the notes to form new ideas. Eventually I started to form a new story about memory making.

The narrative which which emerged came from referring back and forth between the graphic forms and the written form. Questions in the in the narrative were incorporated into the graphic form and the two sys

tems began to feed off of each other to create a new form. Chance was informing the systems at work.

I am now starting to find connections in my work from years past. My ideas about opposite ways of creating work, have been incubating for almost 6 years now. I just didn't have a name for it. During the process of developing my undergraduate thesis in Architecture, if I was ever stalled or stuck during the architectural process I would turn to the graphic form for guidance. Moving back and forth between graphic expressions (in the case of my BARCH Thesis, graphic prints) and architectural drawings, led to the blossoming of a built structure and a cohesive body of printed matter, which informed one another. 

For the purposes of the In Memory Of... project I was moving back and forth between writing and the graphic form, to develop an idea. Visual systems and chance operations were at work as well. All four of these were contributing to a process which has led to a written narrative, graphic form, solid questions about memory and an organizational structure. 

See more images of the final 12 compositions which were developed for this project HERE

Open Re/Search: Adaptation of Fit

During Wintersession, I decided I wanted to tie up a few projects which I felt could be very applicable to my thesis and thesis thinking. I returned to a project which was the subject of the October 29, 2008 post "BREAKTHROUGH." Adaptation of Fit has become a project which is starting to explain further my ideas about merging visual systems and chance operations. This was a writing experiment conducted with the chapter Goodness of Fit from Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form, a text which has heavily influenced my thinking.

                 

The first step in this exercise was to extracted certain portions of the Alexander text which I felt were applicable and crucial to my thesis study. By editing in this way I was able to read the text in a new way and make assumptions and discoveries within the text which were not readily apparent during the first read. Compiling these passages provided the framework for the writing to follow.

These particular excerpts were extracted in their order of appearance in the work, but now have new meaning because of their placement in relation to each other. The read is now more suited to my study and allows for an interpretation of the text which is unique to my thesis thinking and study.

    

The next step in adapting the Alexander to text to reveal ideas about my thesis thinking, was to add my ideas about chance, system, fit, form and context. I began writing into the text. I wove my thoughts into the extracted paragraphs from the chapter. It was almost as though Alexander and I were writing about my study together.

When reading my voice and Alexander’s voice together, a new form of thinking began to reveal itself. I started to discover my ideas about method. I was clarifying a proposed method of working and finding new ideas. Now there was a re - thinking of my own idea. My ideas were starting to develop further and they were beginning to form into a cohesive train of thought.

It was now time to make the text completely my own. I extracted my voice from the combination of the Alexander text and my voice.  I placed all of my additions to the text, in the order in which I inserted them into the Alexander text. 

By doing this I was able to see if a cohesive narrative about my ideas of method were really beginning to form. Although the text was choppy and sometimes not completely coherent, the basic ideas were forming, and I had a base on which I could begin re - fitting the text to meet the needs of my study. The only line of text left of the Alexander essay was “the ultimate object of design is form.” This line speaks to the over-arching goal of my work, which is to find form from unlikely origins.

I then began again...

Starting again with the full chapter of The Goodness of Fit, from Christopher Alexander’s Notes on the Synthesis of Form, I performed a chance operation, in order to begin writing about chance, systems, fit, form and context. 

    

Words which came before a comma were extracted from the chapter and placed into a continuous list. These words, taken from moments of pause, became the words used in new sentences about my thesis thinking. A selection of these words began a new form of writing which allowed for a narrative to come from chance. Using the words in the order in which I found them, in the chapter, gave me guidelines in the writing, but the passages which followed where serendipitous.

Through many drafts and reorganization of the writing, which developed from a chance operation, I was able to formulate thoughts and ideas which were informative to my thesis and thesis thinking. The ability to rework the text over and over again while using the Alexander text as a reference, allowed for a synthesis of ideas and a reneal of interest in my thesis subjects.

    

Using a set of words to develop a writing was a difficult process but it gave clarity and composure to the subject I have chosen to study. I was able to articulate ideas which I previously had confusion and gave a new perspective in regards to chance, systems, fit, form and context. Development of the text became a test of the methods I am proposing.

  

The final phase was finding the common ground between the two pieces of writing which were produced. Obviously they were going to be similar, but the way in which I came to the words was very different in both processes. By expanding the way I think about writing I was able to extract more ideas and gain a better sense of the questions I have about visual systems and chance operation.

Back to the THESIS

Well I have finally returned to the thesis blog! There are some new developments I would like to share. Since I last posted I have presented my idea about finding the middle ground between visual systems and chance operations. I received some positive feedback and have been producing work to support my ideas about these two very opposite ways of thinking. Please look at the video of my presentation for more details. This is a comprehensive compilation of my work up until the end of the fall semester. 

The basic premise of my work up until this point has been to merge the use of visual graphic systems and chance operations to create form. I work back and forth between the two to create different visual expressions. Now I would like to concentrate on this merging of methods, and find a way to create a new one. By using chance operations and visual systems to study design, I am gaining a better understanding of their function in relation to form, and their function in relation to my process as a designer. I am in the process of discovering the possibilities.