Cros's blog

    Throughout the semester, we have studied various aspects of spatial studies, from architecture and urban development, to psychology and personal narratives. Many artists today explore these elements in their works. The New Media Artists are particularly fond of investigating these ideas, using media technology as their medium. One particular artist who explores the human relationship to space and technology is Rafael Lozano Hemmer. Using technological advances in his work, Lozano-Hemmer is known for creating interactive artforms to allow viewers to study their environment.

Vectorial Elevation    One such piece was his light installation entitled Vectorial Elevation, created in Mexico City in 1999. Via an online website, the public was invited to participate in creating “light sculptures” that would be projected over the city with searchlights. The computer users would select a beam and positional its location where ever they wanted.

Reporters with borders      Lozano-Hemmer is also known for using surveillance technology in his work. A recent piece of his is Reporters with Borders. He uses infrared sensors to project the viewer’s digitalized shadow across a panel of news anchors. As the shadow highlights the news anchor, the video feed becomes active. Placed in an unlit room, the projections glow against the solid black walls like giant stained glass window, making the viewer feel entirely engulfed into the video mosaic.

Frequency and Volume     Reporters is similar to another of his pieces called Frequency and Volume. In the work, Lozano-Hemmer constructed a gigantic radio spectrum of Mexico City across a wall. Scattered lights project the viewers shadow against the wall and an infrared sensor reads the location of the shadow. Depending on where the viewer is standing, that is the radio station played. Plus, as the viewer moves back and forth from the wall and makes his/her shadow bigger, the volume fluctuates: the larger the shadow, the louder the volume. 

Subtitled Public      Lozano-Hemmer also constructed a piece in 2005 called ‘Subtitled Public’. In the piece, the viewer enters a completely black room. An infrared sensor detects the viewers movement and immediately projects a subtitle onto the person’s cheset from a random list of verbs. The word remains on the viewers chest as they move around the room. The only way to remove the word is to touch another person, and then the two words are swapped.

     After studying a person’s sense of place in the physical environment, I am curious on how we perceive an environment that is entirely virtual. I think Loznao-Hemmer continues to investigate the virtual world, but it still to abstract for the common man to comprehend. How does the use of surveillance affect the way we view the world? In London, the average person walking down the street has a photo taken every 6 six seconds. What does that say about ourselves? How does the surveillance enhance, or enable the space? How does it hinder? Can a virtual environment be a place, or even a space for that matter? The blog website has created a community ‘space’ for us outside the classroom, but how do we perceive it. Is it only a computer screen and a web browser, or is there something tangible? Does a space have to be tangible?

     I think you are right, with the growing amount of technology, I for one am going to be thinking about sense of place for many years to come. May we live in an interesting world.

**IF YOU CLICK ON THE PHOTO, IT WILL LINK TO A PAGE WITH VIDEO FOOTAGE 

Raphael Lozano-Hemmer's website: http://www.lozano-hemmer.com

Why an essay?

The contemporary world is full of cynical criticism. I tend to feel the need to defend persons, companies, industries, etc. that are constantly slandered by intellectual society. There seems to be some sort of gratification in contradicting the theorists conspiracy that these people are out to get them. To the theorists the world is still only in black and white; for me, I try to see it in Technicolor, it’s more interesting. I was spurred early on to challenge Kunstler the best I could. I attempted to do it in the first essay by placing a personal image of my family onto the car industry. Now I am trying to validate Disney. I chose the essay format because I feel it is the most assertive way to get the point across. The only other format applicable would have been a video, but it is too late to video record the passage of history of the New Amsterdam theatre on 42nd Street.

Why defend the Mouse?

I was always struck by the term ‘Disneyfication’ when talking about Times Square. I understand the term is used to articulate the artificial nature of the district. But that in turn suggests that Disney itself is entirely artificial, and I am not sure that I agree. Yes, Disney is hugely based in the fabrication of world cultures. But would it have survived as long as it has without having some truth behind all of the fakeness?

I’ll admit, I am not a fan of the commercialized tourist culture. But I wouldn’t want to blame it on one company. It is just as much my fault that Times Square is what is, because I’ve supported the NYC tourist culture many a times visiting the wax museum, playing at Dave & Buster’s, shopping at the Hershey store, etc. Who am I to blame? It wasn’t as if I was boycotting it.

My first instinct was to analyze the Disney theme park phenomenon. But that topic has been discussed from front to back, so I was looking for a new direction. The history of the New Amsterdam Theatre has always fascinated me, particularly its history with the Follies. Plus I had completed an internship with the theatrical division of Disney last year, so discussing the company from a theatre industry perspective was the obvious choice.

Lately I have also been completing some freelance work for the company in their offices located in the New Amsterdam theatre. Previously when I worked for them, the headquarters were in a standard New York office space located in a building a few blocks away. Having the offices separate from the theatres themselves gave a peculiar dynamic that separated the business from the art. However their lease expired this past fall, and they moved locations into the former nightclub above the New Amsterdam’s mainstage. The dynamic of the office has completely changed. The art and the business are located within in one structure, and the architects of the new space have made this apparent in the design. Parts of Ziegfeld’s nightclub have been adapted into the office’s layout, including the glass runway, which now leads into the President’s office, and the proscenium arch, which towers over the employees. While working late in the new offices one night, I could overhear the audience’s enthusiastic reactions to Mary Poppins in the background. There was this sense of fulfillment in the work that I was doing, something that could never be achieved in the old office space. Later that night as I was exiting the theatre at the 42nd Street entrance, it suddenly dawned on me how drastically different Disney’s role in New York has been compared to the other developments. It has not been about creating false nostalgic experiences. It has been about creating something uniquely New York.

Further Thoughts:

There is a ghost that haunts the New Amsterdam Theatre. Her name is Olive Thomas. Learn her story by listening to this podcast:

http://www.playbillradio.com/podcast/podcast.html?item_id=1145

For more information on Disney on Broadway visit:

http://www.disneyonbroadway.com

New Amsterdam Facade 1903Since its presence on Broadway beginning in the early 1990s, the Disney Corporation has been credited as the driving force behind Times Square’s transformation into the ultimate tourist attraction. During the 1970s and 80s, the span of 42nd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue had been covered in peep shows, private clubs and explicit storefronts. Now it is crowded with themed museums constructed as mazes, a casino disguised as a children’s arcade, and chain clothing stores selling bulk. For many people, the street is the epitome of US’s tourist culture, with its various themed buildings sandwiched together, each selling a unique experience.

      It is commonly believed that this artificial development took force when the Mouse first emerged onto the Great White Way. It’s a valid allegation, since Disney revolutionized the industry of creating fabricated realities in its theme parks and attractions. From the Western frontier and country mountain to mainstreet America New Orleans, Disney has created life-sized diaromas in each of its five international amusement parks. But this time, Disney’s involvement did not encompass the construction of attractions that mimicked historic buildings to create nostalgic experiences. Rather, it involved the restoration of a building in order to preserve its overflowing history: the New Amsterdam Theatre.

THE THEATRE

Baudrillard, America.In his collection of essays, Frazier has crossed the works of Baudrillard with Kerouac, making AMERICA as personal as ON THE ROAD. I was struck early on with the phrase ‘authentic American’, something both Baudrillard and Kerouac strove to pin down. Similarly, Frazier tries to pin down the authenticity of the city with tales of apartments, districts, floating bags, the skyline, etc.

The passage that struck me the most was Out of Ohio (of course). Frazier reflects up on his childhood in Hudson, Ohio from his matured perspective in New York. He discusses the details of the town, he finds him self caught up in the clichés of the ‘nostalgic mid-America’ (186). And because there is a sense of ‘corniness’ in his tone when he discusses home with New Yorkers, it puts them off.

Cathy GrierThough I found the tone of the book gloomy and some what depressive, I enjoyed his notion of a city made up of millions of individual cities overlapping one another, breathing up and down to its own rhythmic beat. His section on the subway was intriguing, and frightenly accurate at times. But that would mean I felt I was ‘suffering like a true New Yorker’. I am not quite sure if I want to admit that yet.

The passage discussing the rhythm and choreography of the subway cars reminded me of the Music Under New York collective sponsored by MTA. Initiated in 1987 as part of the ‘Arts for Tranist’ program, MUNY sponsors more than 100 musicians who perform at 25 designated locations throughout NYC. In order to become a member of the collective, each musician must attend an audition at Grand Central and be judged by industry professionals. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLy8jgWzLGk)

The collection of musicians is vastly diverse, ranging form harpists to saw players. Each brings their own unique rhythm to the station. Many have initiated online blogs to record their experiences underground. For instance, Saw Lady provides windows for a weekly blog, merchandise including books and cds, and external links. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-zLKzLD38)

Peter Pan, Annie LeibovitzPaul Auster provides a lyrical narrative of the human perception of space in City of Glass. Through David Quinn’s experiences, he illustrates how the human perception continuing alters with time in phases. In doing so, it is as if he has taken the developmental phases of Tuan and put them into narrative form.

Auster notes how the phases of perception reappear to us later in life. For instance he mentions how Quinn occasionally feels as if his deceased child is still at his side: ‘Every once in a while, he would suddenly feel what it had been like to hold the three-year-old boy in his arms…It was a physical sensation, an imprint of the past that had been left in his body, and he had no control over it.’ (11) According to Auster, the perceptional phases leave an emotional imprint on our muscle memory.

With Peter, the development of his perception was interrupted at the age of three because his father locked him in a dark room for nine years. By keeping him away from human contact, Peter’s father hoped that he would emerge with God’s language, a language that was drastically different than the human language. So in those nine years, he remained a three year old, developing his own understanding of reality. It wasn’t until he was discovered that his perceptional development of the ‘normal’ world was restarted. But by then it was too late, his prime development years were gone. After a period of treatments to recondition him to the outside world, Peter is able to communicate with people, but only roughly. He still has his own understanding of reality that he is unable to explain to everyone else. His three year old self is still prevalent, ‘The little boy who can never grow up’ (34). And because he developed an understanding of the world so drastically different than everyone else, he and his father believe he lives closer to God.

Once Peter was conditioned enough to be released, the doctors said to him: ‘You can go now, there’s nothing more we can do for you. Peter Stillman, you are a human being (30).’ This passage reiterates the theme of innocence. This theme is used repeatedly in literature, particularly childhood classics such as J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

In the opening passage of Peter Pan, Barrie illustrates the patterns found in a child’s mind: ‘Catch [a doctor] trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it…and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with…coral reefs, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes…and caves...and princes. It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers…’ He continues discussing the Neverland saying, ‘On these magic shores children at play are for ever breaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.’

As the story progresses, we understand the overarching theme is the issues of growing up into adulthood. Barrie reiterates this over and over again, ‘You see, Wendy when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And so there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl…but children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies.’ Here, Barrie explains how innocence was brought into the world at the beginning, and how our persistence for knowledge and lack of faith cause it to diminish. Innocence to Barrie is like the God language to Auster. It is in our innocence, our childhood that we are closest to God. As we condition ourselves to human knowledge and perception, we move further away from God.

As previously mentioned, Quinn had an emotional imprint of his son eternally with him. Likewise, Barrie explains how we continue to have an imprint of innocence on into adulthood: ‘At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies…She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.’ Even though Mrs. Darling’s memory of innocence is buried deep within, it is still there.

Similarly, Auster discusses the imprint of innocence in his passage on Dumpty: ‘Humpty Dumpty: the purest embodiment of the human condition. Listen carefully, sir. What is an egg? It is that which has not yet been born. For men are eggs…We exist but we have not yet achieved the form that is our destiny. We are pure potential, an example of the not-yet arrived. For man is a fallen creature—we know that from Genesis. Humpty Dumpty is also a fallen creature. He falls from his wall, and no one can put him back together again…But that is what we must all now strive to do. It is our duty as human beings: to put the egg back together again. For each of us, sir, is Humpty Dumpty. And to help him is to help ourselves. (128)’

According to Barrie and Auster, the innocence is in each of us. It is up to us to allow it to reemerge and run free.

In his essay ‘Architectural Space and Awareness’, Tuan discusses the ritual quality and context of place. He also discusses how a place (a designed/man-ipulated space) serves an educational purpose. From plan and layout to materials and details, Tuan suggests that each place tells information of the person or group of persons that inhabits or makes use of the structure. Some places have instructional details inherently in them. For instance, the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages make use of symbols and pictures to illustrate Christian teachings. Stained-glass windows are substitutes to scripture texts to proclaim the Word to the illiterate. Similarly, the cross is used to suggest ‘suffering, atonement, and salvation’ (114). As Tuan notes, “The symbol to the medieval mind is more than a code for feelings and ideas that can readily be put into words. The symbol is direct and does not require linguistic mediation. An object becomes a symbol when its own nature is so clear and so profoundly exposed that while being fully itself it gives knowledge of something greater beyond. (114)” By meditating in a place with such magnificence, the worshiper can effortlessly understand the existence of a greater being. Chartres 1134, Rebuilt 1194

Tuan goes on to discuss how buildings today are no longer designed with such ‘illustrated language’ because the modern society is increasingly literate. This can be seen in Modernity’s influence on churches. Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp moves away from the basilica plan and Gothic details. The walls and roof are made of concrete, which point upward at one corner like the prow of a ship, a reference to the ark or St. Peter’s fishing boat. The elaborately designed windows of previous cathedrals are replaced by simplistic, stained-glass windows recessed into the walls. All symbols are removed, except for an abstracted cross at the altar.

Tuan discusses how the growth of literacy has affected all aspects of design. There is no longer a need for ‘physical environment to embody the value and meaning of culture: verbal symbols have progressively displaced material symbols, and books rather than buildings instruct (117).’ To Tuan, symbols are now indistinguishable from signs.

Tuan points out the many differences between the Middle Ages and contemporary life especially in terms of building construction and design. However many theorists argue that there are distinct parallels between the Middle Ages and modern culture. Umberto Eco discusses these parallels in his essay “The Return of the Middle Ages.” Eco discusses how the elite of the Middle Ages translated the ideologies into images, just as modern media tries to translate learned and popular culture into visual communication. He states, “The Middle Ages are the civilization of vision where the cathedral is the great book in stone, and is indeed the advertisement, the TV screen, the mystic comic strip that must narrate and explain everything, the nations of the earth, the arts and crafts…the mysteries of faith, the episodes of sacred and profane history, and the lives of the saints (82).”

Notre-Dame-du-Haut, 1950-55 Eco also discusses the erosion of the city of the Middle Ages due to decline in population, famine, abandonment, difficulty of communication, erosion of roads, etc. Eco argues today’s wreckage of the city is due to ‘an excess of population that interacts with excess of communication and transportation, making the cities unhabitable not through destruction and abandonment but through a paroxysm of activity’ (77). He goes on to compare the erosion of buildings from ivy in the Middle Ages to the present day erosion caused by air pollution and garbage.

Eco suggests that a ‘Middle Ages’ is brought on by the collapse of the Great Pax (military, civil, social and cultural), which causes a period of economic crisis and power vacuum (75). His theory seems strikingly familiar with the collapsing of the modern economy.

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Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Harcourt. New York. 1986.

Nursery: Amy Miles' dolls-house around 1890.Early childhood development is dependent on attention and care, emotionally, physically, and spatially. In his essay on Space, Place and the Child, Tuan discusses how the spatial perspectives transform in child development. He illustrates the senses and experiences of space the child feels from infancy to youth and how it eventually becomes place.

Tuan’s discussion reminded me of an exhibition I’ve been wanting to see at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum. Entitled, Wall Stories: Children’s Wallpaper and Books, the exhibition correlates the connection between children’s books and nursery decorations (an expansion of a permanent exhibit at the Victoria & Albert in London).

As the V&A website discusses, children began to have their own living accommodations in the house with the rise of the urban and suburban middle-class in the early 19th century. Since the child received his or her ‘moral education’ at home, it was common for the mother to decorate the house, and especially the nursery, in a way that depicted moral truths: “…children were uniquely sensitive to their environment, and must therefore be surrounded by things which were beautiful, ‘honest’  and inspiring, so the production of wallpapers which made this task easier was sound business sense.” The Months, 1893Many of the wallpapers depicted scenes adapted from children’s books. The room itself became a giant book. According to Tuan’s discussion, the child is able to picture and imagine himself within such illustrations by three and a half (28). He continues discussing how illustrations with central perspectives ‘create an illusion of time and movement’ and provide ‘strong cues to action’ (28). The majority of the wallpapers being created were usually in the central perspective, providing the three year old with hundreds of voids to voyage into. By the 20th century, as the Victoria and Albert article continues, children’s wallpaper design had become less about morals and more about entertainment: “No longer were children surrounded by images of moral fortitude and heroism, or even figures of fantasy and imagination; instead they were domiciled with idealized representations of themselves…” This can be seen in the popular papers created by the Christopher Robin series.

Christopher Robin, 1926

Nowadays, the images pictured are from movies and television series. And, as V&A recognizes, they are placed in the most simplistic pattern, with repeated figures on a solid background. The images look more like a continuous strand of icons. From early on, children are subliminally taught to idolize objects, athletes, movie stars, etc. rather than to appreciate books and morals. Could this be seen as a cause of the early childhood development of a ‘sense of property’ that Tuan discusses (32)? Later on as the child continues to grow, these iconic images become even more prevalent as he/she is given the freedom to decorate their own room. Thespace becomes their own place.

Boys Stuff!

It’s an early Sunday morning, and my brother, sister and I are sitting at the breakfast table wolfing down our breakfast as quick as possible. Dad hollers for us to hurry up, as he loads our remote control cars into the back of his pick-up truck outside. The three of us slurp down the remainder of our cereal and dart after him. Dad starts the truck just as we get to the passenger door. Barely able to reach the handle, I pull but nothing happens; the door is locked. Rather than unlocking the door, Dad decides to aggravate us and begins backing out of the driveway. The three of us scream bloody murder. After enjoying himself for a few moments, he finally stops and opens the door. He begins to chuckle in his own amusement, and for some reason so do we.

My brother of course demands the window seat since he is the oldest, leaving my sister and I to be crammed together in the middle seat. After a short ride downtown, we arrive at our destination. We jump out of the truck in excitement as Dad hands us our toy cars one by one. Mine of course is a classic blue sports car with a foot long antenna sticking out of the hood. The remote is twice the size of the car itself, with an antenna three times as long.

Rummaging through his keys, Dad finally opens the backdoor. The three of us each place our cars on the ground and let them drive off inside as we chase after them. At last, we are finally free to roam and play at our favorite playground: our family’s car dealership.

In his essay The Accessible Landscape, Jackson discusses the concepts of territory and boundaries. He brings Robert Sack’s idea of ‘territoriality’ to light, which Sack defines as “the attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships by delimiting and asserting control of a geographical area” (70). This idea is not solely American, rather it can be seen in all areas of the world especially in the planning and organization of European cities. A prime example would be the continuous reorganization of Germany throughout the 20th century, particularly the in Berlin. As Eastern European Jews began immigrating into Berlin to escape persecution, especially from Poland and Russian, they began to gather in a district called Scheunenviertel. Its name, translated as “Barn Quarter”, comes from the number of barns and cattle sheds that dominated the area. The population was also dominated by a number of beggars, stereotyped by Germans as the Ostjuden: “the lazy unemployed who deserved to be deported.”[1] Even before the large immigrations, the area was considered the ‘dark district,’ serving as the home to the black market, criminals, and prostitutes. But we see by the gathering of these persons for a social power force within this district. At the same time, the outside world was also trying to suppress the district by pushing them together into a tight section of the city. This idea of segregation is further seen in the city with the construction of the Berlin Wall.