end of semester / education and bureaucracy / fluxus / leona lewis / recombinant

after monday the classes i have to take every week have disappeared. instead there is all the administrative work of the school. end of the semester moderation meetings where students are discussed case by case and their relative merits and demerits in various subjects analyzed to determine their moving to the next year. in the mechanics of the complex matrices that the bureaucracy creates it is easy to forget that these are kids we are talking about. wednesday was spent talking about the future of architectural education and whether and how we could contribute to restructuring the course that the university prescribes. first a long session distributing and redistributing hours across 5 years and the next day presenting them at rizvi to make a case for a more flexible syllabus and the examination system. “if you pay people peanuts, then they are bound to be monkeys” a faculty member at the meeting told me. it was less volatile than we expected it to be and things seem like they might get better for architectural education- at least within the bombay university. so we hope. but it is too soon to speak. meanwhile a faculty member from another college drew on the board a sure-fire method to know whether a kid is an architect or not. he drew two sparrows on the board- one with crooked legs (the architects version) and the other with stick figure like legs (the non architects version). kaushik insisted that both of them were in fact magpies.

friday- after rupali and me drafted the first of what is going to be a series of possible time tables for the next term we drove to academy where we picked sonal up from a second year design jury.

at the ngma right now is an exhibition that i must recommend very highly. the fluxus group was a bunch of multinational anti art practitioners. rebelling against classical traditions and the cult of personality surrounding the artist, their work was ridiculous, funny, powerful and brilliant. at the exhibition, there are videos of the ‘happenings’ that they staged, music scores by john cage and others, do-it-yourself music and art work and sculpture.

met bahaar on colaba causeway for a while and then ran back home.

other random thought – after leona lewis’ new number one hit video ‘bleeding love’- why do women in music videos make love to walls, or sheets while men seem less attached to the architecture?

and yogita has a few questions of affordable housing on the recombinant. please read and comment.

the 8/288 studio meanwhile seems to have turned into a warehouse cum shop for usha maushis clothes. piles of colored salwar kameez and tops lie where the computers once did and amit’s light fixtures have become flower pots. i miss the space.

after monday the classes i have to take every week have disappeared. instead there is all the administrative work of the school. end of the semester moderation meetings where students are discussed case by case and their relative merits and demerits in various subjects analyzed to determine their moving to the next year. in the mechanics of the complex matrices that the bureaucracy creates it is easy to forget that these are kids we are talking about. wednesday was spent talking about the future of architectural education and whether and how we could contribute to restructuring the course that the university prescribes. first a long session distributing and redistributing hours across 5 years and the next day presenting them at rizvi to make a case for a more flexible syllabus and the examination system. “if you pay people peanuts, then they are bound to be monkeys” a faculty member at the meeting told me. it was less volatile than we expected it to be and things seem like they might get better for architectural education- at least within the bombay university. so we hope. but it is too soon to speak. meanwhile a faculty member from another college drew on the board a sure-fire method to know whether a kid is an architect or not. he drew two sparrows on the board- one with crooked legs (the architects version) and the other with stick figure like legs (the non architects version). kaushik insisted that both of them were in fact magpies.

friday- after rupali and me drafted the first of what is going to be a series of possible time tables for the next term we drove to academy where we picked sonal up from a second year design jury.

at the ngma right now is an exhibition that i must recommend very highly. the fluxus group was a bunch of multinational anti art practitioners. rebelling against classical traditions and the cult of personality surrounding the artist, their work was ridiculous, funny, powerful and brilliant. at the exhibition, there are videos of the ‘happenings’ that they staged, music scores by john cage and others, do-it-yourself music and art work and sculpture.

met bahaar on colaba causeway for a while and then ran back home.

other random thoughts – after leona lewis’ new number one hit video ‘bleeding love’- why do women in music videos make love to walls, or sheets while men seem less attached to the architecture?

and yogita has a few questions of affordable housing on the recombinant. please read and comment.

the 8/288 studio meanwhile seems to have turned into a warehouse cum shop for usha maushis clothes. piles of colored salwar kameez and tops lie where the computers once did and amit’s light fixtures have become flower pots. i miss the space.