The next FTB hang sesh will be THURSDAY JAN 31 at 6:00 PM at Sycamore House (3111 Palmyra St). After much discussion last time we covered issues and ideas we want to act on, here’s a proposal open to interpretation:
Have a location that interests you? Chill out in a spot for a while and observe what happens, collect what your senses find. Sketch out what happens. What strikes you? Why? Why does it happen? How can you respond to it? Tell a story + scheme.
OR
Got an issue that’s been on your mind? Why does it affect you? Give some thought to how it could be addressed, how that might happen, and where.
An example taken from last week (feel free to use):
Neighborhoods’ edges are often defined by a strong border, such as spaces used as infrastructure for people inhabiting the area: surface roads, highways, canals, parks, railroads, bodies of water. You could sit under I-10 or at either side of a canal for while... What connections and disconnections do these borders create? How did they come about? Etc.
Draw us a picture*, make a diagram, lay some twigs on the ground, whatever… something visual helps folks understand where you’re coming from. In thinking about a response, don’t get too bogged down with reality or unknowns... we can boil down ideas to functionality when we look at them closer n refine them.
On Thursday we can talk about what we worked on, combine thoughts, and move ahead towards CREATION. ….. with byproduct of a lil research and documentation. Recording info you find can be one of the first steps of “the design process”, or more appropriately “making something that works" OR "telling a story.**" Bring a pen/pencil/paper/snack if u got it.
 |
| a diagram of rain dripping onto a broken gutter bracket, creating a loop of ascending piches amplified by the house's corner. Seriously thought there was some freaky noisehead creature up in the wall. |
------------------
*There’s gotta be a million ways to represent a space or what happens in it or what happened in it or what can happen in it. Drawing is only one way of representation, but an straightforward one. Drawing a space like you’re looking at it from above is called a plan (see thesketch from the Lopez Bridge path). Drawing something straight-on without perspective is called an elevation. Cutting a line through something (often seen from the side, like the wall to the left in the picture above) is called drawing in section. Drawing something like it looks in real life, with your eyes in a specific spot so lines trail into the distance is called Perspective. Mathematically doing this (an angled view that doesn’t get smaller in the distance) is called an axonometric drawing. Painting with your hand is called finger-painting.
**putting thoughts together is putting together different strands of a story that not only describes a specific space or issue, but ties it in to real life and real people. When a space is controlled in large amounts by institutions held at a distance from the folks who use that space, it becomes efficient to describe that space with broad statistics + oversimplified yes+no-type categorizations. Tangled bureaucracies + private financial interests further dillute direct intervention by those most affected, as issues are divided between various parties. Put a bike rack next to your oil refinery, you can still get “green” tax credits. A great resource for a town's history are Sanborn insurance maps. Have categorical histories of the world pushed actual connected-thought stories to "alt-history" status, simply functioning as supplementary info for fulfilling "public input" mandates? Would a map created of IP address locations be as informative as sitting next to someone - in 2045? Whooaaa