April 2nd Update

I have returned, and will be working feverishly on adding several things to the
blog, including cleaning up previously written posts.

whats been written so far has been pretty much stream of consciousness, and I have not gone back and reviewed/edited. I'm fairly certain there are some incomplete sentences and grammatical errors within.

But I've realized this relates to surrealists ideas which will be further explained in one of this evenings post.

I have not checked what is up in a day or so, I plan to get to it shortly - but HOPEFULLY there has been a massive accumulation of images that are all tagged - (look through each others tagged images to find a general "self-emergent" structures - does that make sense?)

and please PLEASE PLEASE get some narratives up there - if they have been completed in illustrator, save them as jpegs and post them on flickr. (I still need to tag my images.)

PLAYLISTS - its not enough to just make playlist (and why are there so few of those? this should be easy.) there needs to be a NARRATIVE explaining how the different videos relate, and why you are interested in that relationship.

I've been talking about the studio - and the strategy of its online presence, and they are all excited to see the web sites. I'm attempting to build up some energy "outside the system" that can you can feed off of.

point of the story, is that once everything is cleaned up (my job), and there is plenty of content (YOUR JOB) I will be providing the websites to many people.


IMPORTANCE OF NARRATIVES:

as architects, its our job to understand the nature of relationships.

really, this video link says it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FClGhto1vIg

this video is talking about the use of "systems of scale" to create relationships. There might also think in terms of "systems of color" and "systems of orientation" (even these circles can theoretically be rotated out of the 2d plane.)

But whats here is a very simple relationship - three circles are the same size. within "systems of color and orientation" they all relate equally. but begin creating differentiation through color and orientation, and you get a complex layering of relationships - and this, mind you, from very simple "systems."

as architects it is our job to understand and use these systems to create differentiation and heirarchy.


on the human scale and neighbrood scale these systems become much more in number and much more in complexity. you have social/economic/gender/political/agricultural/geologic/cosmic/atomic/genetic systems (of course I could go on).

It all quickly becomes WHITE NOISE.

It is our job through the use of a "thing" called REASEARCH to find and make visible and hopefully understand these underlying systems of the neighborhood.

The way we are going about this in this studio is through the use of the NARRATIVE. It is the hope that through the accumulation of narratives, these underlying systems will present themselves. (again with the surrealists bent.)




SO GET YER BUTS IN GEAR AND GET SOME NARRATIVES UP!!!
I want the number one question of the project to be "is it too much." it is my hope that the answer will always be a "yes"


Oh and on a side note, I got an email from our dear friend william pallmore. and while I have not looked at it closely, one thing I did pick out was that many of you were nervous about the outcome of the studio.

THIS IS GREAT!!! this is my intent, remember? It's my desire to keep you far from equilibrium. This project can be an amazing success, or a complete and utter disaster (and I really hope its one of the two - somewhere in between is of little interest)

but as for the future course of the project - if I have not made it clear, it is all up to you. I would like to begin working on your individual projects after monday, but its all up to you guys.

Also, while I have some general ideas about the future direction of the project, its going to be something we all discuss as a group. (on monday)

Be ready to present things on Monday that you've produced, talk about what you are interested in (which is what your INDIVIDUAL projects should be about.) you can print things out or show stuff on the computer. pick out certain videos that you like whatever.

but you will all have to get up and provide an narrative of what you have been working on all this time.

Its also important that the background drawings are done. I'm not sure if someone has taken responsibility for the "perspective" backgrounds. but if no one is interested I will do them. It will be fun. but I need the plans/site plan/elevations to do that, even if its abstract.

lets see what else - grades, it was my intention to provide grades on monday's class, alas no one was there. grades from the first half of class will be available the next time we meet.

thats all for now. oh and I defy anyone to go through the playlists I have set up and find a single video that does not related to the project at hand - I dare you. (except for the "general architecture")