Peepshow Competition. Art-City 2008

studio@nwaissbluth.com

 

What are the boundaries that construct our understanding of “place” in the City? Where does architecture play a role in the marking of “place”? One idea is the temporal city, where time precedes our given identities, where the future is invisible and every action we do, as a citizen, visitor and participant always departs from foreseeable identities. A city where architecture is not understood as a formal object or a variable of a linear equation, rather it is understood as a structure of overlaying boundaries – a system intertwining and reacting to the events and objects that shape in our everydayness. In response to the question posed for the Art-City Peepshow Competition 2008, the proposed project, entitled, Fields of Play,  is a not a project with a set formal definition of the apostrophe, but rather it is a collaborative based project allowing the formal language to unfold over time. It is not the intention of the project to find the literal “image” of the apostrophe, it is to use a series of “tools” that will allow the elements (time, object/ viewer, rhythm) of an apostrophe to emerge and ultimately create an architecture in the city of Calgary. 

Sited at a Calgary C-Train station,  “Fields of Play” will engage the narrative and rhythmic patterns of this unique city typology. At one moment filled with people and a moment later empty, the constant movement of a transportation station continually changes our perception of the space itself and its surroundings. At one level, they are a formal symbol of their surrounding neighborhood, but at another, they are a type of non-space where the constant movement and waiting that exists allows the social identity to continually change from person to person. 

www.postmark.wordpress.com 

Using the internet and cell-phones as a means to communicate and document the development of the project, these two tools will allow anyone to contribute to the project. A the centre of communication, a blog has been created where anyone can upload videos, images and leave comments. Beyond the virtual, the physical spatiality of the installation is defined by the exploration of a single material. Using rope as the primary material, the spatiality of the installation will be defined by the weaving of multiple layers of rope between the physical objects of the site. At night, these dense layers will serve as a projection screen for the videos and images collected on the blog. Using the open structure of communication and use of one primary material, Fields of Play will carve an unforeseeable narrative and architecture in the city of Calgary.

Below are a series of guidelines that will structure the process.

1. The Internet

A blog will be created to work as a tool to communicate and archive ideas for the project. Team members will be able to leave comments, upload images of ideas, locations of a possible installation, videos and so on.

http://postmark.wordpress.com/

2. Tools

Laptop

- Creating, Editing of Blog. Compiling information. Editing Movie for Projection. 

Cellphones

- Use for taking photographs and videos for projection. No camcorders or digital video cameras.

Twine

- Primary material for the projection screens, or any other “formal” structure needed for the installation. 

 

Found Objects

- Found objects of any kind will be used as:

- secondary material to accommodate the use of the twine (eg. frame, fasteners, paint)

- primary material for seating

 

Lights

- Lights of any kind: spotlights, flood lights, coloured.

 

3. Focus

The focus of the video shall be to look into the how the rhythm of the site (bus or rail station)  reacts at to its various scales. The fast movement of arriving and leaving a station; the slow movement of waiting (how someone waits); how the formal structure that surrounds the site reflects the movement of people.

The focus of the projection screen is not to create a physical wall to project the video. How does it fit within the site itself? How does it connect to seating? How does it reflect the content of the video?

projection screen is to built simultaneously with the creation of the video. It is not an object that predefines the video, or is defined by the video. Projection and projection screen must together reflect the bigger idea of the narrative and spatiality of the site.

The focus of the seating is to reflect both the scale of “waiting” and how visitors will view the video projection.

4. Timeline

June – September 2008.

1. Creation of Blog

2. Outline and further details components and guidelines to the project with the aid of the Art-City committee, its volunteers and the design team.

3. Calgary Volunteers begin documenting via the blog and cell phone videos the site, its everyday rhythm etc.

4. Material exploration of twine

 

September 10 & 11, 2008.

1. 16 hour work days to review, create and set up installation.

5. Ongoing Process

The focus of this project is to collaborate, communicate and reinvent what it means to give an identity to a “place” within the city of Calgary. The guidelines above are a starting point. The blog will be used to update, enhance and further explain the project and how it develops. 

Waiting (how do you wait?) – The iphone in NYC, June 2007