Clemson University / School of Architecture College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities Arch 499 – 699 – Spring 2013 Martha Skinner, Assistant Professor marthas@clemson.edu/ office: Lee 2-311 office hours: Wed. 11:30-12:30 or per appointment
Urban
C T - s c a n : The City as Body(ies) in Movement
Arch 499/699, section 4 (3 credits)
Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe 1957 Louis Kahn 1953
Godfrey Reggio 1983
Etienne-Jules Marey 1863
Time: 9:05-11:35 Wednesdays Location: Lee 3-G08 Introduction “The experiences of space cannot be separated from the events that happen in it. It is remade continuously every time it is encountered by different people, every time it is represented through another medium, every time its surroundings change, every time new affiliations are forged” James Corner, The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention in Mappings, edited by Denis Cosgrove.
“The ordinary practitioners of the city live ‘down below’, below the thresholds at which visibility begins. ... whose bodies follow the thicks and thins of an urban ‘text’ they write without being able to read it. These practitioners make use of spaces that cannot be seen; their knowledge of them is as blind as that of lovers in each other’s arms. The paths that correspond in this intertwining, unrecognized poems in which each body is an element signed by many others, elude legibility. It is as though the practices organizing a bustling city were characterized by their blindness. The networks of these moving, intersecting writings compose a manifold story that has neither author nor spectator, shaped out of fragments of trajectories and alterations of spaces: in relation to representations, it remains daily and indefinitely other.” Michel de Certeau, Walking in the City in The Practice of Everyday Life.
Working from a series of texts and discussions on temporality, public space and representation, this seminar/lab will use audio, video, GPS (Global Positioning Systems), and other mobile devices to explore the potential of a new kind of drawing, a mapping which is temporal and ever-changing and which looks at the body of the city in its intimate relationship to the mapping of the human body. What do calories burned, heart rate, and body mass mean as related to length and speed of travel, weather, and topography? And what does latitude and longitude of user, distance to destination, and time, and latitude mean as related to track, bearing and heart rate? Can we analyze this data of the human body and city body as interrelated and intimately connected? Can we analyze this data the way that a radiologist analyzes a CT-scan? In addition the merging of drawing (GPS) and moving image (audio/video) will be
explored as a hybrid tool capable of capturing place in all of its qualities. With GPS we get the absolute, certain information of the trajectory such as location, altitude, weather, heart rate, cadence, speed, duration... while audio/video captures the perceptive, bodily characteristics of the space such as imagery, ambience, texture, light, activity, conversations, sounds, expressions, etc….. The city will be mapped as a temporal system with documents that are both realistic and abstract, picturesque and analytical, immersed and removed. With these mapping technologies as wearable and as extensions of the human body into the city, the students will “draw” their cities from “below” producing collective subjective maps of the interactions, movements, pauses and events that make up the daily life of their cities. The seminar will use historical references in architecture, film, cartography, photography, drawing, literature, urbanism, biology, sociology, science, physiology as well as contemporary visualization examples in graphic design, art, architecture, medicine, and aviation. The students will be presented with examples weekly as well as given reading assignments and short weekly exercises to exploit the possibilities. Part of class time will be used for lively discussions on the topics explored and presented. Students will also define, present, and write a seminar topic of their choice to fit under the course thesis and which will provide the basis for an independent student project. Recording equipment may be borrowed from the professor, checked out from the university or provided by the students.
Goals and Objectives • To research, discuss and reflect on historical and contemporary references on movement, temporality, representation, the body and the city. • To research, discuss and theorize the relationship between moving image and drawing as well as the relationship between traditional drawing conventions and new technologies. • To explore the potential of making documents that are realistic and abstract, picturesque and analytical, qualitative and quantitative. • To research, study and exploit methods and tools at our disposal as investigative tools to be used both critically and intuitively in the representation of the temporal aspects of the city and the body. • To explore infrastructure possibilities for the organization, dissemination and retrieval of the accumulation of both imagery and data. • To utilize our environment, campus, Clemson, nearby towns, Atlanta, Asheville, the in-betweens, etc. as laboratory of live material for the exploration of these potentials with short notations and mappings. • To explore how these mediums of investigation may influence our way of thinking and therefore our sensibilities and ways of intervening. You are encouraged to use these mediums of investigation in your studio courses. • To clearly and creatively communicate ideas using these technologies and to exploit editing softwares as investigative tools both critically and intuitively to expand or clarify an idea or to rethink it. • To develop your own research agendas within the thesis of the seminar through research, writing and your own proposed projects. • To exploit and expand the possibilities of our own disciplines through the collaborative exchange of the group.
Requirements • In camera edited notations: bi-weekly recordings and presentations (approx. 2 min. long) that exploit the medium at hand expanding on the discussions of the seminar. (individually and in teams) • Well-articulated and organized descriptions of your work due bi-weekly to complement each presented notation. • Group mapping project. • Blog entries weekly on student independent research, course discussions, notations, weekly questions, sharing related findings at http://urbanctscan.blogspot.com/
• Uploading your videos to Vimeo in High Definition. Set up your own free account at http:// www.vimeo.com/ You will link these to a course Vimeo Channel and to the course blog. • Seminar presentation and paper: Topics to fit under the thesis of the seminar might include: Cartography, Representation (architectural vs. moving image), Ephemerality, temporality, movement, the body and the city, subjectivity/objectivity, qualitative/quantitative, picturesque/analytical, authoritative/ collective. A 3,000 word paper (for graduate and PhD students) and a 2,000 word paper (for undergraduate students) with footnotes, images, captions and structured according to the Chicago Manual of Style, Humanities. The paper will be due two weeks after your scheduled seminar presentation. A detailed outline will be due the day of your seminar presentation. • Final notational or mapping project as related to your chosen seminar topic and research. • Readings and active participation in reading discussions. You will prepare questions for one or two of the reading discussions.
Evaluation Your semester grade will be comprised of the following: Bi-weekly notations, descriptions and group Mapping Seminar presentation and paper Final project Readings and participation
30% 30% 30% 10%
Statement of Academic Integrity “As members of the Clemson University community, we have inherited Thomas Green Clemson’s vision of this institution as a ‘high seminary of learning.’ Fundamental to this vision is a mutual commitment to truthfulness, honor and responsibility, without which we cannot earn the trust and respect of others. Furthermore, we recognize that academic dishonesty detracts from the value of a Clemson degree. Therefore, we shall not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing in any form.” Disability Access Statement from the Office of Student Disability Services “It is University policy to provide, on a flexible and individualized basis, reasonable accommodations to students who have disabilities. Students are encouraged to contact Student Disability Services to discuss their individual needs for accommodations.”
Attendance Attendance and participation in class is mandatory; only excused absences are allowed [i.e. illness or family emergencies]. Non-attendance and non-participation will directly result in a lower grade. Students are expected to arrive to class on time. Screenings, presentations or other activities will begin promptly. Every effort will be made to let students know, via email, of the late arrival of the instructor.
Video Cameras, GPS Devices and Saving Your Work • Digital cameras are especially ideal because of the direct downloading capabilities. You will be able to check out cameras from school. Your own photo cameras and phones or ones from the Gunnin library with video capabilities will make video transfer much simpler. • Technological problems such as losing work should be prevented by always saving to a CD, or on the C drive of the computer you are working on. DO NOT solely depend on the network.
Archiving and Documentation All courses must document and archive student work. Students will be required to submit DVD’s, and or videos of their work by the end of the semester or at any other time as requested by the instructor. The work on the course will also be documented on the course blog and Vimeo.
Required and Recommended Readings and references Agrest, Diana. “Representation as Articulation”, in Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, Allen, (Stan ed. Singapore: OPA, 2000) Allen, Stan. “Mapping the Unmappable: On Notation.” In Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, (Singapore: OPA, 2000) Allen, Stan. “On Projection,” The Harvard Architectural Review 9 (1993) Appelyard, Donald, Lynch, Kevin and Myer, John, The View From the Road Batty, Michael "Thinking About Cities as Spatial Events", in *Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design l29*, No. 1 (January 2002). Benjamin, Walter The Arcades Project [written 1927-40, published 1982]. Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, Mass.: Benjamin, Walter, “The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Illuminations Harvard University Press, 1999. PortionCosgrove, Denis. “Carto-City” in Janet Abrams and Peter Hall (ed.), Else/Where: Mapping New Cartographies of Networks and Territories (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, 2006) Corner, James. “The agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention” in Mappings, edited by Denis Cosgrove, (London: Reaktion Books, 1999) Guy Debord: The Society of the Spectacle Newly translated by Ken Knabb Guy Debord: Theory of the Derive translated by Ken Knabb Schwarzer, Mitchel. Zoomscape, Architecture in Motion and Media (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004) Skinner, Martha. “ A/V Mappings and Notations, Merging the Vocabularies of Video and Drawing”, Contribution and Confusion Architecture and the Influence of other Fields of Inquiry, (Helsinki 2003) Skinner, Martha. “CiTy-SCAN: “The Sensual/Experiential Scientific/Abstract Notation of the Human Body and the City Body” in REbuilding. (New Orleans 2010) Eames, Demetrious, “Films as Essays” and “An Image Can Be an Idea” in An Eames Primer Evans, Robin. “Architectural Projection” in E. Blau and E. Kaufman, eds. Architecture and its Image: Four Centuries of Architectural Representation (Montreal: Centre Canadien d”Architecture, 1989) Giedon, Sigfried. Space, Time, and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, fifth edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967) Hall, Peter. “Flight Paths” Janet Abrams and Peter Hall (ed.), Else/Where: Mapping New Cartographies of Networks and Territories (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, 2006) Jackson, J.B. “The discovery of the Street”, in the Necessity for Ruins (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980) Kracauer, Sigfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality Manovich, Lev: The Language of New Media. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts / London, England 2001 McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man 1964, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994) Michelson, Annette. “From Magician to Epistemologist: Vertov’s The Man With A Movie Camera”, in The Essential Cinema, Sitney, Adam ed. Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo. Vision in Motion (Chicago: Institute of Design, 1947) Murch, Walter and Ford Coppola, Francis. In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing Mushchamp, Herbert. ART/ARCHITECTURE; i.e. Passages of Paris and Benjamin’s Mind Nuti, Lucia. Mapping Places: Chorography and Vision in the Renaissance. In Mappings, edited by Denis Cosgrove, 90- 108. London: Reaktion Books, 1999 Ross Pier Paolo Pasolini, Norman MacAfee, Craig Owens Observations on the Long Take October, Vol. 13, Summer, 1980 (Summer, 1980), Rebecca. “Perils of Precision” in Janet Abrams and Peter Hall (ed.), Else/Where: Mapping New Cartographies of Networks and Territories (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN, 2006) Richard Long: Walking in Circles by Seymour, Anne And Hamish Fulton
Sadler, Simon. The Situationist City, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998. Sant, Alison. Redefining the Basemap Saul Albert. Critical Cartography Tschumi, Bernard. Manhattan Transcripts (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994) Tschumi, Bernard, Event-Cities series (Praxis), Cambridge, MIT Press, vol.1 (1994), vol.2 (2000), vol.3 (2005) Tufte, Edward. “Parallelism: Repetition and Change, Comparison and Surprise” in Visual Explanations Tufte, Edward. “Multiples in Space and Time” in Visual Explanations Venturi, R., Brown, D.S., Izenour, S. Learning from Las Vegas: The forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. 1977) Vetters, Trui. ‘Night on Earth’: Urban Practices and the Blindness of Metatheory. In The Urban Condition: Space, Community, and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis. (Rotterdam: OIO Publishers, 1999) Varnelis, Kazys and Meisterlin, Leah. The Invisible City: Design in the age of Intelligent Maps. Viola, Bill. Bill Viola Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2000
NAAB Criteria Met by the Class 4.12.5.1 Spoken and Written Communication Skills Ability to: read, write, listen and speak effectively on professional curriculum subject matter. .2 Graphic Communication Skills Ability to: communicate architectural ideas with hand-drawings, scale models, and computer-generated drawings and images. .3 Research Skills Ability to: gather, assess, and apply relevant information in the conduct of all learning activities. .4 Critical Thinking Skills Ability to: a) raise clear and precise questions, use abstract ideas to interpret information, consider diverse points of view, reach well-reasoned conclusions; and test them against relevant criteria and standards, and effectively communicate those thoughts to others. .7 Public Purpose of Architecture Understanding of: a) the public purpose of architecture; and b) the architect’s responsibility for architectural and urban design that promotes and protects public health, safety, and welfare. .8 Collaborative Skills Ability to: a) identify the varied talents found in interdisciplinary project teams in professional practice; and b)assume such roles in cooperation with other students when engaged in collaborative work.
Calendar While this calendar provides you with an understanding of the semester’s rhythm of activities and deadlines, it is subject to change as needed.
Week 1 (1/16) Introductions and Presentation Urban CT-scan: The City as Body(ies) in Movement Martha Skinner, students, equipment, syllabus, news Assigned Reading Evans, Robin, Seeing through Paper in the Projective Cast.
Tschumi, Bernard. The Manhattan Transcripts Skinner, Martha. “ A/V Mappings and Notations, Merging the Vocabularies of Video and Drawing” in 91st ACSA International Conference Proceedings
Week 2 (1/23) LIVING SECTION The Conventional Section-cut Drawing as Moving Image Bernard Tschumi “tripartite mode of notation… (events, movements, spaces)” The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover directed by Peter Greenaway – visual Delicatessen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro - auditory Dogville by Lars von Trier and Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino – horizontal, The Shining by Stanley Kubrick and Time Code by Mike Figgis – vertical Assigned Reading de Certeau, Michel. Walking in the City. In The Practice of Everyday Life. Nuti, Lucia. Mapping Places: Chorography and Vision in the Renaissance. In Mappings. Vetters, Trui. “Night on Earth”: Urban Practices and the Blindness of Metatheory. Assigned Notation 1 (due 2/6)
Week 3 (1/30) MULTIPLE SECTIONS : CT – SCANS OF THE CITY Global Positioning System and Audio/Video CT scans (Computed Tomography scans), Cine acquisition, Axial step and shoot, Multislice CT-scan NY A/V (New York) - axial ‘step and shoot’, and BiCi_N (Barcelona) – multiple points of view Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. (Venice) – literary Discussion Screening Notation 1 Assigned Reading Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. (portion) Crary, Jonathan, Subjective Vision and the Separation of the Senses in Techniques of the Observer Corner, James. The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention. In Mappings. Johnson, Steven. Emergence, The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software Ross, Rebecca. Perils of Precision. In Else/where: Mapping New cartographies of Networks and Territories. Assigned Notation 2 (due 2/13 with preliminary review 2/6) To look at: Invisible Shape of Things Past (Berlin) Joachim Sauter & Dirk Lüsebrink, The Video Streamer by Eddie Elliott– showing the flow of time
Week 4 (2/6) CYCLES : COLLECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL / FROM ACCUMULATION TO ACCURACY Ephemeral Activity of the City - Patterns in Time and Cycles Defined by Movement Smoke, by film director Wayne Wang and Paul Auster Trajects pendant un an d’une jeune fille du XVIe arrondissement by sociologist Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe Drawings of Philadelphia by Architect Louis Kahn - movement, speed, and flow of activity rather than by its physical configuration Koyaanisqatsi by experimental film director Godfrey Reggio - infrastructure of the city in time
Amsterdam's Waag Society and Artist Esther Polak Amsterdam RealTime and Cabspotting, by The San Francisco Exploratorium and Design and Technology Studio Stamen Design- GPS drawings in time Panorama of the City of New York by master builder Robert Moses Gordon’s harvester ants, Manchester Amsterdam Realtime, Cabspotting, Trajects pendant un an d’une jeune fille du XVIe arrondissement Discussion Screening notation 2 Due notation 1 Assigned Reading Kracauer, Sigfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Vidler, Anthony. Warped Space, Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture. To look at: Body/City Individual body: Etienne Jules Marey, Eadweard Muybridge – chronophotograhy, Frank Gilbreth – motion studies in factory, Marcel Duchamp – nude descending the staircase, Umberto Boccioni – man in moving space, The Matrix – Bullet time, Auguste Rodin – Not a moment in time but a sequence – all squeezed into one figure – the walking man, Gian Lorenzo Bernini – Apollo and Daphne (Baroque), sculpture of girl turning into a tree - as one moves around the sculpture this transformation is perceived City Body: Traject Pendant un an d’une Jeune Fille du XVIe arrondisement – not mapping space but what people do in a space. How city is seen from the point of view of one person., Situationist Naked City – mapping of what changes (a frozen instance), not like Cartesian map.
Week 5 (2/13)
MATHEMATICAL AND SENSUAL KNOWLEDGE, THE BODY AND THE CITY
The Body and the City Movement BiCi_N - GPS , A/V Etienne-Jules Marey – Chronophotography Arcades Project – Walter Benjamin Discussion Screening notation 2 Student Presentations: ideas for seminar topic Assigned Reading Moholy-Nagy, László. Vision in Motion. Lynch, Kevin, Change Made Visible in What Time is this Place? Johnson, Steven. Emergence, The connected lives of ants, brains, cities and software Kracauer, Sigfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Assigned Notation 3 (due 2/27 with a preliminary presentation on 2/20) To look at: Cities in Moving Image: Berlin: Symphony of a City by Walter Ruttman, Fellini’s Roma, A Trip Down Market Street before the fire (San Francisco) by unknown author
Week 6 (2/20) TO SCALE : SLOW AND FAST Moving Image and Architectural Drawing Hybrid Smoke by Wayne Wang - two speeds (scales), NY A/V – slow down, sped up, real-time, 4 years later, 10 years later The Greeting by Bill Viola – extreme slow motion, Gordon’s harvester ants – scale of decades Edward Steichen – Changes of a Rosebush, Hans Jenney – extreme slow motion, Koyaanisqatsi by film director Godfrey Reggio – fast motion Assigned Reading Borges, A Universal History of Infamy (portion) Bleecker, Julian, A Design Approach for the Geospatial Web Sant, Alison, Redefining the Basemap Preliminary Review: Notation 3
Week 7 (2/27 TO SCALE : REVERSAL THE MAP AS LIVING STORY(IES) and summary final presentation and review of Urban CT-SCAN topic Time Code by Mike Figgis BiCi_N – multiple subjectivities, Skinner, Zemoga, Ettinger Immersive Media Corp. Google Inc, Immersive Telemmersion System, Nokia and Google Earth, geotagging, Share on Ovi, MotionBased Eadweard Muybridge, Frank and Lillian Gilberth To look at: Ryoji Ikeda Dataplex performances, Royksopp remind me video, Visual Complexity, PROXY_florence, Clemson University, Raise the Cloud, wiki city, realtime rome from the Senseable MIT lab. Assigned Reading Albert, Saul, Critical Cartography Manovich, Lev, The New Language of Cinema in the Language of New Media Varnelis, Kazys and Meisterlin, Leah. The Invisible City: Design in the Age of Intelligent Maps Due notation 3 Discussion - group mapping
Week 8 (2/27) Presentation as well as an abstract (250 words) of each individual seminar research topics Discussion: group mapping
Week 9 (3/6) presentation group mapping in development Week 10 (3/13) presentation group mapping Week 11 (3/20) SPRING BREAK Week 12 (3/27) seminar and project presentations (1,2,3)
Week 13 (4/3) Seminar and project presentations (4,5)
Week 14 (4/10) Review of final projects and collection of work Week 15 (4/17) course evaluation essays due
Week 16 (4/24) Week 18 (5/1) exam week