How to measure space with body? By Bengüsu Cebeci This project can be considered as a guideline for body-based live space creation. In order to demonstrate this made up terminology, a mapping of different subjects have been done to make the viewers start to question their relations with the surroundings. Firstly, map states a series of new elements of the space which are different than conventional ones. For example, it uses traces, textures and skins instead of walls, floors and openings etc. In the second section of the map, there is the body and/ or the form which defines the space with motion or just being in it. In the last section: Home, the map leads us to think on the idea of home and how these two previous measures already can create a space that is inhabited co-existingly. The video performance and the guidelines together aim to raise questions on how we can alter the way we look in to and build the space, the architecture and more importantly “our home”.
In the beginning of the studio my personal reflection on the term ‘wicked home’ was a manipulated photograph in which we look towards a sky filled with tree branches inside from a concrete surrounded nest. Now in the end of the phase two, I have started to understand this reflection was a symbolic representation of the imagé of home for me and maybe for most of us. To me our ultimate home is life and nature. I carried this inspiration throughout the semester while thinking on home, space and body. Home is a state which occurs invisibly throughout our encounters and experiences with a defined space in which we can leave our trace on. We can relate to or have multiple homes in our life. So, the wickedness of my home is that it born and dies in an instant. Then reborn, multiplies and explodes into fragments of trace or memory. I thought on what would be like to allow life into the space and architecture. I was very impressed of Prof. Rachel Armstrong’s lecture show the different scales of habiting and being in space. She said your body in space creates a pattern by leaving traces resulted from your actions. Which I deemed a body or bodies in a space already defines the borders of the space without needing any further materiality. It made me think on the elements we need in order to build up a space for us to inhabit. I wondered if it is possible for a modern human body to also co-exist with other bodies in the nature. Since in a way our body is a home itself to a lot of other living creatures. Therefore, it leaded me to my project which I basically wanted to create a guideline for converting our minds into a different state of architecture to build up our wicked homes. I identified new elements for the space and tried to show a different human body scale in relation to our artificial and natural surroundings. I did a series of performances to further enhance the idea and hopefully make us start to think on different kind of habitations.
TRACES TRACES TRACES
SKINS SKINS SKINS
time keeper
HOW T0 MEASURE/DEFINE/CREATE space with BODY_? HOME HOME HOME
a HOME is A GAP between BORDERS.
“We behold, touch, listen and measure the world with our entire bodily existence, and the experiential world becomes organised and articulated around the centre of the body. Our domicile is the refuge of our body, memory and identity. We are in constant dialogue and interaction with the environment, to the degree that it is impossible to detach the image of the Self from its spatial and situational existence. ‘I am the body,’ Gabriel Marcel claims, but ‘I am the space, where I am’ establishes the poet Noel Arnaud.’’ Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, p.64
HOW TO LIVE WITH A TREE?
Architecture is defined space. In this defined space (in this case forest) to create a home is to create a smaller scale defined space.
Reference: People on Stone Plinths, 1987, Karin Sander
What is to be a body in space is what is to inhabit. Home is where we inhabit. Thus our body creates its own refuge by moving in the space. Nature is our first and ultimate home and a good example of ensemble of homes within homes.
body against nature/ space
Reference: Tierra/ Earth, 2013, Regina Jose Galindo
Reference: Shelter, 2017, Alğper Aydın
Phase 2
“Long did I build you, oh house! With each memory I carried stones.’’ Maison de Vent, Louis Guillaume
taken from the book ‘The Poetics of Space’
Reference: from the Earth/ Body Works; Flowers on Body, 1973, Ana Mendieta
Phase 3
“Our architecture has no physical ground plan, but a psychich one. Walls no longer exist. Our spaces are pulsating balloons. Our heartbeat becomes space; our face is the façade’’ Coop Himmelblau, 1968 Reference: Untitled from the series ‘Siluetas’, Ana Mendieta
Phase 4
body against objects
ARCHITECTURE IS DEFINED SPACE!
Phase 5
Reference: Self Burial, Keith Arnatt
Phase 6
TEXTURES TEXTURES TEXTURES
Phase 1
Reference: A Lİİine Made by Walking, 1967, Richard Long
TRACES
TEXTURES
SKINS MEASURING WITH BODY 1: BODY AGAINST_ NATURE/ SPACE MEASURING WITH BODY 2: BODY AGAINST_ OBJECTS HOME 1: FORM AND HOME HOME 2: LIVING WITH A TREE
a HOME is A NEST in the FOREST.