Month: June 2021

Philosophy Tuesday

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Sometimes, it is a big, massive, sideswiping thing that knocks us into a tailspin.

Other times, it is a series of smaller things that will send us into the downward spiral.

Those things can happen all at once.

Or maybe they pile up over time.

And sometimes there is a multitude of background poop that is so ubiquitous we don’t even recognize it is there anymore, we’ve become so accustomed to it.  And then all it takes is a small nudge and vwoop!  Down we go.

It can be so tempting to belittle those breakdowns and, more harshly, to make people wrong for losing it over such “small things.”

But we can do much better for ourselves, and for others, than to fall into that reductive trap and consider only large things or events as “worthy” or “proper” or “justifiable” causes of great malaise.

We can cast our empathy and mindfulness nets wide and know that we’re not seeing the whole picture.*

We can grant a bit of space and compassion and create a clearing for resolution and peace of mind.

We can pull ourselves out of the tailspin, regain our heading, and plot a course for sunnier skies.

 

* This, of course, is especially true in the case of other people, since we’re not there in their head and in their experience 100% of the time.  Especially when they’re at the outsized effect of outside impacts, limitations, and burdens due to social, economic, racial, gender, familial, and etc factors…

 

Architecture Monday

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I think by now people know I love trains, and that I equally love many train stations (another nod here to one of my favs, in Ottawa).  And as sad as it is when a train station is no longer in use, it’s ok in my book when it’s converted so wickedly as is this one in Brussels!

Good old school and lofty train stations are already such wonderful spaces, and what’s been done here is to leave most of it well enough alone, inserting independent multi-level pavilions to create offices, retail, entertainment, and more.  These also create a network of streets that lead to large public gardens that just fit wonderfully under the soaring roofs.  Crafted of wood, the whole thing is a welcoming space indeed.

Adaptive reuse, FSC-certified cross-laminated timber, water capture, natural ventilation, and PV panels integrated onto the grand front windows, AND an exciting space to be in… what’s there not to love about this?  Great stuff.

Gare Maritime by Neutelings Riedijk Architects + Bureau Bouwtechniek

Art Assignment Incoming!

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At long last, here’s the completion of my take on the Present Perimeter art assignment!  (If you are unfamiliar with the assignment, I’ve also linked to it at the bottom of this post, best to watch it first before diving into my response to it…)

When the assignment was, well, assigned (back in 2015, yikes!), I instantly knew I wanted to do something architectural and spatial with the prompt. Soon thereafter I met up with Betty from Articulations, and we set upon an idea.  I worked on it off and on over the next year, getting the design complete and then… it sat untouched until I finally got back to it this year to generate the views and the final presentation.  So long delayed, but here it is!

Out of the refined prompt Betty and I concocted, the resulting direction was to create a set of four pavilions, with each pavilion being comprised of an inhabitable sculpture comprised of all the basic forms/shapes of the assignment (1 hexagon, 3 half-hexagons, 3 rhombuses, 3 triangles).  These were then set inside of a reflecting pool that’s also derived from a combination of the basic shapes and all linked by a path comprising of combinations of the basic shapes (though not specifically using each one an exact number of times).  I used some philosophical musings to guide me in what the pavilions and whole assemblage was about, and the result was Presence, Reflection, Transformation, and Creation.  It’s best if it is not read too literally, but there is a sequence of ceremonial entry, quiet reflection, perilous traversing, and elevated overlook:

As they all have been — and I need to share more of my completed assignments, I’ve done about a dozen and a half of them — it was a fun assignment to play with!

Here’s the video below, and the series itself also spawned a book:  You Are an Artist

Wonder Wednesday

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Some amazing old footage from 1970 of Wendy Carlos demonstrating the classic MOOG synthesizer.  No preprogrammed patches or sounds here — it’s all constructed though something that looks like a wild pairing of a sci fi starship bridge coupled with an old-timey phone operator switchboard.  Also, no books or ways to save any settings, so you had to learn how to use it and re-create from scratch every time.  The craziest thing?  As an analog contraption, as the system warmed up (or cooled down) the sound output would change, thus requiring constant tuning as you played through a song or a concert.  But it’s hard to overstate the MOOG’s impact on electronically generated music, and to see such a pioneer of the genre give a little demo is pure delight.

Philosophy Tuesday

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It’s rather remarkable how adaptive we (as human beings) are.  I’m not speaking only about our geographic reach, as expansive as that is.  I mean just about anything and everything.  All so quickly, things, situations, systems, dynamics, societies, and etc all begin to feel normal.   And not just normal, but everlasting, intrinsic, and even right.  Like that’s how its supposed to be.  And like how there’s no way it could be any other way.

It’s reality.

Which, of course, is caca.  If there’s one thing for certain, it is that things change.**  We are always, ongoingly, creating ourselves, creating our communities, creating our systems, and creating our culture.  When we get lost in that feel of normalcy, that’s when we can get stuck creating the same thing over and over and over again.  Perhaps inadvertently doing so, but the effect is the same.  Inside the rut, possibility is greatly stifled.

That said, again of course, it’s not bad that we are so adaptive!  It’s great that we don’t smell the sewer after a few minutes.  Or that the lake stops feeling cold after jumping in.  Or that great shifts soon feel much less disruptive.***  But, like just about everything else that comes with being human, there are aspects of it that are empowering, and aspects that are disempowering and even destructive.

By remembering this great capacity of ours we can remain mindful to see where we’re letting something slide.  Where we’re giving things that are harmful, or don’t work work, or aren’t right or just or equitable or verdant, or anything of that sort, giving them the automatic pass and thinking “well, it’s just how it is.”  Or, worse, getting caught up in it all and doubling down on it.

Here’s where we can step out of the adaptiveness ruse.  Nothing is inherent.  Nothing is intractable.  We hold the agency for ourselves and who we are being, for our relationships, and with the communities and societies we ongoingly build.

 

*  From the frigid arctic to the intense deserts, all without the use of what we consider “modern and necessary technology” – which is a whole avenue of exploration in of itself!  But to quip shortly about it here, we have done a lot and even thrived with just our wits and less fragility… AND that’s just it, isn’t it?  It’s the same main thrust of this post:  we’ve become accustomed to and thus adapted to a very narrow temperature range, and anything outside of those bounds feels like death.

** Not always for the ‘better’, which is another reason why this feeling of normalcy can be so deleterious, for it will allow the ‘little’ normals to become ‘big’ normals very quickly, and if those little normals are not great, then the effects and harm also spread and become widespread.

*** To whit was how, in short order, the way of working, remembering my mask, new ways of communicating, and etc all due to the pandemic started to feel most normal.