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“The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun. Like the fire that cast light on the walls of the cave, the human condition is forever bound to the impressions that are received through the senses. Even if these interpretations (or, in Kantian terminology, intuitions) are an absurd misrepresentation of reality, we cannot somehow break free from the bonds of our human condition—we cannot free ourselves from phenomenal state just as the prisoners could not free themselves from their chains. If, however, we were to miraculously escape our bondage, we would find a world that we could not understand. the sun is incomprehensible for someone who has never seen it. In other words, we would encounter another “realm”, a place incomprehensible because, theoretically, it is the source of a higher reality than the one we have always known; it is the realm of pure Form, pure fact” Ferguson,
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the shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state, then paint images of his or her visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing out power from the cave walls themselves Whitley,
David
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BryanPendz re these our shadows in the cave?
Leah Wesley
Joanna Rodgers
Twenty First Century Impresions I got the impresion that you liked me, wait, no, the impresion that you hate me, no, wait, that you thought I was something so much less or wait, was it, more than I actualy am? Am I less or more than the impresions which you cast upon me, than the impresions I cast upon myself, the impresions, that are imprinted like a faux fur, Andy Warhol action, the ones that equate to something, because the impresion I got was this is my life, not yours. Unatural exploitation of self yeah, you know what I mean, the instagram, the gogle, the facebok, the twiter, the this, that, whatever, but not me, but yes me. Nature in it’s divine wisdom wil one day engulf us all and what wil be the impresion on the creatures and plants that remain? When did the impresion of humanity lose it’s unity?
Can we start over again, pure with no impresion of anything? It probably wil not involve us, of course just the light cascading with a delicate flutering among the terific yawn of day that it leaves a mark. A reminder, a briliant impresion. -
Hope
Carwile
#happy
capturing a projected impres social media. seeking to que the embodied lifestyle withi consumption of misleading nar
BryanPendz #sad
ssion of emotions through the objectified public realm of estion the motivation of expression and the genuineness of in digital platforms. intending to raise awareness of the rratives and to eradicate the impacts on the human psyche.
Vasconcelos: The FEBRUARY 7, Biblioteca Vasconcelos is a $100 million library with sawtooth windows spanning wide above floating bookshelves. It is a massive rectangular affair, longer than a football field with seven, maybe eight stories going upward. Well, stories isn’t quite the right word. More like seven or eight landing levels with bookshelves. Each level has a hallway running building-long with exit hallways to six stacked rows of books. Each of these stacks has its own landing, some of which extend out into the vacant space of the middle, some of which sit inside, but all are entirely exposed to the Vasconcelos openness. The effect is a steel pattern of boxes that hang above any dweller who walks in and looks up. What is the pattern? It’s hard to tell—but there is one. Assuredly there is one. And what does it feel like to go up into these landings? It feels like floating, floating with books, floating with the support of steel wire frames that hold up the landing, the books, the people, the stairs, the hallways, and everything else. In Biblioteca Vasoncelos, there is space everywhere, even where there are books. Especially where there are books. Libraries usually don’t do this. They do not usually give their books space. They give their space books. Because most libraries are stations of economy. They are not taking profits to
build bigger shelves or wider walls. They are trying to fit their readymade purpose with a quantity befitting. But Vasconcelos is different. It is almost an absurdity of a library, at least in comparison to your something local. It is made in grandeur. The main architect of the project, Alberto Kalach, said he wanted, “the creation of an ark, carrier of human knowledge.” And it is like a ship, an ark. At times economical with its space like a sailboat and but mostly concerned with keeping the enterprise wide. Wide enough for buoyancy. Its airiness gives it and you that feeling of floating. It has areas for seating, for public communing, and rooms for rent, but it has wide open spaces to refresh your singular existence. It is not crowded here but it cannot possibly feel empty to anyone. Not with what’s happening above them. Not with whats hanging over their heads. On the longer two sides, the building is flanked by a garden. More on the east side, where the garden is extensive, almost wild with tall plants and dirty walking paths. There’s greenery on the west side of it but less. Not far away is a mall and a huge train station. Thousands are passing through there in different stages of rush. Thousands will come through Vasconcelos but it’s not in a rush. Public spaces have their own pace.
$100
Inside though, at the train station and the mall, no one is looking up. No one is admiring–with their eyes or with the camera on their phones. The mall, like the library, dwarfs a single human in its size. But malls are not meant to dwarf, malls are meant to quarantine offinto smaller spaces, where people feel big, and wealthy, and rich. Vasconcelos is a functioning monument where almost everyone is transfixed in admiration. And if they’re not, their soul must be reliving the sublime of another time. They’re just silent about it all. Inside Vasconcelos is something like 500,000 books, stacked in their six row templates. Each is part of a steel contraption, and obviously there are hundreds of these. To get to these books on these racks is a journey. And why shouldn’t it be? Certainly each book is a journey. Why not a journey to the journey? The journey starts with stairs which hang on steel wires—a bit like hanging ladders—leading to discovery. These sit outside the books, with the words and bones in the center. This is just like us, like our bodies, or like a book with a strong spine. It’s all a collection of loose shoots, ladders, and halls but in the end it all looks abominably sturdy. The rest of it is an exercise in the un-economy of space. So much exposure. So much empty room. Why? Well, it gives the library room to
Million
Library 2019
expand. It gives the citizen a journey to get to a book. It gives the sunlight a chance to slink in through the window and land its rays somewhere. It gives so much space. That’s okay. It’s an exposed and vulnerable space and what could be more perfect. It is the great house of so much emotional exposure of its authors. There are books, like buildings, that when they bare their entirety it’s 30,000 square meters of room to maneuver in. Space is vital here. Space is books, the area around which letters are formed (think of letters chiseled away from a block of black ink the way that David was chiseled away from marble) and a book makes space in its sentences, in its flow. There’s a space between reader and book that’s obstructed by the eyes to fully engage. There’s a space when you open a book, and little spaces when you close it where the words still breath. This all leads to the beginning here. Perhaps you’ve had the question on your mind: Why do you build a $100 million library? The same reason you build a $1 million dollar library, or a $1 library in your front yard. To provide space for the communion of mind and knowledge. Here, there is space enough for an ark-full of minds— to float down the great rivers of wisdom, the seas of possibility, the deluge of everything we deserve to learn.
Eric Grant
Hey
Bryan!
Hope it’s not too late for this one. Didn’t turn out exactly how I had planned, but it’s something -- see attached. I was playing off the idea of first impressions: although your first impression of a person may only be a half-truth, it ends up having a lasting effect on the way you come to know and understand that person overall. Love this concept, excited to see the final product! JENNIFER
REDEL,
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Shimmering light falls upon the bustling streetscape. Man and cosmos dance
Landon Moore
me walking home from work when the sun was casting long shadows - that the shadows are an impression created by the play of sun and objects
I used this opportunity to channel my creative energies into revisiting my ole guitar playing and songwriting. After 4+ years of barely gazing upon, I used the therapeutic and cathartic process of guitar fingerpicking and chord musings to reflect on the impressions concept. Impressions are a connectivity to environments, states of mind, self awareness and interactions to our existence past and present. We are literally vibratory energy conduits constantly being formed and molded by creation and our living and dying experiences (literal and metaphorical). I personally chose to reflect on parenthood. The choices and intention i put on raising 2 small budding spirits in an ever challenging yet vibrant existence. How do we impress upon others? What are the most constructive processes to utilize? We use our past impressions, positive or negative, to forge a context in which we connect our experiences byway of physical and spiritual analysis. Impressions aren’t relegated to one certain mode of experience. They are ever nuanced. One might be impressed by the flicker of inspired emotion drawn from a sensory perception, or as tangible as a hug from a dying relative.
I send 4 instrumental ditties recorded on my iPhone during nap time.
with
Ezra David Darnell
scan
camera
There’s an inherent satisfaction to the feelings of connection, certainty, and belonging. One feels whole. But the sense of disconnection, uncertainty, and longing are the fertile ground for imprinting the seed that takes root and grows into the understanding that, perhaps, eventually, aloneness will provide the shade, and thus the darkness, to be aware of the light.
My thinking here is to stimulate the dinner conversation that we aren’t able to have collectively due to geographical reasons. This should be in physical form and look all cool/typeset, etc.
Q: Which impression is deepest on you: first or last? Does that change if it’s a person, place or thing? A :
Q: sion A
Is biggest/deepest impreswhat counts most? Why? :
Q:Which kind of impression do you think you can effect more? Does that worry you? A :
Q: A
Opening
shot
or
Parting
shot? :
Q: Which leaves a more lasting impression on you: Visual, Audible, something read? Has time or ‘the times’ changed that? A :
Kevin & Mikell Beechinor
Q: Can you stare at the cover and just wonder about contents or do you need to look inside? A :
Kailyn Kirby
Brendan Rodgers
Aaron Aday