5 SHOPS’ RESPONSES THE MIND’S EYE - DISAPPEARANCE
THE MIND’S EYE - DISAPPEARANCE
5 SHOPS’ RESPONSES TAI KOK TSUI, HONG KONG 2020 - 2021
Acknowledgement This is the first time that Master year 1 and 2 students gather together to work on a year long studio project. We would like to thank all parties that are involved in this research project, including the community in Tai Kok Tsui and also other expertise of varies creative industries across the globe for their expert advise on the respective project.
2
Studio Leader
MArch 1
MArch 2
David Dernie
Charmanie Lin Chris Chen Julie Fong Sam Leung Sonnie Chan Teresa Tin Vero Li
Aflie Fan Annie Zhou Julia Wong Leslie Tsang Maggie Yang Michael Lam Otto Chung Sarah Chan
3
4
5
Acknowledgement
2
Gallery
3
Content
6
Introduction with HKIA exhibition
7
5 Shops’ Responses 1 Shop 181 - Narrative and the Spatiality of Colour
20
2 Shop 183 - Devourer
68
3 Shop 185 - Signs of the Times
106
4 Shop 191 - Ordinary and Extraordinary
136
5 Shop 197 - Flux: The Ever-changing Street
178
Introduction In the wonderfully vibrant and colourful urban context of Tai Kok Tsui we have explored the ways of life, the colours and fabrics of place. Through the lens of colour we have explored sight as integral to the ‘enmeshed experience’ of the life of the city. We acknowledge that the experience of any singular colour has a multiplicity of readings, and that there is no absolute value to colour. Our chromatic experience is material, mobile and fleeting - the components of colour experience shift and overlap. But we also look to traditions where architecture and the visual arts combined to transform formal simplicity, opening up the visual boundaries of space into the realms of the Mind’s Eye. We reject the white ‘immaterial’ spaces of modernism, and the clichés of contemporary material practice. We ask how spatial richness, real and imaginary, can be achieved using less complex geometry, less material resources. In an age marked by resource crisis, we ask how the ‘fictive spaces’ of fabric, colour and light contribute to our spatial practice as architects? How can ‘opacity’ engage our imaginations? This book is composed of various colour studies by The Mind’s Eye Studio, working in 5 empty shop spaces in Tai Kok Tsui. Each student has taken a different approach to colour, from the colourful material life of place, to narrative space, movement, light and reflectance or the stillness and spatiality of night.
6
7
8
9
10
13
The Visible and the Non-Visible Collective work from 5 groups and 5 shops, rapidly assembled. Collage, photography and material artefacts. Exploring the ‘invisible worlds’ of Tai Kok Tsui, places that reside in ‘The Minds Eye’. The ‘Wall of Colour’ opens explores the ‘concrete’ and the extraordinary the real and imaginary spatial conditions of day-to-day life of the community. Deliberately not heroic. Each shop overlaps others to create tensions, conflicts, ambiguous conditions, contradictions even. This structure seemed best to reflect the fragmented, strange and magical landscapes of Tai Kok Tsui’s streets. Like these streets the wall is non-perspectival. An unconventional tableau, irrational and almost accidental. It is open to imaginative engagement but offers more questions than solutions. We think that the wall is suggestive and highly provocative, acting as a catalyst that leads to the many dramas, memories, imaginations and encounters of Tai Kok Tsui that will be explored. From this stage onward, we are gifted with the ‘Given’ and ceased to become reductive and isolated from context.
Right: Original and Design intention of Shop 191 front during Midterm.
14
15
Above: Collage of all images from our shops to form a new reality and spatial condition in exhibition.
16
17
Above: 5 Shops Response
18
19
181 The Disappearing Narratives Sam Leung Chris Chen Teresa Tin
20
21
Shop 181, Tai Kok Tsui Road. Taking narrative histories from people in the local community, narratives were redrawn directly onto the walls of the empty shop. Like great canvases the white walls house stories, anecdotes, memories they look backwards and forwards, for the city’s future community is built on its past. And these histories are richly exposed in the stories we tell each other. Questions of embodiment, of time and personal memory, are explored in the installation, like a walk-through collage of ‘typical’ situations found in the local area. These stage-like settings were unified with projective geometry and idea of ‘bending space’. The work draws on the innovative spatial practices of the photographic artist Georges Rousse, who has addressed the studio. A great circular form alludes to a sense of unity, of community and theatrical space; it reflects the performances of the everyday and the vibrant colours that are characteristic of the buildings, streets and markets.
22
23
24
25
26
Conceptual Idea - Mahjong
Conceptual Idea - Tai Pai Tong
Narrative Community
Narrative Community
27
Conceptual Idea - Lonely Home
Conceptual Visualisation (Aerial View)
Narrative Community
28
29
Conceptual Visualisation (Perspective View)
30
31
Conceptual Visualisation (Reflected Ceiling Plan)
32
Conceptual Visualisation (Plan)
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
Process Images
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
183 Devourer Charmaine Lin Julie Fong Vero Li
68
69
Aspiration Intimacy Imaginary Garden Tranquility Urban Fabric Culture History Community
Shop 183, Tai Kok Tsui Road. An installation exploring how the urban development has devoured nature. It represents the unique life of this area of the city by juxtaposing light, sound and waste materials (plastic bags, construction waste, etc.) recycled in Tai Kok Tsui.
Sound Acoustic Timbre Noise Rhythm Light and Shadow
70
71
72
73
Devouring Nature Devour-her Devouring Culture
Street food trolleys into conventional restaurants
74
75
76
77
Sound is one of vital components of experience of Tai Kok Tsui: the hammering and fixing of steel, clashing of metal fabrications that resound in the deep spaces of workshops; the chatter of languages; sirens and to incessant traffic noise - or the bird song of local gardens. An array of sounds is a vital element of day-to-day life.
78
79
There are three components to the installation: 1. A noisy, dark environment with bright, intimidating light rods installed on the wall according to the amplitude of the recordings.
2.
1.
3.
2. Galvanized steel rods that reflect the colour lights to cast flickering coloured shadows on the rear wall. 3. Behind a dividing ‘armature’, a small room is full of bags of water suspended from the ceiling, and floor mounted birdcages. There are no fish and birds. Shadows are cast onto the flank wall. The room pronounces absence and is articulated by shadows. Bird song plays in the background.
Newly added wall Added curtain Speaker
80
81
Sound-absorbing panels
Gypsum board partition wall
Staircase hidden by wooden board Stair-steps wrapped with carpet
Reflective marble tiles floor
Installation - Lights off
Installation - Lights on 82
83
84
85
Acoustic Cityscape
86
87
Sound Cityscape Noise Intensity
88
89
Fictive Openings Rhythm Imaginations
90
91
92
93
94
95
Entering the room of shadow, the first thing the audience would see are the goldfish bags, which can be commonly seen in Mongkok. However, the bags here are either emptied, or filled with industrial waste. Walking around the room, people would see emptied bird cages and an artificial white tree and hear the sound of water and birds we recorded from the park next to the site. But what they see are just the artificial fragments as nature has long left us.
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
185 Sign of The Times Sarah Chan Michael Hui Sonnie Chan 106
107
Shop 185, Tai Kok Tsui Road This project is an attempt to reconstruct the essence of the twilight of Tai Kok Tsui. The closed, dark room is articulated by energetic colours, mirrored on all sides to create an array of ambiguous spatial conditions - our interpretation of the dream-like spatiality of the night. Our reconstruction of the theatricality of the nigh time street, of lights that are reflected infinitely, allows the viewers to gaze into their own reflections. The experience is a play of surface and depth - reflections captured in mirrors’ surfaces, but also essentially keyed to the oneiric depths of that same material. The generation of real neon signs is a passé in modernity, but its aesthetic form remains relevant in the identities of every Hong Kong generation. The language, fonts and vibrant colours touch a deep - perhaps undefined - sentiment. This installation touches on the meaning - or loss- of this collective memory and invites each visitor to reflect on its personal relevance.
108
109
110
111
Fading Lines In the urban context, there were many fading texture and lines can could be observed along the street. They are the evidence of the previous lively-hood and living. 112
113
Spatiality at night
At night, the area became quite but yet , the scenery remain vividly alive, decorative from the street light , sculpting the space at night time. 114
115
Conceptual Visualisation (Main Exhibition Hall) 116
Conceptual Visualisation (Entrance) 117
Conceptual Visualisation (Main Exhibition Hall) 118
Conceptual Visualisation (Entrance) 119
2
1
3
4
6
8
7
5
Final 1:50 Plan of Shop 185 1. Entrance 2. Cabinets Reception 3. Curtain 4. Storage 5. Electric Source 6. Signs of the times 7. Front Mirror Wall 8. Back Mirror Wall 120
121
Ex
ist
ing
Co
mp
New Component Ex
ist
Ex
ist
ing
Co
mp
L shape bracket, wooden strips
on
en
t
ing
on
Co
en
t
mp
on
en
t
L shape bracket, screws, acrylic board, plastic bushing, nut
screws, Ne
wC
om
po
ne
nt
E Co xisti mp ng on en t
L shape bracket, screws, acrylic board, plastic bushing, aluminium strip, nut
Details
The details were designed on site during the process of making in accordance to the materials available in the shops. e. 122
123
The Making of the Installation 124
125
Entrance Calligraphy
126
127
Existing Signage in paint
128
129
Herb Cabinet Reception
130
131
Main Exhibition Hall 132
Main Exhibition Hall 133
134
135
191 Ordinary and Extraordinary Julia Wong Leslie Tsang Otto Chung
136
Shop 191, Tai Kok Tsui Road We identified religion, the wet market and hardware industry as typical conditions of everyday life in Tai Kok Tsui. We are interested in these ordinary urban fragments and how extraordinarily poetic and beautiful they can be - how their persistent presence speak of continuity, reaching deep into realms of collective histories, local culture identities and personal memories. Our shop is conceived as a walk-in collage: a space transformed by an incomplete scenography fragments of visual, sculptural and filmic interpretation of these typical conditions. We invite the visitor to re-interpret the collage-setting as an open, but directed experience.
138
139
Site Observation, Short Film.
Book of Bones, E-book
The Making of 191, Documentary
140
The fragments provoke a response. It may vary from nostalgia for the past to impulses towards physical or social conditions beyond the horizons of the room - we deliberately explore the ‘relational’ or poetic capacity of spatial practice. We gave the installation the appellation ‘Home’. On the one hand ‘home’ refers to the familiar, warm, a place of repose. On the other hand ‘home’ may be an illusive condition in contemporary urban life; for some there may be no home, or it may be a contested space or at least an uneasy space to be in. The ambiguity of home also refers to the urban places that form the familiar territories of a community. We invite reflections on the various readings of the three territories we have identified. There is no answer to what we are trying to achieve from this installation. It is simply an effort to creatively interpret, record and open a space for the collage-like dialogue between the often mysterious and beautiful everyday fragments of the city that we call ‘home’.
141
Above: Original and Design intention of Shop 191 front during Midterm.
Above: Photos of Shop 191 in the context of Tai Kok Tsui Road.
6
2
5
8 7
PLAN
PLAN 1 9
4
3
Final 1:50 Plan of Shop 191 1. Reception 2. Threshold of imagination 3. The Map 4. The Shrine 5. Skeleton and the wet market 6. Hardware Shop’s cabinet 7. Projection of collages 8. Latent worlds 9. Storage
Left: Sketch section to show the layout of the hanging wall displacing the collages that relate to the installations.
3 2
1
Left: Sketch section to show the layout of the hanging wall displacing the collages that relate to the installations.
Left: Sketch section to show the layout of the hanging wall displacing the collages that relate to the installations.
Left: Sketch section to show the layout of the hanging wall displacing the collages that relate to the installations. Left: Sketch section to show the layout of the hanging wall displacing the collages that relate to the installations.
169
170
197 Flux - The EverChanging Street Alfie Fan Annie Zhou Maggie Yang
178
179
Shop 197 Tai Kok Tsui Road We see street space in Tai Kok Tsui as a fabric of extraordinary places where everything is in constant flow. The streetscape changes continuously. This experience is heightened by the reflective materiality of the streets, vehicles and coloured lights in the shops - the vibrance of colour and light in the urban landscape - its reflective and translucent materials, where people and the fabric of the street merge. Like a film or a dream, the life of the street merges into the materiality of the everyday. Our group takes the idea of movement and continuous change as the key theme in an installation called “FLUX”. We recreate an intensification of the experience of the material effects of movement and time, a place where the visitor can reflect on the nature of their everyday visual and sensorial experiences.
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
1
2
3
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213