FROM AN EMAIL: Hi Jin, here is A TIME LINE FOR A ONE MINUTE LECTURE: Introduction: 0-10  Art writing field station; 10-20 Project Poetics (after Tatlins Tower); Case Studies: 20-25 The Office for Soft Architecture; 25-30 Paul Thek’s 4-Dimensional Design; 30-40 Poet Talk Architecture: Meyerhold Lectures to Eisenstein; Methodologies: 40-45 Rothko’s studio; 45-50 Olafur Elliassons studio; Conclusions/ Possibilities: 50-55 Anti-Object; 55-60 The electromagnetic Infrared. All best, David.

THE ART WRITING FIELD STATION implies a built structure. What would that structure be, and what kind of structure (conceptual or actual) is brought into being by the discussions and ideas that occur at field station events? This set of materials by Hyun Jin Cho (images) and David Berridge (words) was first developed as a 1 minute presentation on this subject. After an initial conversation I  wrote the above outline, and text and images were then developed by each of us separately. 

NOTE: The following quotations are what I thought would make a 1 minute lecture if I talked very fast. After a run-through of this lecture was timed at 13 minutes, I read only those words in bold. 

Introduction

0-10  Art writing field station

the art writing field station implies a built structure…. maybe the actual structure in which the field station events are housed… or maybe a conceptual structure implied by the nature of those events… maybe we invent a machine that translates conversation into built form

 10-20 Project Poetics (after Tatlins Tower)

instead of speculating on the technical feasibility of its construction… it is more productive to think about the tower’s actual history as a model and a project that openned up a new dimension of this intermediary and transitional architecture, which also may be called an architecture of possibility… a crucible of possibilities and inspirations, not a utilitarian blueprint. 

Case Studies

 20-25 The Office for Soft Architecture

I tried to recall spaces, and what I remembered was surfaces. Here and there money had tarried. The result seemed emotional. I wanted to document this process. I began to research the history of surfaces. I included my own desires in the research. In this way, I became multiple. I became money.

 25-30 Paul Thek’s 4-Dimensional Design 

Design a labyrinth dedicated to Freud, using his photo and his writings.

Design a Torah.

Design a monstrance.

Design an abstract monument to Uncle Tom.

Design a feminist crucifixion scene.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

30-40 Poet Talk Architecture: Meyerhold Lectures to Eisenstein

His [Meyerhold’s] lectures were mirages and dreams. The listener would jot down something feverishly. But on waking up, he would find “the devil knows what” in the notebooks. One can recall in the finest detail how brilliantly Aksyonov analyzed The Merchant of Venice, what he said about Bartholomew Fair and the triple plots of the Elizabethan dramatists. But one cannot remember what Meyerhold said. Aromas, colours, sounds. A golden haze over everything. Elusiveness, intangibility, secret upon secret, veil upon veil – not seven of them but eight, twelve, thirty, fifty! 

Methodologies

40-45 Rothko’s studio

 Rothko’s work in the studio revolved around processes of trial and error: testing various mixtures of paint, drying times, hanging heights, and so on, and making adjustments. And, again, looking – for hours, days, even weeks. 

 45-50 Olafur Elliassons studio

 the studio as a place where things are made as well as administered… both the romantic idea of the workplace and the administrative notion of the office. The very act of naming the studio resembles both the ‘discovery’ of a new terrain and the gesture of creating a brand…. a “dyanmic aggregate of flows and productions (informational, material, economic) (…) a four-dimensional object in space-time… it is a microcosm, a “small city,” and a “model for community.” (173)

 Conclusions/ Possibilities

 50-55 Anti-Object

We no longer need to fist freeze time into an object… Today, we do not depend on the mediation of objects to intervene directly in time. Time has become something more immediate. Space has become continuous with time.

 55-60 The electromagnetic Infrared.

 The infrared is a shape that causes and inflects other shapes. Its presence is that of a morpholgical seed growing holographically within, and leaving its characteristic distorting signature on the shapes around us, within the world of concrete appearances.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Svetlanya Boym, Architecture of the Off-Modern(FORuM Project, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008)

Paul Thek, selections from “Teaching Notes: 4-Dimensional Design”, in Harald Falckenberg & Peter Weibel, Paul Thek: Artist’s Artist (MIT Press, 2008), 393-395.

Lisa Robertson, Occasional work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture (Vancouver, Clear Cut Press, 2003).

Sergei M.Eisenstein, Immoral Memories: An Autobiography (Peter Owen, 1985), 76-77, bold mine.

Morgan Thomas: “Studio Vertigo: Mark Rothko” in Wouter Davidts & Kim Paice eds. The fall of the studio: artists at work (Valiz, Amsterdam, 2009), 32-33.

Philip Ursprung, “Narcissistic Studio: Olafur Eliasson” in The fall of the studio: Artists at work, 175.

Kengo Kuma, Anti-Object (Architectural Association, London, 2008), 31-32.

Swanford Kwinter, Far From Equilibrium: Essays on Technology and Design Culture, (Actar, Barcelona), 162-3.