Fallow
reconstructed space
Projections Projections onona Landscape a Landscape jassim jassim al nashmi al - bryan nashmi mock
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bryan
mock
“Topographical inscriptions give evidence of previous enactments, but they also indicate those that are still occurring and may unfold in the future.� David Leatherbarrow
Authors of this book, Jassim Al Nashmi and Bryan Mock, document our investigation of the production of a support system for the re-occupation of an empty building set within Iowa’s industrial landscape. Within the context of a dormant seed-drying chamber in a derelict farmstead, using ethnospecific logic, we intend to make full-scale inquiries that represent our ideas of (agri)culture as a whole, as well as the intimate scale of the family farm.
“Family farming has become a consolidated social symbol that Iowans are attached to which is based on a form of independence through private farm property and its production process.” Higher demands in production led to market competition between family farmers and sunsequently, ‘successful’ farmers purchasing production ground from less successful farmers. “This economic condition has produced spatial and communal instability because it has caused frequent reconfiguration in the living space. For instance, some farmers have rented their production grounds and continue to live on their farmsteads away from public services and employment opportunities that they have become incresingly dependent on. The impact of farming development has been even more apparent whereby vacant farm sites along the various roads are a common scene.” Peter P. Goché
part 1: Reading the Landscape
The Black’s Heritage Farm is a place where the history of work and activities is seen clearly on the surfaces and objects. Walking the site reveals stories as the imagination reaches a new excitation brought on by the wonderment of these surfaces and objects. In this environment you seek to situate yourself within a context, revealed as a topographical, and thus, ephemeral story. We recognized the farm as a story telling space. Multiple iterations sought to bring these stories forth to the visitor as a means of developing a useful future for the currently derelict and fallow farmstead. These iterations tended toward a metaphorical and interpretive bend which we have since moved from. This final phase of the project superimposes stories collected from outside sources onto the stories present in the corn drying bin.
Trace Arctic white mornings in the Iowa winter the road is never ending and the earth, hard as rock gravel-rumbling wheels almost put the truck to sleep it appears, the monastery of crop. It used to be busy at this time I shut the car door, the echo quickly dies from the cold these gloves are useless sheet metal buildings, white from the sky a red pick-up truck from the 60’s is sleeping under a shallow roof and a beat-up beetle with its hood and engine ripped out is lying dead on the side of the road the hard metal doors make a rusty screech flaking paint reveals the weathered steel the color of dried blood inside the corn-drying chambers, it is quiet grated steel sheets divide top and bottom here, the corn seed sat, altogether, drying their sweat the attic is not as empty, conveyor belts, dusty ladders, pitchforks and planks of wood with protruding nails of course, the raccoons had to leave their mark traces of footsteps in the dust the spider-webs seem to have been here a while what happened here? corn seed came on the belts through that hole in the roof and the men would fill up each chamber traces of the past life thoughts linger as I leave about the world this used to be the way they used to live and the traces we leave behind.
Dawn. The sun is nearly there and the clouds don’t lie, white silence creeps between the crops and it seems time is still when a land so dead, life is not so precious where sleeping among them is freeing Freedom grows when no one is around, imagination becomes natural. Walking through the farmstead, a ghost appears staring at me, brisking by whitened eyes black and white fur it’s a husky but is it real? In a lifeless place, souls wander through the dust, a snake hisses by my feet, but it is only a chain What about the truck sleeping under the shallow roof? Or the beat-up beetle with its hood and engine ripped out lying there, without a pulse something bewilders me, at the corner of my eye there is a beige outline atop the planks of wood perfectly still, the cat might be a doll but as I get closer it disappears to the back of the shed The difference between imagined and perceived reality can be proven by psychosis; an abnormal condition of the mind involving a loss of contact with reality nothing that is perceived is purely observation but all is a morph between sense and imagination What once was a place of hard labor is now the portal between death and the afterlife Traces of the past life beg for imagination beg for the mind to wander projections of imaginations maybe more real than what is there, sleeping
Projections on the Landscape Pallete Wood Axel Light Scanner The mind is a powerful organ that is capable of seeing things that are not physically present. Imagination is the combination of memory and creativity. Memory/Knowledge plays a large role in how we interpret the things we see [known] and creativity is the act of creating new things with what we know [unkown], so essentially, imagination creates all the possibilities of how something was or how something could be. This current investigation seeks to explore phenomena of the real, the cognitively imagined, and the hallucinated, in order to understand the landscape’s breadth as a container, the imagined as the contained, and the in-between space or instrument that can create a new type of dialogue between the two. The landscape A wooden palette is made for the transportation of mass produced objects [income] An axel is a disassembled and dysfunctional part of an industrial object [derelict farmstead] The site was a place of labor-intensive activity The site in its current state is stagnant, with traces of life and pseudo-life Traces of past activities elicit imagination The Re-Representation When the landscape is studied in different orthographic projections, the act of making it leaves traces. Whether construction lines or scanner marks, these lines blend together and make ambiguous what is reality and what is constructed imagination. Which suggests that the seed-drying chamber takes on an atmospheric condition that creates an ambiguity between the original and the intervention, the seed and the human.
Occupying Surface Tissue Paper Silicone Plaster An exquisite surface invites the senses to take pause and begin a brief occupation. The occupant reaches into the surface with subtle sounds, touches, airs, and light. We are responded to by a specific voice. This voice is lent by the actions of water, air, earth, temperature, animal, etc. The artifacts seek to capture the voice of a set of site surfaces which tell a multisensory and awakening story.
part 2: Exploring the Landscape
February 17th 2013
February 21st 2013
February 23rd 2013
February 24th 2013
February 25th 2013
part 3: Intervention
drawing 1: Plan - Walking
drawing 2: Longitudinal Section - Speaking
drawing 3: Longitudinal Section - Listening
Sincere thanks go to the comments, conversations, and feedback from our dear colleagues, friends, and critics. We would like to thank David Leatherbarrow for what was undoubtedly one of the best lectures to come to Iowa State’s Kocimski Auditorium, Adam Yarinsky for his visit to the farm on a grey, wet and cold day to provide us with quality constructive criticism, Blake, Ziad Qureshi, James Spiller, Nadia Anderson, Clare Cardinal-Pett, Cham Subasinghe, and Khalid Khan for their enthusiastic feedback and courageous strain endured into climbing into each and every bin, and most importantly, our studio critic, Peter P. GochÊ, for his ongoing support, feedback, the fantastic trip to see the great works of Donald Judd, the wonderful trailers we stayed in, the syllabus assignments such as the cabinet and the drawing, and for creating a course that taught us things about architecture we did not learn in the past five years. For believing in the farm, and believing in us, our final thanks go to Dwaine and Norine Black. For their preservation efforts and good-heartedness, may the farm continue to be a place of art and entertainment. Jassim Al Nashmi & Bryan Mock