Collapsing Landscape

Collapsing Landscape

Brandon Wang

Degree Seminar Advisor Jason Wood Fall 2015 RISD Architecture

landscape border cliff body bodies psyche territory system weight delicacy scale translation edge binary landscape trace phsycality turbulence gesture disorientation propagation storm extension extrapolation scaleless collapse spectacle measure gap relentlessness

Landscape is the measure between beings, operating on the cusp of the scaleless spectacle. Body is the gap between this measure, a volatile fissure expanding from atoms to galaxies, and back. The landscape is not a datum or a scaleless plane.

The body operates within its spatial relation to and (mis)aligns itself with the landscape to contest this perceived scalelessness.

One is not simply here and the other there; this distance collapses upon measuring the relentless scale. This moment of collapse is an act of atomization, eliminating its frame and inverting its imagery. Landscape is crushingly real and here, and its vast weight is irrupted from the scaleless; the body is malleable and operable, acting and (dis)orienting towards scalelessness.

Borders between become spaces within, scale transforms into performance.

The horizon is a turbulent moment defying our understanding of relativity.

The cliff towards the scaleless marks the frontier of defeat: Body enters landscape.

A spatial threshold, a code for violence. Time and physicality as omnipresent. One minute in the untethered landscape is an infinite line.

Body and Landscape Body and Body Body and Psyche Body and Line there will be blood there will be conflict there will be death there will be scale there will be landscape

Body localized as territory Territory rationalized as body (mis)translate a system weight (wait) of a system time as distance

The traverse through body and territory, two modes of performance and existence.

A gestural mark made in space through scale among landscape.

Performance across scale Translation across scale Lag across scale Act across scale Entering / interring scale

Disorientation through propagation to align with the scaleless, the landscape, the being beyond the being.

The cliff is no longer a moment, but a falling with its own inertia into collapse.

Desperately searching for something to hold onto, something recognizable and fathomable to retain its sanity, but motion prevents it.

The turbulence between body and territory contains f(r)iction. Exiting body in pursuit of the territory—immeasurable through perception alone—is an inherently slippery performance or extraction. Our scales misalign, our metrics misinterpret. Metric, performance in pursuit of territory; scale, in terms of body. Act; performance as translation, operations that act and act and act and act until the moment of Release Breakage Give

Tracing the Scaleless Extension towards origin; Collapse of weight; (Meta)physical boundaries of space; Disorientation of act; Removal of eye; Irruption of conscious.

Michael Heizer, Double Negative

Bodily gesture Territorial carving Extension of the tool

The origin is the through is the origin.

Charles and Ray Eames, Power of Ten

Chasing the horizon Landscape as atom, infinitely scalar spectacle, points of a continuum. Removal of the spectacle of the landscape to a point of no return: the cliff.

Bring the landscape into oneself, the realm of scale(less) to enter into (scale)less.

Drawing the landscape through the body.

Tracing with the eye and recording its edge behind the registration.

The existence of the landscape as a spectacle or datum is a lie; the body contests this scalelessness. The end of the horizon collapses the relentless scale between and through them. The moment of collapse is the focus, the atomizing of scale, when planets compress to atoms.

Borders between become spaces between, scale transforms into performance. The cliff becomes a turbulent moment defying the understanding of relativity.

The cliff towards the scaleless marks the frontier of defeat,

landscape

landscape

border

border

cliff

cliff

body

body

bodies

bodies

psyche

psyche

territory

territory

system

system

weight

weight

delicacy

delicacy

scale

scale

translation

translation

edge

edge

binary

binary

landscape

landscape

trace

trace

phsycality

phsycality

turbulence

turbulence

palimsest

palimsest

disorientation

disorientation

propagation

propagation

storm

storm

extension

extension

extrapolation

extrapolation

scaleless

scaleless

collapse

collapse

spectacle

spectacle

measure

measure

gap

gap

relentlessness

relentlessness

landscape border cliff body bodies psyche t e r i t or y s y s te m weight delicacy scale translation edge binary landscape t r ac e phsycality turbulence palimsest disorientation propagation storm extension extrapolation scaleles col apse spectacle measure gap relentles ness

Body enters landscape.