Architecture is predicting the future

When an architect is asked to design something, part of the challenge is to anticipate the effect that this usually large built and immovable object will have on the many people that will see, use and possibly inhabit it.

Conceptual art approaches can help, for example making a building evoke an idea, or using an idea to start a design, but they are never enough. That my building is 1776 feet high may help get sponsorship, but in it will hardly be perceived.

Fame or notoriety help. Celebrity architects draw buzz and crowds. One can invest genius in a built object and the aura of the famous designer creates a culture around the space.

The inescapable challenge of architecture however is to be present in time and space in a significant way.

Here is an example of how things can go wrong:

In my little town, the well-meaning heritage preservation committee got involved in the review of a design for a pump house that would sit along the waterfront. The building would need to have the volume of a large two storey house.

The committee looked around "for context" and found a nearby older shed that had two stone gable ends and a very symmetrical sloped roof, a kind of 19th century shed. So they strongly suggested that the utility's architect (or most likely engineer), take the cue.

The intention was to reflect the heritage of the industrial waterfront area.

The result was a large, white stucco covered imitation of an old shed, like an over sized paper model of it, sitting there contrasting against the dark water and sky.

I don't think that was the intention. I also think that any architect would have easily anticipated this and informed the client of the danger. Unfortunately, the heritage preservation committee is wedded to form and mimesis (a pompous architect term meaning copycatting). Unfortunately, it is an easy notion to sell, a concept that seems to make sense, reflect shapes, and if you are lucky materials.

An aside:
I agree with many of my colleagues who say that if you are going to do some restoration work or add to an older building, choose one: re-use material or re-use form and proportion, but don't do both, at the risk of getting some half-assed mimesis.

Ok, so back to the story. This thing now sits on the waterfront, annoying, out of place, and a reminder of industrial sheds we lost, but bigger and worse.

So instead of learning a lesson, this heritage committee moves on, job well done, and is now addressing the problem of our train station. Again, mimesis is being suggested, but this time there is no proximate context, so they looked in the pattern books for old train stations with huge eaves, and came up with some hybrid Frank Lloyd Wrightish stone bunker, because they wanted the stone of course.

What is galling is that the railway people had proposed a very nice, airy design, with proper functional overhangs to protect people on the platform, but with nice glass, and curves and a good light feel to it, considering the barren context of the area, a jewel that may have lightened the oppression of the district.

I don't think it will be realized, because no-one thinks that architects can predict the future, especially when the heritage preservation committee is locked in the past.

Half-baked vs open to possibilities? A manifesto.

studio series A. Barake 2008

I like the unfinished.

Whether it be studies, sketches, snippets of songs, or first drafts.

They seem alive, they allow for the future.

The future that I can choose to defer, giving me the hope of potential, of life going on.

Half-baked means that dinner is coming.

I also like the fully realized. It is post-coital, closure, comfort, time for closing the eyes and savoring.

So what is left not to like in this spectrum?

The mediocre, the completed in haste, the delivered for money not love, the faked, the cliche , the pandering to mass appeal, the blue smoke sentimentality of bad films by Spielberg and his ilk.

Playing the devil's advocate, I can see that the charges of laziness and lack of discipline can be laid. Other lesser judgements could be "wishy-washy", indecisive, uncommitted.

Yes, all valid categories for this approach, but the Venn diagram is flawed. These are not super sets of the incomplete. The incomplete is the super set of the attributes I list, and of many others. The incomplete action is the existential act, the rest is just noise and judgement. Being incomplete may not lead to riches, mass appeal, or to classic status, but it can reflect life and happiness. Certainly for me.

Kundera talks with Houllebecq

I am tempted to write a fictional dialogue between Milan and Michel. Their world views and attitudes to sex are ripe for collision. Michel finds it challenging and Milan could not find it easier. Michel is looking for connection and so is Milan, but in such different ways. One lives in a sensual existential world, the other in a world of isolated points with possible lines. What triggered the idea was the change in the title of the English translation of Les particules elementaires from Atomized to The Elementary Particles in later editions. Kundera had written essays on how not to betray an author when translating, and he advocated simple direct non-interpretive translation to avoid adding extra semantics. And then I thought about how Kundera writes of sex and how Houllebecq does too, and how both see it as light, but in such different ways. They need to talk.

Joseph Conrad

A wonderful article on Conrad in the Guardian, which contains this quote from the man:

"Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation. The only legitimate basis of creative work lies in the courageous recognition of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous - so full of hope."

An enlightened grade 10 teacher made us read Heart of Darkness - and it was way beyond us - yet how could we not feel the depth of his style, his circling of the story and the way the words were like ruminations of the subconscious. Re-read it several times since, and it never ceases to bring forth strong emotion. And this is not a sensual book, but almost a pure intellectual one - wrapped around a journey - a river trip.

And don't miss - in the same issue - an interview with Richard Ford.

Skin tone deaf

Before the ferry - Copyright 2007 A. Barake

I have been reading some NYC art critics' blogs recently, and one asked the old question about relevance of figurative art (again). He was using some classic Robert Longo works as a case study, saying that there was a subtext of yuppie critique in those writhing suit-clad black and white figures, and that gave the art some value, but that it had dissipated now that the era has passed. Well maybe... But what about the argument that the figurative arts are really about looking at figures. Simple as that. We are wired to seek the attraction of beautiful bodies. Can figurative art not just be about finding new ways to do this? Nothing else? I think the rest is justification for the existence of those who are beauty-deaf.

Wim Wenders' Notebook on Cities and Clothes

(picture by mistermeta)

To follow-up on yesterday's post about criticism, here is my critique of Wim Wenders' 1990 documentary on fashion.

He was commissioned by Le Centre Pompidou to do a film about the fashion industry, and he initially thought it too shallow a subject, but went ahead, and found depth. In fact there are so many layers here that it opens up all kinds of cultural avenues for exploration.

On one level, he covers the Paris show of Yohji Yamamoto's fashion design firm, from his workshop in Tokyo to the courtyard of the Louvre where the runway is set up. On another level, he explores the ephemerality of video versus film, the film uses both media, sometimes simultaneously. On another level, he does a character study of Yohji through interview and observation. He draws out his attitude towards women, his father, the 2nd War, creativity, death, aging, cities, and most importantly identity.

The theme of the movie is Identity. Clothes are one way to begin to address the subject, but it goes far beyond this, into history and the moment of design, and why we strive to capture things that are in decay - as in film. Wenders makes analogies between film making and fashion design as well, and throughout, this jamming with ideas resonates into a coherent whole.

Wenders has said that he is not an intellectual, and I think this means that he is concerned with the surface of things, uses them to draw out emotion. He is sensual, and the themes, although abstract, are not part of the rational discourse we associate with intellectual thought. I have a feeling he said that as a subtle boast.

Wenders seeks harmony. This makes this subject - Yohji - particularly suitable for his vision. He draws out the deep value of doing with the senses, using material and images to make identity. In the end, he captures a place in the imagination, a stake of humanity.

His idea emerged while making the film I think, and the editing is subtle. The DVD I have shows outtakes, and he left out some central stuff, like Yohji's mother, who plays an important thematic role in the interviews. The omissions are not gaps, because the rest of the film makes these ideas emerge more powerfully than if they were explicit.

There is a sense of melancholy mixed-in with deep harmony and longing in this film, a present that cannot be captured, but that is somehow being put into the clothes and vision of this designer, in a subtle and gentle way. His history as a war orphan, his urge to recapture the comfort of his childhood surrounded by women, his perfectionism all merge and are captured in one of the scenes where we see the models' shoes walking along the runway, back and forth, and in the obsessive cutting and drawing of patterns before the show.


The rapport established is Wenders' achievement, his usual seeking of harmony, like a comfortable couch that he is compared to by Yohji.

The Critics

(Image by Mistermeta)

I recently read a comment by Doris Lessing where she criticises critics. She notes that the creative process is about developing an idea and expressing it through the filter of the artist's vision, whereas a critic is usually there to break things down into the components that the culture can understand, an inherently destructive process.

So what about critics who are artists? There are many, like John Updike who reviews books for the New Yorker, and the invited writers in the Guardian, what about their approach? Is it necessarily a destructive process when one tries to re-interpret another's work? Here is what my ideal critical approach would be:

1. Begin by deciding whether the work in question is a development of an idea, or an exploitation. By that I mean try to make a distinction between a formula and an inspiration. If it is a formula, then review it accordingly, does it bring anything to the genre, how does it relate to its antecedents etc. This would avoid the kind of lopsided blindside that people complain about when, say, Nicholas Lezard reviews Harry Potter books as if they were literature.
2. If the work is deemed a development of an inspired idea, then let's run with it. Let's try to dig out that idea and reconstruct the process through its results, and gauge its success that way. This is what the much maligned deconstructivists talk about I think. The questions to ask become: "Is the idea developed in a way that can transcend the vision of the one artist?", "Does the work add anything new to the idea, anything that most of us could not have added after 3 minutes of thought?".

You get my drift, criticise constructively by deconstructing.

Smile like a veil

from my flickr

I found a site that has lyrics to songs that are not normally posted to the Web - obscure some would say, whereas I would call them almost forgotten.

Here's a sample of Smoke by the great-but-defunct Crash Vegas:

You say that I'm your eyes
and I whisper that I've gone blind
you wear a smile like a veil
your clothes smell of last night's smoke and you just drink to stay afloat
and I swim by and pull the plug

Colin Cripps, the guitarist is still active. I saw him perform recently with Jim Cuddy in Ottawa. Not sure about the clear-voiced Michelle McAdorey. The connection with Blue Rodeo seems to run deep.

Music for Cats

As I was doodling with a new riff on the acoustic guitar the cat was eyeing me suspiciously as he half-dozed, squinting in the sun. Was I going to play loudly and disturb him? I was careful not to, and then the idea of calling a set of tracks "music for cats" came along. Checking for precedent, I did the quick Google search, and here is what comes up:

• MusicForCatsRecords - sounds like a label I can get to like
• Music for Cats and People Too, a record for pets and their owners, the cover art fits Kliban's definition of "brother-in-law-art"
• Another Music for Cats CD, but not for cats, maybe I'll order it

So, the title may hold, or not, we'll see if anything better emerges once the music is settled.

CONEY ISLAND

taken from a Ferris wheel in Switzerland (flickr)

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Wonder wheel, as Robert Pirsig said, a big part of being alive is countering gravity. Maybe life and gravity are linked.

Tree-in-the-forest

Saw Antonioni's Blow-up again after so many years, and his central idea - that reality is created by multiple observers still resonates nicely. His notion of abstract film making is also quite well explained through the dialog the main character has with his painter friend. Also, Sarah Miles represents his muse, the unattainable yearning. Some scenes are dated, like the record-listening with Vanessa Redgrave, but the composition of each frame is beautiful and redeems much of the flaws. His mode of creation is also part of the film: spew-out and then edit.

Wonderful stuff.

Eisenman House X model

from my flickr

Partly mysterious, because it embodies the fine line between architecture and other arts as defined by the Greeks to be useless but beautiful.

Joni Mitchell

Her recent honours in Canada triggered many retrospectives and biographical media events. The arc of her songwriting career is an interesting case study in what seems to work and what does not. She was recently approached by a ballet company, Calgary I think, to collaborate on a work based on her music and her life. She accepted but then convinced them to change the terms of reference of the project. It became a ballet on her views on the environment and the world, war etc. She wrote a bunch of new (bad) songs for it. I would have much preferred to see the original idea fulfilled. The personal often makes better art than the general when it is resonant enough. The general often ends up being generic, through the law of averages, since it must apply to many and thus it averages out emotions. Many of her best songs are about her loves and griefs, like Carey and River. I guess I am saying that writing about self can be good but it needs to be edited. The subtext is the seed, but is not necessary to know it to resonate with us. The public only found out about her decision to give up her daughter for adoption late in her career, but the imprint and the references to this in her lyrics resonate throughout many of her best songs. We did not need to know this, but I don't know if the songs would have been so powerful without that emotion behind them. Hemingway wrote that you must hold something back. That is a technique, a trick of sorts, but ultimately, there has to be something there, something personal that can become universal. The emotional load must transcend the petty somehow, and sublimate into an artistic release.

Another interpretation can be that at the start of a career arc there is a drive to push one's ego out there, a necessity in fact, so the songs about self and experience happen and the good ones survive and make it big. With time and maturity, the quality goes up, one gets better at the game of universality and the experiences accumulate and become more interesting. At the waning end, there must be a sense of overexposure, for those artists that don't get addicted to fame, and then there is the recluse phase, where universal themes become more tempting since they allow expression without self-revelation. Unfortunately, I think that unless you are Brian Eno and are interested in weird but cool stuff, the general world issue kind of stuff can be boring (not always to be fair..) and only established artists like Joni Mitchell can get it to be heard. Dunno, this is an anecdotal generalization. Must test against more data.

Bad moments

Went to see a performance of the Magic Flute and was awed by the level of the music and performance. It transcends a lot of everyday achievement - as it should. The piece lasts about two hours, and is consistent throughout. Some thoughts, there are conventions used, understandings between the audience and the composer and performers, and these help set constraints for Mozart to play within or to push out. I had heard on Radio Canada about 30 years ago (Beaux Dimanches) a concert pianist say that pop music was really totally different than classical, and I know what she means, I keep getting reminded when I see live classical performances. The pianist at yesterday's performance was doing everything, had a synthesizer on the side that she used to do flute and glockenspiel while playing the main parts on the piano with an an extraordinary dynamic range. Too much - but somehow totally inspiring.

Then later at home I heard Dead Flowers interpreted by Steve Earle, and the words and music are powerful and fit extraordinarily well together although it is a parody of hillbilly music by the Sone's own admission. There is an element of truth that just comes out. And that can be as powerful as Mozart's stylized perfection.

Those &^%$ Greeks thought of everything (Dionysians vs Apollonians)

"I emerged in the late 1960s when a lot of writers felt they could take society by the scruff of the neck and change things, which now looks a romantic notion," he says. "What a classicist does is try to order things, which I guess was my chosen lot."

"I've always been fascinated by the opposition between radicals and liberals," he says. "It's a tension that exists in all my plays, but there is never a final decision.

As a writer, you can't hope to change society. All you can do is shift people's perspective on what you see as the truth."

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/story/0,,2042912,00.html

About inspiration

Inspiration?
Don't know if this is useful or not - worth a look I guess: Sources of inspiration

Songs about Thetans
There is a song here somewhere - this rings familiar - I once met a woman on a bus who tried this on me, then went on to 'help' some teenage girls who were sitting behind me, it quite cringe inducing.

Songs about pictures

There have been albums themed around sets of pictures, or purported to be: "The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth" by Rick Wakeman was inspired by the portraits at the National Gallery, "Pictures at an Exhibition" by the Rod - not so sure there... and some of Laurie Anderson's work has been themed around visual structures I think. Was thinking that some pictures could be good starting points for lyrics, i.e. to take an inspiring or evocative picture and to write a caption or story about it and then to make a song. It is a sort of second-order experience, but it may lead to something different at least.

Jasper Johns

Was interviewed for the New Yorker. He talks about his friendship with Rauschenberg and how their discussions fed their creativity, and he talks about inspiration and work methods. In the end, it is clear that he cannot explain the source or the inspiration, which is the way it often is.

'Asked about the worth of his art, Johns once stated: "To be plain, the best critic of a picture is another picture. I think that one wants from painting a sense of life. The final suggestion... has to be, not a deliberate statement, but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying." '

Perez-Gomez in his latest book comes closest to finding a key, in my opinion. He makes the link to eros, the old idea of bridging the desire gap, creating beauty so as to desire it. The spark is part of this sublimation of the drive. It (kind of) drives a nail through the whole conceptual art thing, unless you really get off on abstraction. The argument is in favour of sensuality, all the senses. Conceptualism is about the ideals - somehow abstracted from the world of senses. Math can be beautiful, but geometry is the basis of much of it. I still struggle with this when I think of music, which is abstract visually but can trigger emotions as strongly as anything else, maybe through memory, but also maybe through other means, resonance, sympathy, who knows. How do minor chords work? The chill in the spine is a goal...

Capt. Beefheart

Rules for guitarists - the first time I heard his name I thought it was B-Fart.

e.g. Rule_ 4. WALK WITH THE DEVIL Old delta blues players referred to amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts demons and devils. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.