Photography: Jasper and his box

Distance, Perspective and Purity; WITH JASPER AND A BOX...

A small group of us decided to tweak the expectation of today's experiment. We were supposed to take pictures of objects from a consistent distance, and then do a series of repetition of a perspective. If we could somehow do that and add a narrative...
We decided that Jasper would put a box on his head, stand still in various busy locations in the architecture building, and record people's reactions. The results were hilarious.
However, it was impossible to capture people's faces from a consistent distance, as when you got close, you invaded people's experience of the situation (hence, some people were looking/pointing at me when I took their picture).
As an experiment it was interesting to see us make an intervention in a space, and record what happens to the people and the space. It was a very interesting alteration for all the people who experienced it.

Bad Photo

Photography Workshop: Bad Photo

This is a nice image, unfortunately one cannot capture an image like the way your eye perceives it at the time, especially when light is not abundant (eg indoors). I took the photo with no flash, and with all settings to normal (as if I had good lighting conditions), and it came out very dark (you probably can't see it on the screen of a computer very well, but it is a clear image of 2 faces. It's very natural and the 2 people don't know that there is a camera on them.
What are they looking at?

Photos capture an image and highlight a meaning (the purer and clearer the better), which may be external to the situation when the photo is taken. If the exposure is turned up, then the quality still won't be the same as from your eyes. The picture is darker and suggests a greater serenity than if it were brighter. The meaning is altered with the quality of the image.

Slum Building Day 2

Fantasy Saves Planning 2

We had to get off the cold damp ground (wood palettes); sturdy walls (construction fences); we could wrap it in cling film (unfortunately that turned out quite expensive, but we managed to keep under budget with yummy Aldi sandwiches and 2.99 sixpacks…); the roof would be the biggest problem. Luckily we found a large plastic cover (which added a calm blue tint and was quite insulating).

You designed properly as you constructed it: the fences set the parameters; the wood boards set the size of the floor. Plastic and metal poles would span from fence to fence to hold up the plastic sheet. On reflection after the construction, that roof sagged a little and was not slanted. So if there was rain, we’d have a problem. It was well sealed with the cling film and cardboard, so air infiltration would be through the unsealed floor. Also on such a cold night, it was a large room, and it was too cold for the people who slept the night.

There weren’t many materials, and everyone was building so close to eachother in a cramped condition. We shared fences for walls with our 2 neighbours. Then the guys next-door to us didn’t have a wall to separate our 2 ‘clans’, so we decided to make both our structures the one large room. They had boards and palettes for the floors that we needed. So our larger room became the bedroom, fit for the 10 of us, with an entrance space. Their structure was the living room, where we could sit, drink and chill out. Cooking was done communally outside with everyone. Marshmallows and beers were a fitting end around the campfire. Respect to those that stayed, because it was freezing that night.

Slum-Building Day 1

Fantasy Saves Planning

The shock of hearing that we are going to build a slum on the campus was nothing compared to the thought of staying there for one night, living on the (generous) 10 euro a day, including building materials.

Writing about such shock makes me feel spoilt, especially as we didn’t have to beg or find work as well. Also we had an abundance of material from the construction yard and the basement (not allowed, but that’s the nature of this experience).

The 10 euro a day thing was ok for 1 day (Aldi received good business), and scavenging for tit bits of food/building material makes you think laterally about everyday things. You begin thinking about how to exploit the weaknesses that the order of society displays to you. Although this sort of scavenging was enjoyable for one day, it takes up a lot of time that you would like to spend getting work done, or recreation (a luxury that a lot of people mightn’t have the time for).

Organization was a mess for the 37 people in the class, and the language barrier just made everything so slow. Not that any of this talking really got us anywhere in the end. Deciding the site, and the lengthy process of dividing people up into groups of 5 was the only useful outcome of a couple of hour’s work. Efficient discussion can never happen when 37 people are involved. It became easier, and calmer with 5 people. We agreed on things quicker, and our group seemed to always be on the same page.

The real work began when you set out scavenging for materials. After exploiting the lack of security of the construction site and experiencing ‘the man’ (a.k.a. the college security in the basement), our group sized up the members of our shelter (metal fences, wooden boards). It was then that we could have an idea about what we were going to build. Simple geometry and concept was what everybody had in mind.

Phenomenology: body and space

Path = thinking

Babies discovering the world – journey/path – the city dweller - borders

Is there enough time to think nowadays? – globalisation blocks path of thinking?

Get lost – more meaning – the unfamiliar

Why do we think? – we are in a place – we question it

Here but not here

How do we experience time – when we think of past we put it in front of us

Past present future at once

Architecture = the in between / no place

'Building, Dwelling, Thinking'

dwelling as mortals: the fourfold = 'on the earth'

'under the sky'

'remaining before the divinities'

'man's being with one another'

Slum: characteristics and needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Slum = overcrowded; physical/legal aspect; poor/informal housing; unsafe water/sanitation; insecurity of tenure (UN description)

slum dwellers seek: optimising house COST; SECURITY; journey to WORK; quality of SHELTER; personal SAFETY

45sq.m room = 13ppl.

Materials of cities for the future: crude brick, cement blocks, recycled plastic, straw, bamboo, mud, tin, chains, scrap wood, scrap metal

sites: pavement; low-lying areas (flood); highway/railway lines; creeks

1/5 dwellings have toilet ; 1 tap per 200-8,000 ppl

slum typologies (formal ; informal)

metro core = 20% Mumbai:

formal: tenements (hand-me-downs/built for poor), public housing, hostels

informal: squatters (legal/illegal), pavement dwellers

periphery = 80% Mumbai

formal: private rental, public housing

informal: private subdivisions, squatters (legal/illegal), refugee camps

Mumbai: Formal / Informal; symbiotic; who benefits?

Mike Davis: Planet of Slums

formal actions on slums:

oppressions/evictions

temporary, ineffective aid

improvements (street lamps)

census/right to land (2yrs)

slum upgrades

grants (redevelopment ; roads/water/sewers)

SRA (Sectoral Plan)

informal systems:

extortion=tax-deductable

police/judges work with mafia re. justice

industry

make-shift sewerage systems

Dharavi:

Reclaimed marshes – boom:

High real estate prices; next to economic power

Religions, languages, cultures (divisions: ’93 riots)

Geographical boundaries

SRA (Sectoral Plan) to compete with Shanghai:

will be larges slum redevelopment ever (600,000 – 1m ppl live there: ppl since 2000 get new apts)

not good for workers (size of apts / industry)

ppl will sell apts, and move elsewhere; who benefits? (votes: politics)

World Bank: urban poverty = greatest problem of 21st century (Mike Davis: Planet of Slums)

City=2/3 world pop.
2020: countryside pop. migrate to city
2030: developing city pop. x2,
eg. Mumbai: 13m to 33m ppl
2050: 10billion ppl in cities (95%=developing countries)

City-Countryside and the 'in between': dense web of systems

View Larger Map

a reminder of our spatial awareness

Choreography of Space

a reminder of our spatial awareness: psychological space (we can be here but not here...); space in our body (content/container); the immediate space around our body (kinesphere - skin/context); wider general space

awkward moment: STOP! CHANGE - NEXT MOVE...

the relation of group meetings to when we all spontaneously entered that 'space' in the DSD, struck a pose in our bodily composition, and then the bell rings... then you depart...

This is an intangible feeling that we all felt at a given moment, and I wonder why we chose to decide it was 'time to move on'? Is it because of a collective demand for action in the space? Or maybe because the composition simply didn't look/feel right at the time?

eventually we will establish a choreographed working methodology, thus working more and more efficiently with eachother...

the organic: primal nature of beings

the organic