Pecha Kucha

WA/SA

Working 9-5, at...

[waldrip architects/ s.a.] [architecture- los angeles]

Alberti, Sandro ‘Pecha-Kucha’; 26 August, 2004 [text42]

‘WA/SA’, ‘Aloha8’, and ‘Working 9 to 5, at...’

Interesting stuff continues to happen in LA, sponsored, usually, by the established entities. LA Forum, in this case, an organization that sprouted over 15 years ago, with a board full of ‘presidents’ and ‘vicepresidents’, etc. It came up with

Pecha-Kucha in China Town- LA.

an idea to have a group of ‘anyones’ present ‘anything’, very quickly [first-ever launched in June-2004]. The ‘branding’ (title and venue) is neo-Asian. Nice and tidy.

From the event Web site: “Pecha Kucha is a Japanese term that roughly translates as chit-chat, or perhaps as irritating chatter. Pecha Kucha is a lot of fun for short attention spans. Pecha Kucha is a new kind of venue for anyone involved in, or interested in, architecture, design, fashion, and art. [required credit to ‘original author’ here] , Pecha Kucha consists of 20 people showing 20 images each, each for 20 seconds. The presentations start at 8:20 (20:20 in military time) [although 15, or even 10 minutes, would have been more stimulating, one would not then be able to hold the event in the evening; and so ‘content’ is again lost to ‘appearance’] . There will be no running over, there will be no turning back, there will be no cover. Be sure to bring your friends and come thirsty.

Pecha Kucha is intended to inspire a broad mix of participants - from well-known practitioners to students, recent graduates, and new firms presenting their work for the first time. Here is YOUR chance to tell the world about YOUR design, YOUR thoughts, YOUR ideas at the [required credit to ‘hosting venue’ here] . [immediately followed by required credit to ‘host’ here] , anyone in the art, architecture, or design world can ‘show’ and tell. It may be a newly finished building, it may be a new project, a new piece of furniture, a new event, a new idea, or something unexpected that you want to share with everyone. We encourage architects, architectural students, students who are looking for a job and want to promote their skills, any creative person, everyone.

There will be 20 slots [ignoring popular demand, or lack thereof] , [repeat previouslymentioned info here] . You can talk along with your slides, if you want.”

So everyone gets to send in images or video, then waits to be selected a few days before the event. Very efficient. Then some people present, hopefully very fast. Fast and efficient. Like a recipe for the perfect meal:

are fictions of fen-om: [www.fen-om.com]

”The perfect meal requires… the rapid presentation… of some dishes [guests] will eat and others they will not, to increase their curiosity, surprise, and imagination…”

[Filippo Tomasso Marinetti; Manifesto of Futurist Cooking; 1930] Good thing we were only supposed to drink (see reference to ‘thirst’ above, in the Web site description).

So, well, ‘in the beginning’, last night, there was the second Pecha-Kucha, and there was something about Mies van der Rohe. I was at the bar.

Step 2: Finally joined the crowd up front. Images of a lost LA. Historical images, in a way. Chiaroscuro.

Very Brassai. The presenter searched to make images of the ‘unique’ (particular things that had been lost; among them, nostalgic beauty). Everyone (we all) snickered ‘out back’. Some 20% of the 20 images was most interesting, with images of less distinct losses (buildings under construction stand out here, since they are neither actual moments nor objects of ‘value’; they are transitions in ruins).

3, next: A whole bunch of tattoos. I think there were more than 20 images here, but I have forgotten.

4: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Nice. Artsy. ‘Simultane’ (to borrow from a past experience with the authors of form:uLA); part icon, part picture, part foreground, part background. Even the icon was part void and part solid, and an inversion, at that.

Mountain Rangers Bryan Cantley and Kevin O’Donnell (co-authors of form:uLA, available at www.form-ula.net). They showed their work, which one might naturally think is universally eye-enticing, but I really felt that only a few, the most solid-3d (although not necessarily the most photo-realistic) conveyed an unexpected and sudden illusion of space-place. Interesting was also a telling comment, offered from their space in the back row: “odd to see the work shown in this way” (indeed, at pecha-kucha, presenters actually ‘pecha-lecture’, as narrator relinquishes control to material).

Something followed about architectural cover-up, the Cristo-type that occurs when pest exterminators take over. Interesting to notice what catches the eye. Sometimes it is the placement of the enveloped building, in context. Sometimes it is an odd coincidence, of course (such as that time when an American flag seemed to be left flying atop the building, and the ‘package’ was red-white-and-blue.

Or when the building form is oddly irregular (what is hiding under there?). Sometimes it is the fit (best when the fabric billows a bit, or stretches in odd directions). The scale, the directionality of the stripes,…

Rick Miller’s presentation started out as a documentary of Siberian/ Mongolian (South American?) huts. Then it became about other aspects of culture (odd, contemporary, aspects). Good stuff. There was even a gigantoid child (mutations are always good, in any current theme). But then, then…

It became ‘academic’ (in the sense, of “a student showing some stuff we have seen before”). A constancy of alternation. See house on wheels, see modern Staples Center displacing ‘charming’ historical houses. Something was lost, perhaps (there are Rick Miller publications around, including

3 of 13 + intro.

One spatial form:uLA.

‘Stations of the Pacific Litoral’ and ‘Home on the Range’). From the audience: “I can’t hear a word”.

“I can hear his intonations…”

End notes (to myself, perhaps): • I have Erin’s sketch pad!

• I met Shannon Calhoun, who discovered the calendar of fen-omenal events, all on her own.