an end of semester recap regarding design and its development leads to a rethink regarding the processes deployed last year. successes and failures or rather new areas to explore emerge and fade into the chaos of voices in the corridors of the college. persistent themes might rise to the surface. i might be beginning to discern some of them. looking back at the year littered with experiments old and new comes a realisation that interdisciplinary dialogue can only emerge if we are able to articulate where does each discipline come from. the problem that we have, of course, is that we don’t know who we are. We scrounge around in half baked terms stolen from theories of social sciences or literature, misunderstand them and superimpose them upon architecture without finely analysing them for relevance. a crisis in architectural theory is dislocated elsewhere.
i hope this does not sound like i am advocating a return to insular formalism or even worse pragmatism (which means the market). on the other hand, i hope that it means we look closer at the architectural object(ive) analytically. my current thinking is trying to locate the question at somewhere between and i guess encompassing two categories.
the first is the architecture as ‘made’. as in architecture that is created as an act in space through the body. a prosthetic device worn to protect and/or to perform. a mask/ a veil/ a shroud / a fake fingernail. architecture that we attach to our sensory organs so that they perform better. to see better, to hear better, to feel better (or worse).
the second is architecture as systemic. a set of relationships between objects that form patterns particular and universal. patterns of folding, floating, slicing, dancing, capturing and letting go. these patterns exist everywhere around us. slice open the body or turn to the city; or look into your self- inside where it hurts. do you see them?
these are some of the ideas we hope to play with next year: finding architecture where three identities intersect – the archetype, the self and the other. a game of tarot and masks; opening up formalism by the analysis of the cultural object; and perhaps looking at nature as it is constructed through our acts in space.
will try to keep this space updated regarding the journey.
meanwhile yesterday vidura’s china photographs were projected large scale at the top floor of the bodhi. documenting the everyday lives of a forgotten community in panoramas of interior spaces. the homes became the sets within a photo studio, the subjects assumed docile expressions. surprisingly absent was laughter, pathos or anger. or was it there and i was unable to see it because of the surprisingly distancing panoramic frame. composed and still with little movement in space or time. perhaps in a few more years they will gain from the aura of nostalgia or the shock of knowing that the chinese man when indian plays cricket.
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