Programming

Design Studio

Assignment 1

--Start: Jan. 11, 2019, 2:00 pm Deadline: Jan. 18, 2019, 2:00 pm --Verbal Presentation: Jan. 18, 2:00 pm – 10 minutes Submission: D2L by Jan. 18, 2:00 pm. PDF format, Maximum 25MB/file.

--Evaluation % of Course Grade: Assignment 1 (individual) 10

In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones. Guy Debord Les Lèvres Nues #9 (November 1956) reprinted in Internationale Situationniste #2 (December 1958) Translated by Ken Knabb https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/ theory.html

2.1 Island:Situation

The urban fabric is a vast sea of objects and structures out of which places are formed. Some are more formal and static others are hidden or ephemeral situations. A range of theorists over the past century have explored the nature of space and place through practice. A lot of it was inspired as a critique of the modernist vision of a functional city of separation. For examples Guy Debord and the the Situationists developed the Dérive in Paris [REF]. A randomized walking tour to explore the urban realm based on often randomized or changing set for decision making. The objective is as Wark summarizes, to “discover the a new city [the city anew] via a calculated drifting (French: dérive) through the old one” [REF Wark, M., 2009. The Secretary. Translated by S. Kendall. and Translated by J. McHale. In: G. Debord, Correspondence: the foundation of the Situationist International (June 1957-August 1960), Semiotext(e) foreign agents series. Los Angeles : Cambridge, Mass.: Semiotexte ; Distributed by the MIT Press, pp.5–27. pp.6.]. The Situationist movement are born out of other movements at the time in Europe. It incorporated the Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (Bauhaus is the reference to the famous school in Germany), the Lettrist International (who split from the Letterist’s lead by Isidore Isou) and the London Phsychogeographical Association (who’s only member was Ralph Rumney). It conceived a movement without a doctrine, as Debort writes in a letter to Simondo on August 22, 1957: “situationism, as a body of doctrine, does not exist and must not exist. What exists is a Situationist experimental attitude” [REF Debord, G., 2009. Correspondence: the foundation of the Situationist International (June 1957-August 1960). Semiotext(e) foreign agents series. Translated by S. Kendall. and Translated by J. McHale. Los Angeles : Cambridge, Mass.: Semiotexte ; Distributed by the MIT Press.p.42] . This means it is not a set of rules, no protocol, but a journey of discovery base on the moment. Lucius Burckhardt developed the strollogy (German: Spaziergangswissenschaften) along similar lines to explore the urban environment while walking [REF]. Both methods share the emphasis on perception and the investigation into how the environment is perceived. The goal is to actively perceive the context and through this extend the perception. Seeing is being forced to actual recognizing. Later Burckhardt will go on to coin the term “Design is Invisible” (German: Design ist unsichtbar) and ask questions such as “Who plans the planning?” (German: Were plant die Planning?). This harks back to the experience, design is only good if it is invisible in the sense of blending in with the context, operating and not disrupting. These methods emphasis the importance of perception in the sense of participation. Being present is part of the space, it shapes the space itself. As an observer we can not completely remove ourselves from the moment and therefore are part of the scene. This features strongly in other theories such as Henry Lefevre’s “The Creation of Space” [REF]. Space, place or in deed the situation is never objective especially in the socially and culturally constructed context of the urban environment. Present, past and even the future constantly influence the moment. Whilst modern technology might distort this perception it brings to bare its consequences even stronger. The tool always influences the result and planners have to be especially aware in order to accommodate for its distortion. The creation of Situations and the mapping was at the core of one of Debord’s most famous works the Naked City Map featuring Paris, broken up into islands, rearranged and stitched together with read arrows of connectivity of sorts [Debord, G., 1957. The Naked City. Available at: <http:// www.frac-centre.fr/collection/collection-art-architecture/index-des-auteurs/auteurs/projets-64. html?authID=53&ensembleID=705> [Accessed 24 Aug. 2012]. It describes or visualises an experince journey through various districts in Paris.

x.1 Outline/task Visit the site several times explore it actively in the spirit of the Situationists or Lucius Burckhardt and create your very own situations. Define your own method for the dérive and let it guide you. This drifting is to be documented with a journal and photographs in order to frame the “seeing” aspect and then be transferred into a map of situations inspired by the Naked City map of 1954.

Getting to know the site, exploring its spaces and experience the atmospheres present. Experiment with personal perception, experience and alternative forms of data collection and mapping.

x.3 Learning Outcomes • Conduct an experiential overview of the site (given the constraints of time and space) • Effectively reflect on the experience • Translate the experience into representations

x.x Deliverables • Personal psychogeography map of the site, identifying: ◦ Important/significant areas, groups of buildings/objects, places ◦ Perceived significant flows of movement/connections between these places • Consists of cut out sections of a paper map and red arrows, both labeled • Key with description for each item as to what it is, what constitutes it and what it does. • Trace map of exploration route (Hand drawing) • Photographs documenting the observations and journeys (Curated selection) • Journal documenting the dérive (Mapped and Methods of decision making)

x.5 Evaluation Presentation of individual work.

Lucius Burckhardt, Autofahrerspaziergang [Car Driver Walk], Kassel 1993, Seminar Wahrnehmung und Verkehr [Workshop Perception and Traffic] Photo: Bertram Weisshaar

Taken from: Heilig, M. L. (1992). EL Cine del Futuro: The Cinema of the Future. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 1(3), 279–294, p. 285.

John Horton Conway, 1970. Game of Life. Computer model / cellular automaton.

Guy Debord, 1957. The Naked City: Illustration de l’hypothèse des plaques tournantes en psychogéographique. Lithograph, Encre sur papier, 33.3 x 48.3 cm, 009 05 01, © François Lauginie, FRAC Centre-Val de Loire.