Wednesday, August 18, 2010

COMPOSITIONAL STORIES







COMPOSITIONAL STORIES
The Make-up of Space

Abstract

Aware of our surroundings or not as we pass through space, we cut our way through a compositional series of stories. Components of space express themselves through a set of scales and mediums. These include stories of people, materiality, place as well as there respective cultural, contextual and situational relevance in life and loci. The intention of this paper is to explore the organization and arrangement of this set of narratives. How do these facets of space affect us consciously or subconsciously?

I intend to discuss these notions through an examination of Sinatra Murphy, My own interests and their relationships to phenomenology. The vessels of light project in Dandenong invited the viewer to engage with the ephemeral element of light allowing the stories stored in the viewers minds to be evoked. Von Eckarstberg argued that a phenomenological approach to design required the designer to identify what phenomenon was their key interest (p21, Von Eckartsberg, 1998). Clearly the driving force in this instillation was light. The project shows through a combination of public art and landscape architecture but transcends them both through the narrative of story.

Working extensively with Australian indigenous communities their practice often focuses on cultural narratives rather than built form. Although previous projects have been collaborative an interesting discourse is raised when thinking about the interplay or conflict between the western and non-western narratives of their designs.

The dynamic nature of landscape architecture, always lends it a temporal quality, in yet when we view space through the lens of the sensuous and story, the linearity of time is distorted and the solidity of landscape dissolves.

Keywords: Stories, Space, Compositional, Phenomenology



Jim McGuinness

Bibliography:

Phenomeno-logical inquiry in psychology (pp. 21-61). New York: Plenum
http://www.sinatramurphy.com/
www.aila.org.au/projects/tas/Riawunna/Riawunna3.htm
Silverstein, M. (1993a). Mind and the world: The interplay of theory and practice. Architecture California, 15, 2, 20-28.
De Botton, A. (2006) The Architecture of Happiness. Random House Inc.

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