CATALOGUE
INTRODUCTION This is just a place that is new, my perception is so much more to me than yours. But that’s because only I can perceive my perception, I could represent my perception to you so you can understand my point of view. But that is only a RE-RE-presentaion. It’s been distorted through two levels of re-presentating, its a parody of itself. Its not the same. A cameras eye is so different to mine, it will see things I do not, and I will see things it does not. We could touch the same ground, but we wont feel it the same, we experience things so differently. Walk through it. See it. Its my intimacy with what I experience which gives effects my observations. But the experiences immensity will always have an effect on how much I can experience, given the time I am exposed to the experience for. Only so many elevations can be seen at once. But I want to feel everything at once so how do I do this. I’m just a body, one thing at a time. What about all at once. My brain wont allow it, nor will my senses. Why am I meant to only experience one thing at a time? Is it so I will not be omniscient? I guess I would be called God if I was. But that’s just what people would believe. Knowledge doesn’t make you God, does it? My second life, is only personal if you want it to be. But obviously I have to be personal to give you that option. Which I am, this is personal. I take it all very personally. So I’ll stop censoring now. There is no edit. Just compiling. Right now I want to delete that. But I’m laying it bare and raw.
This is my second reality but there are always at least three. I don’t always want a representation or a re-representation however this is inevitable due to us not living within web 3.0. [I am not at one with the web]. Instead I see it as more web 2D and web 3D. After all there are so many iterations of the web but there are numbered dimensions. Do I effect it? Does it effect me? Did I create it? Or did it create me? Does it really matter? Well yes of course it does. The matrix didn’t settle itself. So understand that the way I have interpreted this place, has been pushed passed the points of recognition. Each edit is a layer of reality, moving closer towards a hyper-reality - and simultaneously further away. Its heavy and complex, but so is everything once you scratch the surface.
iPHONE
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION I felt it was crucial to gain multiple perspectives while creating this catalogue, as to see more of the station than what is visible by standing in one fixed point, within space and time. However I would always take what I wanted to see from these different positions. In turn making it a brand new perspective born through layers of re-representation*. This is something that is almost unavoidable, as social beings we are always bringing personal baggage and experience to a subject which involves a certain amount of interpretation, as personal experience is what taints our vision and it becomes a point of reference, as we make memories and remember information by making connections to things we already know. This network of references works like an eco system, a tightly woven interdependent referencing system. Making it an autobiographical reference library of sorts. This social experience is what defines a pulic space. We all bring something to it, making it what it is.
POINTS OF REFERENCE AND READING LIST Baudrillard J. - Simulacra and Simulation (1981) Postman N. - Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985) Electronic Superhighway (2016) [Exhibition]. Whitechapel Gallery. 29th Jan - 15th MWay Rafman J. - Nine Eyes (Ongoing) Available at: http://9eyes.com Coates, A. Pierce, S. American Reflexxx (2015) [Social Experiment/Video] Availble at: http://www.americanreflexxx. com
WHEEL
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION The wheel was initially nothing but a glitch. Unfortunately not a glitch in the matrix, but a glitch of google street view. However street view is probably more real than the matrix we live in now*.Street view is a catalogue of images taken by a car with a camera mounted upon it. This camera has nine lenses (otherwise known as eyes). The spaces between these eyes mean that there is a certain amount of guess work that must be done to stitch the images captured by each eye together. Obviously this guess work is done by computers and algorithms, meaning most of the time it goes unnoticed. However, when it goes wrong and creates a glitch within a perfect world, the illusion is broken. We see that what we are viewing is just a constructed reality, saturated with data. Which is just as real as what it is representing. Although these glitches draw attention to the in-between and non spaces, where as in reality these non spaces often go unnoticed or receive little attention. This is how the representation is more real than the reality it is representing, as we begin to see more of what is there. Exhaust the image. N.B. Google takes the images for street view over time. Not all at once. Each point on the map which can be viewed represents a different moment in time, moving between these points, and dictating how you move between these points begins to trigger thoughts of time travel. How we move though tube stations also trigger the same thoughts. We go to a space, travel to get to another space miles away within seconds/minutes. Within a city where this could take twice the time above ground.
POINTS OF REFERENCE AND READING LIST The Matrix (1999) Directed by The Wachowski Brothers [Film]. USA: Warner Bros. Banner, F. (2013) Summer 2013 [Mixed Media]. Published by The Vanity Press, UK. Perec, G. (2010) An Attempt At Exhausting A Place In Paris. UK: Wakefield Press. [Originally published in French in 1975, Translated by Lowenthal M.] Karborn, J (2014) Evidence of Time Travel [Mixed Media] Partially available at: http:// www.evidenceoftimetravel. com (Accessed 1/3/2016)
RENDER
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION “Does the world exist if I’m not watching it? A child’s viewpoint when taking long rides by train or car, everything that passes by has been put there only for me.” Harun Farocki - Parallel II
Parameters define what is within them. Not only by scale and shape, but by content too. What we are not able to see means just as much as what we can. Endlessness would represent something other than reality, so these parameters are just as real, as real life. The station has very clear parameters, concrete walls, glass doors and steal frames. This encases the station, creating a boundary of safety and comfort. When we take these parameters away by creating 3D renders, that barely resemble the station its self we find it closer to a game in the way it seems infinite, like we could fall off the edge into blackness. Its impossible to imagine walking around these pseudo stations, as we have no reference of scale or parameters, other than one wall to support a steel frame. In reality I could have taken away the steel frame. This world (Cinema 4D/C4D) doesn’t have the laws of gravity, until I decide to implement them. I have become the dictator of the world I’m representing.
POINTS OF REFERENCE AND READING LIST Farocki H. - ‘Parallel I-IV’ (2012 - 2014) THQ/Deep Silver (2006-2016) ‘Saints Row I-IV’ [Computer game].
WIREFRAME
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION Wireframes define the shape of the render. Without the render, the wireframe is a shell of vectors, making curves and lines. Waiting for more information to be piled onto it, so it has some resemblance of an object that we recognise as ‘real’. “The surface of water is nothing but surface” - Harun Furocki (Parallel III) Using rendering software is to create using nothing but surface, supported by these wireframes which are not visible once completed. Like the foundations of a house they are invisible to those who utilise it. But nobody compliments you on your houses foundations, or thank the floor for not sinking. They compliment you on your choice of wall colour and thank you for the coffee. The essentials will go unnoticed, and the luxury will be the focus. With these wireframes I pushed them to exhaustion to become decoration of themselves, and be the luxurious finished version of themselves. Just like the station, it is undecorated and bare; but the masses of concrete, glass and steel are the decoration of there own being. The structure and functionality of the building is the beauty of it.
POINTS OF REFERENCE AND READING LIST Farocki H. - ‘Parallel I-IV’ (2012 - 2014) Elliott, P. Hare, B. and Wilson, A. (2003) Boyle Family. Publisher: National Galleries of Scotland. Hot Sugar (2014) “Your Nails Look So Pretty” [Music Video] Director: Nick Koenig. Available at: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=5-y_TEZPyG0
VIDEO
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION As you walk from one screen to another, you realise that the spaces are miles apart. Their use is still the same, they feel the same, they are non spaces, nothing happens here, but it happens over and over again. It is just a transition we are moving and not experiencing. I realised that this is an abusive relationship to a space in the way we use it regardless for how it was created or more importantly who by. This has become the same way we treat each other I know it sounds cliche and overdone but we are using each other for sex. I just feel a consistent waterfall of; I don’t know why I am here. Why do I this to myself? Who is he? Why do I care I look at thousands of faces a day and I try not to remember them all. When I do my head feels heavy, and full. All of these people and no connections. All of these people and too many connections. Its like a web of interlocking intranets. Interdependent independents.
V F
VIDEO FACE
GRINDR
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION An extensive collection of profile pictures, taken from the profiles of men on Grindr* who passed through the vicinity of Westminster Station and the surrounding 300 Meters. I used Grindr as a form of survey and research to reflect not only the way people use the space of the station, but also how we treat each other. Due to the ready availability of men to talk to on Grindr, people often bypass manners and moral, with the aim of getting what they want as quickly as possible. Not taking into account the fact that the person on the receiving end of there messages is a human being. This is particularly amplified within large cities, more so in London, due to its prominent and freely open gay community. This is hard to visualise as this happens in pockets and is localised mainly via the internet. However, I see this way of life in the ‘commute’. While commuting we have one prominent thought, which is either “Which way am I going” or “Or how am I going to get there in the quickest way possible”. I used high paced GIFs to initially visualise this concept, which showed the concept for what it was in my head; fast, rich in media, huge, and extensive. It allowed no time for any reflection on what the images were of. Where as this chapter allows you to be in control of pace. Look as a collection, not just singularly.
*Grindr is a gay dating/hookup app. It was the first gay app to utilise geolocation, and is now the most used app within the gay community, worldwide. Its official description is: “Over 2 million guys in 196 countries use Grindr every day. Grindr finds guys close to you for chatting and meeting anywhere in the world. Find your perfect guy right now.”
POINTS OF REFERENCE AND READING LIST ‘Chemsex’ (2015) Directed by William Fairman, Max Gogarty [Film]. UK: VICE. Allwood, E. H. (2016) ‘Why J.W.Anderson x Grindr actually makes a lot of sense’, Dazed Digital, Available at: http://www.dazeddigital.com/ fashion/article/29039/1/whyj-w-anderson-x-grindr-actually-makes-a-lot-of-sense (Accessed: 28/02/2016 Planningtorock (2013) ‘All Loves Legal’ [CD Album]. UK: Human Level Röyksopp (2001) ‘Remind Me (Someone Else’s Radio Edit)’. [Music Video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=39Ilo1KBKpg (Accessed: 01/03/2016). Holly Herndon (2015) ‘Platform’ [CD Album] USA: 4AD