Who Put This Machine Here? by Nick Rebstadt

T TH CHI

HO THIS HINE

PLORING THE MECHANICS OF NTERIOR SPACE

WHO PUT THIS MACHINE HERE? A THESIS EXPLORING THE MECHANICS OF INTERIOR SPACE

NICK REBSTADT

INTERIOR DESIGN STUDIO SEVEN, RMIT, SEMESTER ONE, 2012

introduction ‘All art is now conceptual, defined by its stance in relation to other art and its place in the market’ 1 Read: All design is now conceptual, defined by its stance in relation to other design and the site. Who Put This Machine Here? explores the interior and the design(er). What are aspects of the Interior that make up an ‘Interior Experience’? I begin with the concept that an Interior is made up of a set of mechanical relations – passing over the obvious link with a physical ‘machine’ – my concept of a ‘machine’ is a set of relationships that occur at any one time within a space – the term as how I use it is loaded, referring Deleuze & Guattari and to a lesser extent, Marx – but not dominated by them. Whether encountered or recognised by the individual or not, machines are still apparent and inform the space. They have the potential to define the ‘interior’ from space, given that an Interior is more than the sum of its parts. I explore how an interior can perhaps be ‘designed’ through a manipulation and documentation of these mechanical relationships, and the creation of new chains of them. The projects of the thesis have been roughly divided up into chapters that are not chronological, although are informed by a logical progression of discovery over the semester. I see the body work as a whole, a web of inter-related ideas and carving it up is problematic, I have never the less, grouped the projects and writings into a few sets of ‘ideas’ that orbit around the core thesis idea. This way, I hope to begin exploring the milieu within its relation to the production of Interior Space. Enjoy.

CONTENTS Thesis Abstract: Who Put This Machine Here?

The ‘Expanded Site’ The Dialogue between the subject and the system, the system and the subject — Site is Important Richmond & The Experience of Moving The ‘Expanded Site’ or Being a Deleuzer and How That Can be Liberating

9 11 12 16

Narratives & Territories in Interior Spaces The process — and importance — of diagramming the narrative of spatial inhabitation Do They Like The Way Their Space Looks? Narrative Maps Open Office

25 26 34

I Hear You Curating the ‘Expanded Site’ State Library Audioscape Framing Chaos

41 43 45

Blasting the System Subversion & Exploitation as Tactics for Understanding the Machine Intervention — Augmentation NGV Project Map NGV Guides

Designer - Mechanic — Audience — Apparatus Do I Need an Apprenticeship to Become a Mechanic? Designer — Mechanic I Felt Like... What Was That? A Transcript of the Conversation Afterwards

53 56 58 71 72 73 74 77

I Gave Myself an Autopsy A Sign of Closure? Bibilography

Endnotes

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE CONSIDER THE INTERIOR AS A SET OF MECHANICAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SYSTEMS THAT CAN GENERATE EXPERIENCE? WHAT THEN, ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SITE AS A ‘SPACE’ AND THE INTERIOR AS A ‘DESIGN[ER]’? A fundamental aspect of Interior Design is the production and construction of ‘experiences’. This thesis explores the idea that an interior is made up of a set of ‘machines’ – A machine being a set of automated relationships that occur within a space. How these interact with each other, are assembled – or ‘designed’ – form an experience. The body of research will examine the relational with respect to the systematic. It is this relationship – how we inhabit these mechanical systems – which I propose, is a way of understanding the interior. The research will be broken into initially two parts: the examination, definition and mapping of these relationships, how they occur, coupled with the exploration of how these spatial machines could be tweaked or inserted into existing spatial contexts to generate new experiences and interior spaces.

7 7

The site itself began to speak of forces beyond its physical barriers, of political, social and A SYSTEMATIC UNDERSTANDING OF SPACE

ephemeral characters that began to perform in front of me. Phones AN UNDERSTANDING OF SYSTEMATIC SPACE

rang, iPods formed bonds with strangers. Intimate moments within THE ‘EXPANDED SITE’

the performance on the platform suggested encounters that are acknowledged but never taken further. 9

Mapping of people or ‘Material Flows’ of crowds that affect the space 10

site is important The first explorations in the thesis involved defining what I was interested in in relation to the ‘site’ as a concept. Initially, I was interested in the ‘ecology’ of space, that is, how the relationships within a space – for example the cold and violently windy Wye River Beach – informed my overall experience of that site. The wind, pushing me back as I forcefully made my way to the water’s edge, combined with the water itself lifting up the body of the ocean into a thick mist, which in turn blew over my head and into the bush, culminated into what I understood as a ‘poetic experience’. Given that my Wye River miniproject was a dérive, I was open to the way the space was immediately behaving around me. Random elements were coming together to affect my experience of a site – these elements made the site. Returning to Melbourne, I began to explore the way in which elements of a site might inform the experience we might have of it. The result was a site analysis of Richmond Railway Station, through the mediums of film stills, illustrations and diagrams displaying the aspects of the experience. What was fascinating about the simple task of commuting is how, Richmond as a geographic, physical site is only the base of the experience – commuters come together and form relationships with each other because they are forced into the same train by an abstract timetable system that enforces a kind of intimate encounters within the set of relations. The station is a non-place, not simply because it is a transitory point and commuters are reduced to things similar to cattle, but because the individuals within the site are not entirely ‘in’ the site. External elements largely augment their experience: iPods, iPhones, the point-to-point rush of commuting, the chaotic avoidance of eye contact. These are forces that are part of the site, yet are not built into the walls – and are the primary experience of the site. Designers traditionally acknowledge them in terms of traffic and flow, the poet, the photographer, the flâneur see them as the effects of the site. The production of film stills, illustrations and diagrams allow a conversation between the affects of the site, both poetic (intimacy, performance) and pragmatic (commuting, timetable systems). This allows the designer to see the intersection between the elements of the site that formulate the experience. Chains of conventions converge to create a site experience. In this way, the project explores ways in which we might come to have an ‘experience’.

The ‘Expanded Site’ or Being a Deleuzer & How That Can Be Liberating The ‘Expanded Site’ is something that can be defined as a site and a set of relations that affect the site, however are not necessarily primarily of the site. They form ecology, a ‘mechanic ecology’. Deleuze and Guattari define this as a Rhizome. They define a rhizome as something that ‘connects any point to any other point’2 and possibly most importantly, ever changing. This is significant when applied to Interior Design, because it suggests that there is no hierarchy within a space, the abolition of a hierarchy is at first a confronting idea – no control – but it also has the potential to be liberating because the potentials of a site and the way that we as ‘designer’ could engage with it essentially become boundless. In Where Art Belongs Chris Kraus uses American Apparel to explore how a companies have integrated their output and identity into their very existence. American Apparel recognises the ways in which drawing on and creating culture is enriching to the brand itself, the company is more than a business, with its production of zines, sapping of the creativity of its employees and gallery-like window displays and merchandising, it becomes a generator of culture, a generator of lifestyle, embedded in the very process of creativity, not strictly confined by either site nor commerce. ‘As an artwork, it is breathtakingly brilliant in ambition and scope.’3 Kraus explores the production and marketing of contemporary art in relation to other corporate ventures – as companies and artists become indistinguishable between their creative production and the way they market their brands, position their stores/studios and produce their products, the brand itself essentially becomes a machine – a rhizome that has multiple entry and exit points, flows and ruptures between the elements that make up the whole, and how it then begins to integrate into the world outside (strictly speaking) consumer capitalist relations. When we encounter the brand, we encounter so much more – the production of something entirely unique – experience itself. Designed with finesse.

Previous Pages: Intimate moments, Richmond Next Pages: Image of Passing Landscape, Near Richmond 16

Mapping of Systematic Influences in Richmond Station 17

In the case of Richmond, there are thousands of variables that are coming together at once to generate the experience of moving through that space. This is where the importance of maps, diagrams, illustrations, and site-writing as tools of documentation and exploration begin to become apparent. A site is subjective, or rather an objective thing defined by countless subjectivities, and as such purely pragmatic ways of analysis are not adequate. A designer needs to look beyond the ‘facts’ and begin to consider the poetics of a space – this is nothing revolutionary – however, these ‘poetics’ need to be reconciled with the abstract terminology and ‘objective’ elements that make up a space – it is the intersection of these that formulates an experience in terms of the interior as ‘machine’. There is no oneentry point, rather a multiple ways of navigating the expanded site. Documentation such as photography, illustration, diagramming and writing can be used viewed as a navigation tool or ‘map’ from which we can formulate interiors and understand how the ‘Expanded Site’ might manifest itself, and reveal how the individual might inhabit or begin to inhabit spaces.

Platform Performance, Flinders Street 20

Platform Performance, Richmond 21

NARRATIVES

What is the compromise between &

architecture, the inhabitant’s TERRITORIES

demands, and their own personal routine?

How then, does this – their INTERIOR SPACES

system – manifest itself? How do they encounter and relate to their space? 23

Do they like the way their space looks? ‘The Dancer combines with the floor to compose a machine under the perilous conditions of love and death… We do not start from the a metaphorical usage of the word machine, but from an (confused) hypothesis’ 4 The inhabitant is part of a spatial machine. The visitor is part of that spatial machine. They live in the space and are exposed to and are part of the mechanics of the space. They both inhabit an existing set of relationships – the domestic house, the office – and they then create their own relationships, or ‘inhabit’ the space – what their routine is, how their desk relates to the rest of the office, etc. The following set of projects explores the way that the inhabitant informs site and the way in which the site informs inhabitant to produce a space. There is ebb and flow within these spaces, a series of communicative elements that form the make-up of the space. An exploration of them is necessary to begin to understand the way in which spatial mechanics take form. What is being explored in this area is a methodology of examining the expanded site as it relates to the individual, that is, how the individual embodies the site. The domestic space is different from other typologies because of the high level of intimacy involved in living. The home is an intimate, but not private space; elements from the exterior begin to infiltrate the way in which we carry out our day-to-day lives. For example, if you lives in a share house, or you send a text message from bed – there is a constant balance between intimacy and exposure that informs how you become parts of your own machines. What are the subjectivities that dictate the way in which an occupant inhabits the space? The following is as much an investigation into the way in which a designer (myself ) might go about collecting information as much as it is an investigation into site. Sheltering Systems explored this process. Conducted in the bedroom of friend as part of a study on the way she lives, it qualitatively explored her routine and the relationships that she had spatially embodied. Collecting this information is an arduous process: it required me, as ‘designer’, to meet with the subject (in a design situation ‘client’) and begin a conversation with them about every aspect of the space: it was not simply observational, but also a hands on research tactic. From

Schematic Sketches of the Bedroom 25

there, information was layered and collated into multiple diagrams, maps and notes that could be overlayed onto each other to form and compare the relationships. The information in this raw form is the true data that makes up the documentation of the spatial machine. The question was then, how is this information then made palatable? How can it be made useful? The Narrative Mappings were essentially a documentation of the ‘territories’ and ‘elements’ of inhabitation, within the subject’s bedroom overlayed with documentation as to why these spaces were occupied. To begin to transcend the notion of the plan and mapping with a series of qualitative information that would otherwise be left out of the image. The inhabitant is a component of the machine and cannot be removed from it, so naturally to them, what they do is of course ‘normal’ and elementary. The Maps began to break up the elements of the machine into a series of abstract forms, each giving a fragment of the overall relationship, almost a portrait in diagrammatic plan. From there, the narrative fragments were overlayed and compiled into a single image. This image began to speak of occupational intensities within the space, spaces within the space that spoke of intersection or overlapping of areas. The diagram suggested a series of relationships that explored the way these elements related to each other. The image took on the language of topography – the drawings then consequently moved from a two-dimensional plane to the three dimensions of model making. A series of abstract ‘topographic’ models were produced that explored the moments of intensity more spatially. By using models (realistically a photograph of the model) as a medium I was able to ‘get inside’ the forms, so to speak and explore new ways of defining the machine. The results were rather abstract, initially on purpose, as the more abstracted I made them, it was hoped that they would suggest a new step in the process, but rather, became an abstracted representational tool.

Narrative Map: Sleeping Zone 26

Narrative Map: Lesiure Area 27

The overlay of ‘zones’ begins to speak about the intensities of occupation 28

Model build up of ‘zones’ 29

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Topographicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; models that represent intensities of inhabitation 30

open office Open Office was the extension of the Sheltering Systems project. Open Office engaged with the idea of territories that formed mechanical relationships within spaces, as with Sheltering Systems, the only difference being the move towards a more exposed and collaborative environment. The company itself was a small advertising agency in South Melbourne. The method was similar in the sense that as a designer I engaged with the site and sat in and watched the dynamics within the office – the only difference being I was only able to speak to my contact – this limited the relationship that I had with the others that used the space.

“‘One’s identity is only understood in terms of what one produces?’ ‘Yes exactly…We work for ourselves, we have to create ourselves and our identity.’ ‘you have to produce yourself and producing yourself is a key part of current capitalist relations.’” 5 The nature of the company being an advertising agency, there were already a strong and conscious set of relations at play within the site before I was received. I was not there ‘as designer’ or ‘objective observer’ but rather I became part of the machine itself. I was given the role of a quasi-client-come-freelance-agent. I began to explore the whole office as a succinct, well-oiled machine from within subjectivity. As I entered the space, I was greeted, not by a receptionist, but a disused lounge area filled with carefully chosen iconic modernist furniture – most of the office activity came from the other corner of the office – the lounge played a purely symbolic role. After a brief but informative tour of the office by my contact, I was given a desk under the watchful eye of the General Manager; I began to document the space in plan. Every-sooften I would be interrupted by a friendly reminder of the ‘type’ of company I had become a part of. I was given folios and newsletters to view while I watched the employees and managers of the company do their thing. What came out of it was a series of power relationships that reared their head based on the position of desks within the office space, essentially interior manifestations of the corporate machine. The machine was not simply an ‘open plan’ but rather worked in a

Area Dominated by Natural Light

Director Accounts

Creative Director Artistic Director

Freelance Desk

Gener Graphic Designer

Graphic Designer

Web Designer

Lounge Area

Web Designer

Entrance 36

Photocopier

ral Manager Restrooms

Photocopier

Office Kitchen

Coat Rack Area Dominated by Artificial Light

Power Relations, Office Activity 37 & Light Relationships Diagram

Photocopier

General Manager

General Manager Accounts Accounts

Accounts

Freelance Desk

ve or

Web Designer

Graphic Designer

Web Designer

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Artistic Director

Lounge Area

Office Kitchen

Artistic Director Creative Director

Photocopier

Web Designer

Graphic Designer

Director Restrooms

Web Designer

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Lounge Area

Coat Rack Area Dominated by Artificial Light

Entrance

Lounge Area

Accounts

tive ctor Web Designer

Photocopier

Coat Rack

Power Relations, Office Activity & Light Relationships Diagram Office Reshuffle 02

Area by A

Entrance

Kitchen

Accounts

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Power Relations, Office Activity & Light Relationships Diagram Office Reshuffle 04

Entrance

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Power Relatio & Light Relat Office Reshuffl

similar way to how I’d imagine a Panopticon would. Control and efficiency was enforced through surveillance under the democratic connotations that ‘open plan’ suggests. Open plan, line the living space is symbolic. I noticed that much of the activity or movement occurred between the worker’s desks and the bathroom/kitchenette that was out of the panoptic control of management. Although these are judgements based on my own subjectivity within the machine – as a centre-left student. For a worker, it is not simply a matter of simply ‘inhabiting’ the space as it is in a domestic space, the worker needs to perform a role that is defined under the relationship they have with the corporate structure – which is an omnipresent machine. This then enforces the way they engage with the machine. This subjectivity informs the workings of the machine within the office. This is an important distinction to make because the emphasis then shifts to the power relations at play within the space and how the foreign body – myself – encounters them. The resulting diagrams explore the power relationships in respect to the office space, but also become propositional. I explored the possibility of what the machine could be like if the management positions were swapped and how the introduction of external elements could change the dynamics. This methodology as an experiment became problematic because the diagrams began showing abstracted and fictional relationships that were not relevant to the office site. Interestingly, this type of propositional mapping is not necessarily a reliable base from which to design from, because they are not based in the ‘real’.

Artistic Director

Freelance Desk

Graphic Designer

Web Designer

Graphic Designer

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Creative Director

General Director Manager

Freelance Desk

Accounts Lounge Area

ocopier

Accounts

‘Chaos here may be understood not as absolute disorder but rather as a plethora of orders, CURATING THE EXPANDED SITE

forms, wills – forces that cannot be distinguished or differentiated from each other…’ 6

state library audio experience I HEAR YOU I Hear You was an audio experience using the field recordings that were made by a creek in Wye River, and formed a soundscape, which guided the individual from a central point in the building through the space, into the LaTrobe Reading Room, and to a particular article in a book. The book is the Meanjin Journal and the article was an essay called Design and Solitude. As the user opens the book to a page with a house precariously balancing on the edge of a cliff with a rough sea below, a series of sounds begin playing of a creek, that begin to create an experience that moves beyond the site of the State Library. The proposition aimed to use the systems within the existing site and create a new experience by creating encounters with particular aspects of the systems that are in the library. By using augmentation to create a spatial hierarchy and ‘frame’ spaces, I am creating Interior experiences that are built on engagements within existing spaces. In this situation, the audio layering omits and includes certain aspects of the State Library’s environment. There is an issue with the timing of the piece, in the sense that the user might become out of sync with the soundscape, through walking at a slower pace etc. However, I have slowed the ‘steps’ down to accommodate for slower walking paces. That situation regardless, I feel could lead to similar results.

framing chaos ‘Chaos here may be understood not as absolute disorder but rather as a plethora of orders, forms, wills – forces that cannot be distinguished or differentiated from each other…’ 6 Elizabeth Grosz argues in Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth that designers and practitioners of the ‘spatial arts’ (she refers to Architecture, and Interior Design by extension) is to ‘frame’ chaos and consequently create sensation.7 This was what the State Library Audio Augmentation aimed to do – and achieved. The understanding of an Interior space as a set of mechanical relationships allows the designer to think of the ‘frame’ not in terms of the architecture itself, but rather the machines and spatial systems that operate within the space and how they can then be drawn together to form an ‘intensity’ and create ‘sensation’ in this case through embodied experience. It is not surprising, that Grosz’s theoretical boners for Deleuze and Guattari, liberate the designer in a similar way – their concept of a Body without Organs (BwO) allows the freedom of the designer through the freedom of the individual.8 For designers, the BwO presented a model in which the design has the potential to become free from the physical and begin to play in the realm of how the individual – now free from an Oedipal lack – might interpret the spaces around them. Desire becomes a program,9 a frame from which

to inhabit. The Interior, then by its very nature becomes mediated. This then suggests dynamism, a movement through space, which is never static, but always becoming. The audioguide project is one such strategy in the creation of an interior experience. It meshes with the mechanics apparent within the site and generates a new way of engaging with – and perceiving – the State Library of Victoria. A framed ‘sensation’ can be a dynamic movement or encounter within space. This idea is liberating in terms of Interior Design because it frees the designer from viewing the discipline as something that can only manifest itself exclusively within the medium of concrete, three-dimensional space. This is nothing new – ‘hyperreality’ is now taken for granted, and the discourse has moved from what is real or concrete, to the possibilities this can offer. Although, what is new are the possibilities that this has to generate new interiors. What then become the possibilities when we no longer need to consider the concrete (both figuratively and literally) in design? It becomes a sensation, an embodied ‘experience’ within the site framed by the designer.

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State Library Systems Before

Systems Analysis: Audio Augmentation Project

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BLASTING THE SYSTEM —

‘You can be fun. You probably SUBVERSION & EXPLOITATION

enjoy life. But you’ve got some AS TACTICS OF UNDERSTANDING THE MACHINE

bad habits. You’re too fond of what you’ve been told to be fond of.’ 10

Desired Relationships

INTERVENTION — AUGMANTATION There is a difference, between the terms ‘augmentation’ and ‘intervention’. They may result in similar occurrences however, there are fundamental differences between them. Augmentation is a co-operation with the existing set of relations, to augment implies a certain level of acceptance to the original, with a shift in how we might engage them. This is not so with the tactic of ‘intervention’. An intervention is an obstruction – it revolts and defies the original relations to create something new, not totally new, as a revolt in its very essence is linked to the thing that it is revolting against. One cannot exist without the other. One is a reality, the other an ideal, a small utopian idea in the context of a larger reality. The notion of ‘revolt’ against the institution has been a string and recurrent theme within the art world practically since its inception. In particular, the DADA, Surrealist and Situationists used intervention as a tool to explore possibilities of what was new, what could be. It is in this legacy that the NGV Guide Project follows. There needs to be little or no justification to the statement that the gallery is a loaded – and controlled – site. There are countless and clear machines (spatial and otherwise) within the gallery and this project was a way of exploring them. The guide itself came about from the analysis of the site and the relationships and systems that begin to dictate the experience of the NGV. It was through an analysis of both the gallery as a concept and the NGV itself, “bodystorming” the site, and a mapping of these relations that I developed the concept of the guide. An overall map of particular typologies of machine ‘relationships’ was developed (Architectural, Desired, Environmental, etc.) with an overlay of how the guide manipulated and played with these machine typologies to display the NGV in terms of the concept of the expanded site. The guide operated on the existing grid system that the institution uses as a way finding device and hijacked its intention. It asks a series of unrelated and arbitrary questions about art that then form coordinates that correspond to points on the existing map – which are describes as highlights of the NGV. Those points form the path of the tour that the individual will then undertake. The guide subverts and intervenes on the hierarchy and social conventions of the space. It forms a kind of revolutionary machine or program that is executed within space and generates a new experience based on the way that we might view and understand art.

In theory the guide works, however, when put into practice, the guide failed to lead the individuals around as expected. This was not because of the guide, but rather the individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comprehension of the map that had been appropriated from the NGV. The interesting thing about the failure of the guide in its idealistic tiny revolution was the way in which it exposed the gallery machine completely. Intervention and obstruction of the normal flows of the mechanics of the space â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a disruption of how you would perceive, perform and understand your role or yourself as part of the machine as a research tactic exposed the way in which the space operates, the politics, hierarchy and systemic influences on that space. In particular, it exposed the class, the elitism and the way that an exhibition and collection is structured at the NGV to flow thematically. An intervention activity looks at failure in the face â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it literally has to combat everything in order to work, therefore, striding towards a utopian way of experiencing space, independent yet related to the expanded site, we can begin to understand the it in ways that are not immediately apparent.

Desired Relationships

Environmental Relationships

Architectural Relationships

Socio- Behavioural Relationships

NGV Guide Site Analysis & Project Map 56

Once realising that there was no real narrative, and letting go of any anticipation they had of something happening, they became selfDESIGNER

reflexive. Sounds moved from MECHANIC

being ‘what they were’ to fusing AUDIENCE

with their minds. Both felt a APPARATUS

kind of intimacy – they began to sound like heartbeats aiding their emotive responses. 71

DESIGNER — MECHANIC This part of the thesis begins to explore context. The central element of this chapter is ‘Can I build an Assemblage and Machine from scratch?’ ‘What does that take?’ ‘How prescriptive can the designer be in generating a space, an experience?’ I began with attempting to re-create a space using signifieds –a chain of signifieds suggests a ‘path’ for a machine to occupy by association. At least that was the theory. In the construction of the situations, careful consideration was given to both the process and the way in which the spaces were approached and used. They needed to initially be personal to a certain extent to provoke a ‘natural response’ so as to allow for an authentic experience of that space.

i felt like I Felt Like was the first situation that was constructed. The intention was to reconstruct the mechanics of my personal experience when conducting a field recording on a dérive in the streets of Berlin. The recording was originally a site documentation. The individuals were not told what was going to happen, they were simply asked to participate and appear at the site at a particular time as a favour. When the participants arrived at the site – each individually – they were greeted with a dark room and were invited to lie down on a table, with the slight cold breeze of the air vent blowing on them, intended to mimic the breeze on my face at the time and simply listen. Once realising that there was no real narrative, and letting go of any anticipation they had of expecting something to happen, they became self-reflexive on different points. After a while, the sounds began to become abstracted. They moved from being ‘what they were’ to being a mesh with the mind of the person. Both felt a kind of intimacy with the sounds – in the sense that they began to sound like heartbeats – that added to the emotive and in one case empathetic, response. They both stated that it was the rhythm and the repetitive, calming qualities of the sounds that did this. This was, in a way a successful recreation of the mechanics of the space. There were enough signifiers to provoke an understanding of the mechanics I was attempting to recreate, however, with such things, the subjectivity of the individual informed their interpretation of the space. The only issue that was apparent was the passivity of the subject. They were essentially consuming the spatial machine, and at the most were only a ghost within it if we look at it in terms of the recreation of the space, however, as participants within the installation, they were active components of the scenario design. What the project brought up in relation to the machine is the differences and issues in the construction and representation of a spatial experience throughout the construction of a scenario.

what was that? What Was That? Was a project that was developed from I Felt Like, and explored a scenario in terms of expanding the ways in which I could generate a set of mechanics amongst a group. This time an abstract video that interpreted the mood of the site documentation was made. There was one point in the film – a moment of suspense in the soundscape – that the film and the sounds aligned to produce a single image of context. That moment was only available to those in the privileged positions. It began with a similar scenario as I Felt Like, the participants – except one – had no idea what was going to happen, they simply had to appear at a certain time at the site. The relationships I had begun to set up were enforced by a set number of seats and instructions to remain seated during the performance. Based on the map of power relations in the Open Office project. The seats were placed in such a way that some had access to both the visual and audio and others only the audio. The seats were also placed within the space so that they were relative distances from each other and facing or not facing each other. As the performance played, the participants began talking amongst themselves, describing what was going on to the others that they were facing. Those in the ‘privileged’ positions became mediators of the experience to those who were not able to see the images. This is important because the experience was designed to create a machine of communication through the privileging and non-privileging of individuals. The difference between this and I Felt Like was that the scenario became a mechanism from which a social machine was formed. By building up a relationship amongst the people with a common ground of the media that they were interpreting, I was in a way able to set up a small machine that the flow of information was the centre. With the flow of information, comes the way in which this information is interpreted and communicated spatially. The relations begin to take on a life of their own and that becomes exciting because new things are coming off the original assemblage.

a transcript of the conversation afterwards

Myself Phoebe Zoe Krystal Danah

Myself: So, what did you think it was? Krystal: At first I though it was a wabble board, and someone wearing wooden heels. Okay Danah: I guess the answers are really different between Phoebe and I and then Zoe and Krystal because we could see and you guys couldn’t. Did you put an emphasis on the visual or the sound? Phoebe: Well I described the visual but it was definitely the sound that informed what you saw, because what you saw wasn’t particularly descriptive. Yeah Zoe: But then you were only describing the visual because that’s what we couldn’t see. Yeah. So if you were describing to someone else then you might describe the audio as well. Yeah, I thought it was a soundscape. As in, you walked a journey and recorded – a kind of inside-outside. What about the ‘whoomp’? I kind of thought that might be wind or air or something as you took steps. And then there were some trees. I saw someone. You could see a figure at one point in the visual. Yeah, I worked very hard to get that figure. [laughs] Someone came and spoke to you. Which I guess kind of a… Climax? Okay

Left & Following Pages: Images from thwe video played in the installation 79

Major Event... Visual clarity and auditory clarity. Yeah. Because the audio and the visual blurred and became clearer. But Then there was also the water bit – the sounds of the skateboard – I thought it was water. It sounded like someone was under water. Yeah it did. Did you make anything out in the video? Did you feel that it was filming anything in particular? I don’t know, there was bars of light – what was white – was so confusing. At one point I though it was filming trees, or maybe steps – the highlight or shadow of steps. And then the figure. Otherwise I don’t think I made anything out really… You could have been walking through the city or through a train station where those lights are evenly placed but as you move through the space they move towards you, and so there was the white flashes that were coming through the screen. Yeah, coming down, like an escalator. It was definitely very movement based. Yeah And Repetition? It was different every time, It was natural, not artificial repetition. Yeah. You [Zoe] were frustrated, because you couldn’t see Well, yes, also because I’d heard the track before, and I sort of knew what the track was but then I kept remembering what I thought it was the first time. I was quite caught up in that. Okay.

I thought it was heartbeats last time… Well there were heartbeats at one point, surely? It sounded like it was… All I received was: ‘Ahh, it’s just black and white blobs again’ ‘What is it now Danah?’ ‘Just White blobs again’ [Laughs] The conversation dulled towards the end when you got sick of describing black and white blobs… I guess it was quite long. That’s the other thing I was remembering from last time and I thought ‘Wow, this is going on for a very long time’ and is that just because I was lying on the table last time and was falling asleep? Well Danah said she lost the anticipation to fond out what it was, she said that ‘I can just accept this now’ Yeah. I think because there isn’t that climax. That ‘peak’... That wave, that explosion… After a while you just kind of accept that it’s just a kind of monotonous thing rather than going somewhere in particular. Once you accepted it was a monotonous thing, was the focus on the sounds or did your attention wander? I was interested in how you communicated amongst yourselves, in terms of how you disseminated the information amongst yourselves. Because the way I see it is that I’m presenting you ‘stimulus’ – although I don’t like using that terminology… Well we’re using the word climax, we might as well use the word stimulus…

[Laughs] I’m putting some of you in areas of privilege, [points to Phoebe and Danah] and some of you in areas that aren’t privileged [points to Krystal and Zoe]. Well, it’s really funny then because I felt that I was privileged that I could see but because I was further away, it was harder to express what it was. I could have been experiencing something else from over there. Zoe couldn’t see anything, I could see flickers in my peripheral. I could see at one stage that it was flickering in the top corner. I really really want to see it I can see all these activities going on, but I can’t really see what’s happening. Whereas Zoe didn’t really have that at all. Well, I did sort of, I had a bit of flickering. It was frustrating. And because it was frustrating, after a point you kind of… Get a bit bored? Yeah! Exactly, because I can’t be shown it, so therefore I’m just going to ignore it. You could have got up and turned around? I could of, but then… You’d alter the experiment.. Was our questioning of the experiment in any way part of the experiment? Um, it’s… At one point I really wanted to move, even if it was turning around so I couldn’t see, I wanted to experience that.. Because it got to a point where it wasn’t going to change, so, can I change how I’m experiencing this? Can I move the chair? Can I get out of the chair?

At one point I thought if there were other chairs – even if they were placed awkwardly, can I go and try those experiences out? That’s interesting. The way I set it up obviously was intentional, so that some of you would be able to see, and some of you would not be able to see and based on your location towards the screen that was also intentional, I also placed the chairs so that you could [points at Danah] see everything but could still communicate. Whereas I couldn’t really communicate with them. Interesting that we had two separate conversations. Because that’s who we were facing. So you have to have a visual in order to talk to someone. It almost felt a bit forced didn’t it? Sitting at this angle, because we are so close it feels like we kind of have to communicate. I sort of felt it was a bit forced. It sort of reminds me of sitting on the train, when you’re sitting right there and there’s about five other people sitting next to you, facing you right there… Yeah. You can look but you can’t look. You make eye contact with pretty much anyone on the train at some point, and you so desperately don’t want to.. And you do and then make eye contact with someone in the reflection! [Laughs] I could see the flickering enough to know that what you [looks at Phoebe] were talking about was right… I did describe boobs at one point and that wasn’t there… That’s interesting though, because you described trees as well towards the end – and I didn’t even notice that until you pointed it out. So what actually was it?

I’ll show you! I’ll explain how I set it up first: I did a site analysis last week of an open plan office, and I based the position of chairs on the power structure of the office. Am I the boss? Was Danah the boss? Danah was the General Manager, Krystal was the boss. I could only see her, but she could see everyone. Phoebe was the Artistic Director, and Zoe the Creative Director So the Creative Director can see, but the Artistic Director can’t? Yep. Most of the office activity was directly behind the Artistic and Creative Directors, and the Director [boss] was removed. So I was interested in reconstructing the set of power relations based on the privilege of viewing to see what would happen. So she [points at Danah] was my eyes. Did I fail? You did! [laughs] [shows them the video] Where is this? Exhibition Gardens. And the recording is a Field Recording from Berlin, and a recording from the train that I had stitched together. So that moment where the blobs turned into a person was completely contrived. That was the only thing that located any kind of information. I was interested in whether or not you’d pick it up or whether the relationship between you that was going on were more interested in communicating with the other people. I think I yelled out straight away: ‘There’s a Person!’ But I didn’t describe any information about it.

Can I see the person? I still have this anticipation to see what’s going on. What is that sound? Wind. It kind of sounds like a heartbeat. I kind of thought that it was really funny that the first thing I started describing was the sound to the people that couldn’t see. Yeah, I could hear Danah! You know that you’re having the full experience and you know that other people are not, and so you try to recreate that for them. Because I couldn’t see, and Danah was my eyes, I was really scared when I heard about the person – it was horror movie like! So there was suspense? Yeah I was scared. When I was recording the person scared the shit out of me because they popped out in front of me in a dark street.

the conversation drifts to a different topic

THE

DESIGNER

I gave myself an autopsy IN THE MACHINE

& THE MACHINE

i gave myself an autopsy ‘the space of writing is to be ranged over, not pierced; writing ceaselessly posits meaning ceaselessly to evaporate it, carrying out a systematic exemption of meaning.’ 11 An autopsy, by its very nature defines a sense of closure – an understanding of the physiology of the corpse. From the beginning there has been an investigation into what makes up a site – a space is more than the sum of its parts, why? The thesis explored a way of looking, working and thinking about a site and space, and it’s relationship to the designer-individual, and complications of displaying subjectivities ‘objectively’. This opens up a plethora of possibilities for the design[er] when considering the site as a set of mechanical relations it is liberated from the paradigm of concrete space, because an interior has a set of machines – poetic and pragmatic – working within it, through it, and outside it. It’s continually in a state of becoming, ever changing – a fleeting instance, a small moment in larger set of mechanical relationships. The emphasis is shifted to the individual – how they see or inhabit or pass through a space, and how the designer can facilitate that. The relationship between the two is what’s important. Mechanical and systematic infiltrations of space make spatial experiences, embedding themselves ever deeper into what’s there, creating more machines, more experiences. To observe a machine is, in a perverse way, to become part of one – we are part of them; we are parts of the spaces that we inhabit, we pass through. Machines offer a way of seeing space that involves us and most other things. The cycle goes on, and the life of the site is jump-started once again.

Previous Pages: Collage response to Wye River, week 1 Left: Image of landscape from a moving train at night, week 2 91

Bibliography Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. United Kingdom: Fontana Press, 1977. Bourriaud, Nicolas. “Relational Form.” Translated by Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods. In Relational Aesthetics. France: les presses du réel, 2002. ———. “Space-Time Exchange Factors.” Translated by Simon Pleasance and Fronza Woods. In Relational Aesthetics. France: les presses du réel, 2002. Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. Careri, Francesco. “Land Walk.” Translated by Steve Piccolo and Paul Hammond. In Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice, edited by Daniela Colafranceschi. Spain: Gustavo Gili, 2009. Certeau, Michel de. The Practice of Everyday Life [in French]. Translated by Steven Rendall. United States: University of California Press, 1984. Deleuze, Gilles , and Félix Guattari. “Introduction: Rhizome.” In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. ———. “November 28, 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?”. Chap. 6 In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. “What Is an Assemblage?” Translated by Dana Polan. Chap. Ch. 9 In Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. 81-88. United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Etherington, Rose. “Vendôme by Kram/Weisshaar.” DeZeen Magazine, http://www.dezeen.com/2008/04/12/ vendome-by-kramweisshaar/.

Fletcher, Annie , Charles Esche, Steven ten Thije, and Hadas Zemer. “An inside Conversation About Role-Playing in the Museum: Annie Fletcher Interviews Charles Esche, Steven Ten Thije and Hadas Zemer About Play Van Abbe 4.”. The Exorcist 2 (2011): 19-21. Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces.” Diacritics 16, no. 1 (Spring, 1986): 22-27. Genet, Jean. “Un Chant D’amour.” 25:22. France, 1950. Grosz, Elizabeth. “Chaos. Cosmos, Territiory, Architecture.” Chap. 1 In Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Guattari, Félix. “Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines.” Translated by Robert Hurley. In Chaosophy, edited by Sylvère Lotringer. 119-50. United States: Semiotext(e), 1995. Jones, Ronald. “Are You Experienced?: How Designers Are Adopting the Strategies of Conceptual Art.” Frieze, no. 120, Jan-Feb (2009). Kester, Grant. “Community and Communicability.” Chap. 5 In Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art. 152-91. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. Kram, Reed, and Clemens Weisshaar. “Vendôme.” KRAM/ WEISSHAAR, http://www.kramweisshaar.com/projects/ vendome.html - image-3. Kraus, Chris. “Indelible Video.” In Where Art Belongs. 119-39. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2011. Modena, Letizia. Italo Calvino’s Architecture of Lightness : The Utopian Imagination in an Age of Urban Crisis. Hoboken: Routledge, 2011. http://RMIT.eblib.com.au/ patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=692325.

Myles, Eileen. “Iceland.” Chap. 1 In The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art. 13-49. United States: Semiotext(e), 2009. Raunig, Gerald. “Bicycles.” Chap. 1 In A Thousand Machines: A Concise Philosophy of the Machines as Social Movement. . 7-17. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2010. ———. “Machine Fragments.” Chap. 2 In A Thousand Machines: A Concise Philosophy of the Machine as Social Movement. 18-34. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2010. Rozik, Eli. “The “Drama” of Real Life.” Chap. 10 In The Roots of Theatre: Rethinking Ritual and Other Theories of Origin. 185-205. United States: University of Iowa Press, 2002. Schechner, Richard. “Selective Inattention: Relationship between Social and Aesthetic Drama.” Chap. 6 In Performance Theory. 211-34. United Kingdom: Routledge, 1988. Tzara, Tristan. “Twenty-Three Manifestos of the Dada Movement (1920).” Chap. 36 In 100 Artists’ Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists, edited by Alex Danchev. 166-89. London: Penguin, 2011.

ENDNOTES 1 Kraus, Chris. “Indelible Video.” In Where Art Belongs. 119-39. (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2011) p.119 2 Deleuze, Gilles , and Félix Guattari. “Introduction: Rhizome.” In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) p21 3 Kraus, Chris. “Indelible Video.” In Where Art Belongs. 119-39. (Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2011) p.117 4 Guattari, Félix. “Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines,” in Chaosophy, ed. Sylvère Lotringer (United States: Semiotext(e), 1995). p.121 5 “An inside conversation about role-playing in the museum Annie Fletcher interviews Charles Esche, Steven ten Thije and Hadas Zemer about Play Van Abbe 4” The Exorcist. (Van Abbe Museum: 2011) p19 6 Grosz, Elizabeth. “Chaos. Cosmos, Territiory, Architecture,” in Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). p.3 7 ibid.6 8 Deleuze, Gilles , and Félix Guattari. “How Do You Make Yourself a Body without Organs?”. Chap. 6 In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) p151 9 Guattari, Félix. “Balance-Sheet Program for Desiring Machines.” Chaosophy, ed. Sylvère Lotringer. (United States: Semiotext(e), 1995) p125 10 Tzara, Tristan. “Twenty-three Manifestoes of the DADA Movement” In 100 Artists’ Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists. ed. Alex Danchev (London: Penguin, 2011) p176 11 Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author” Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. (United Kingdom: Fontana Press, 1977) p147

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Thank you to all those who endure to my vagaries & relentless talking, Zoe, Phoebe, Ling책s, Krystal, Danah, Angus (for being my lab rats) & Tony, Trish, Caroline (for the thoughts & occaisional kick up the arse) 96

WH PUT MAC 100

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