I think this one was my favourite lecture so far in the module. The idea of all of the things you miss really fascinates me because it is such a human thing to not want to miss out on anything - a friends wedding, a great new movie, a meteor shower. By focussing on all the big things, are we missing out on beautiful things right in front of us that we don't notice because instead of enjoying the now, we are always planning? In this article by Dr Eyal Winter he agrees, saying people who are capable of discarding thoughts about the past and the future are generally happier, so living in the present and noticing what is going on around you is a positive thing.
On the flip side of this, the Pandemic has meant that we have to live more in the present, we can't plan for far off trips and events because we have no idea when we're going to be able to do them again, and this isn't good either. This Huffington Post article [1] describes this as the infinite present, never being able to experience anticipation for the future because you're so unsure what it will bring. My point is that it depends what the circumstances are as to whether you can really enjoy the unnoticed and if it's not forced it can be beautiful.
I really enjoyed John Berger's Ways of seeing video. [2] The bit that really stuck with me was when he said drawing is a constant correcting of errors. It made me feel like I finally had an explanation for why I never feel like a project is finished - even when it's handed in or sent to print; there is always something more that could be done. I also found it compelling when he was talking about how Marxism enabled him to understand more about history - this made me wonder how much of our own experience affects how we see the world and the conclusions we draw from it?
This made me think of an article I read in New Scientist a couple of years ago, it was about a book called Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently. [3] The book tries to give the reader a completely different experience of reading, some pages are upside down, some words drift off the page, some are bold and large, others are tiny. Perception is the brain filling in information and when this is challenged, it feels like a new experience.
I think this book also shows the possibility of controlling someones perceptions and an ability to be able to take them down the path you want them to see. Storytelling is a huge part of Graphic Design so the skill of changing people's perception would help you do this. I love things that are uncanny, things that make you feel off centre and a bit wobbly and I think The Science of Seeing Differently is a great example of this. [4]
Susanna also talked about The Situationists in the lecture, a movement I had never heard of. I found it really interesting that, according to the Situationists, it's not past experience or feelings that cause you to react to a situation, it's actually the situation itself. They called for devaluation of everything that wasn't modern society. One thing I don't understand though is why we can't both value things from the past and value things from the present. It feels to me like these are not mutually exclusive things. Memories of the past and experiences of the present and even hopes for the future can all co-exist. I also found the idea that everything that needs to be said already has been and it's just waiting to be picked up and rearranged slightly demotivating. If you think there is no such thing as something new what drives you to create? What is going to push society into trying new things and (hopefully) improving if you believe there is no new way?
Although the situationists had some theories I didn't necessarily agree with, I did like the idea of exploring through dérive. Wandering around a city rather than following maps is something I love doing when travelling - that way you find hidden gems that can't be found in a tourist map. Even in the city you live you see things you wouldn't usually notice. For example, it wasn't until I had lived in London for two years and was meeting a friend in the city and they were (very) late that I noticed all of the shrapnel marks you can still see in the building; scars from the second world war. Ever since I look for these all over London. It made made me think of this quote, that I thought was beautiful, from the lecture;
Structure and appearance were shaped by temporal events that were buried but never erased
I love the idea that buildings and cities retain traces of what happened to them even when time moves on. This made me think of Refik Anadol's Melting memories installation in 2018. [5] He produced a giant data sculpture that shows the way the brain recalls memories. He conducted experiments and recorded brain activity through an electroencephalogram (EEG) and this formed the basis for the algorithm that created the data sculptures. What I found the most interesting about the result was that the brain waves reminded me of ocean waves changing the shame of the shoreline sand; recalling memories looks, in this context, very much like nature itself.
I thought the Girl chewing gum video by John Smith was such a witty and inventive way to document the feeling of the street he was capturing. I liked the whimsical "direction" however I don't know if I got a tremendous sense of place from it - it could have been anywhere but I guess that is also the point.
In contrast I felt like Charles and Ray Eames' Power of 10 gave a wonderful sense of place not only within the world but also within the universe. The film made me feel small when zooming out then huge when zooming in, it not only gave a wonderful sense of place but also a wonderful sense of scale which can't be easy to achieve. I have always been fascinated with space, naturally the most interesting part to me was zooming out to the power of ten, so I decided to see what people who have been to space and seen the earth in this way said about it. [6]
Some people thought it was beautiful.
“I thought at one point, if you could be up in heaven, this is how you would see the planet. And then I dwelled on that and said, no, it’s more beautiful than that. This is what heaven must look like. I think of our planet as a paradise. We are very lucky to be here.” Mike Massimino, NASA Astronaut
It made some people want to protect the environment.
“In the future, I would like to be more of an advocate for animal conservation. Every single part of the Earth reacts with every other part. It’s one thing." Karen Nyberg, NASA Astronaut
Others were more philosophical.
"I see no God up here" Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, Cosmonaut
I find this so interesting because it is a perspective that not many people have or will ever have (at least anytime soon). It is so subjective and no two people will have the same experience looking at our little blue planet from such a great distance. The power of 10 really made me think about how lucky people are to be able to see our home from space while at the same time, making me realise we, humanity, have barely explored any of the known universe.
Martin Parr's "The Great British Seaside" and Maxwell Granger's "Portraits of Friends" didn't hold the same level of interest for me. I thought the seaside pictures did give a really good sense of place but I didn't find the actual images very exciting or intriguing - I didn't feel like I needed to know more about any of the subjects. I understand that Parr was trying to get across the British summertime where people go to the beach with their families, have fun and lose their inhibitions but I just found it mundane. The same with Granger's portraits, I had no desire to dig deeper. I do think this maybe because this is exactly how I grew up, going to Norfolk to spend the summer with my Nan at the seaside (much like Parr's photos) and now I live in one of the tiny flats in London Granger was trying to capture. Maybe there is something in the idea that mundane life is only interesting when it's not completely recognisable. I don't find people standing in tiny flats in London interesting because I am one of the people standing in a tiny flat in London.
Exformation, K Hara
[7] I liked the idea of unknowing something for the sake of looking at it from a new perspective and I also liked the idea that inquisitiveness and sensual qualities should carry more weight than assembling facts and rational analysis. I feel that if the focus is on facts and analysis, you are always going to come out with the same result. In this way I think exformation is an ideal way to design. If you remove information and gather it in a different way you will come up with new ideas. Maybe this will also make noticing the ignored easier - by forgetting what you know you could see everything in a different light, including the things you previously ignored?
However, I have always thought that experience influences design and creativity. We are the sum of all of our experience, so if we "unknow' everything, is this making story telling and relating to people on a human level harder? Should you not have some touchstones? For example, below is an interview with film maker David Lynch in which he speaks about “catching” ideas. [8]
In it, Lynch states that there is no such thing as a new idea (slightly depressing) and that all you do is catch ideas and formulate them into a new configuration in your head. To me, it's actually a bit of both, I like the idea that to create a new idea you have to start with the knowledge that you know nothing but the idea then goes on to be informed by your own personal experience.
Sketchbooks, R Brereton
[9]
When reading this article I found it interesting seeing how people thought of their sketchbooks and the different way they use them. Frederique Doubal for example sees it as a thought dump, where as soon as you have recorded it you no longer ave to think about it. I found this particularly interesting because I think of mine in the opposite way, I think of it as the start of something, whether that is an illustration, an idea, a project.
When reading Ed Fell's description I couldn't help but think of our sketchbooks as a constant silent observer - they experience everything with you, even if you're not drawing in it at that moment, it's there.
This reading has inspired me to look at doing something with that for my workshop challenge - looking at my sketchbook as the constant observer and recording the unnoticed inside.
Further Research
I loved Rachel Gannon's exploration of frontiers and what lies in the 'marchlands' between them. [10] The world is full of frontiers, whether it's borders between countries, war zones or even outer space. The world is full of these invisible lines that only some people are allowed to cross and only in certain ways. Gannon also states that we always have a preconceived notion of what lies on the other side of the border, it's almost never a mystery. Gannon's drawings make the south coast border of the UK look grim and unsettling, which depending on how you reach those borders in the UK I imagine is quite accurate. To me they have a haunting feel, being both populated in part and deserted in others. It makes me wonder what people heading for these borders for the first time think and feel when they arrive, the drawing tell a story of the place, often a forgotten place, they are representing. How often do you even notice the frontier you've crossed? I've travelled a lot and the only "frontier' or border I remember is Seattle because I got taken into a little room away from my friends and had to explain why I have a UK passport when I was born in Germany. Although I do think the reason for crossing the frontier might also carry some weight, for example a refugee escaping across a border to evade a brutal regime will have stronger memories of the border than someone just on holiday. I think Gannon's frontiers is a masterpiece in reportage drawing and really makes you think about the personal journeys of the people crossing these borders.
I'm really interested in the idea of frontiers and 'marchlands' as discussed by Rachel Gannon. The idea of the in-between and the unnoticed immediately made me think of how this is documented in three other ways -
Through words - Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Through film - Before Sunrise (1994)
Through Experience - My mum crossing the Berlin wall in the 80's.
I am going to explore these reactions further and delve deeper into why this idea of 'the in-between' fascinates me so much.
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens [11]
This is one of the best books I have read. It focusses on Kya, a girl living alone in the marsh since childhood. The reason I thought of this book is Kya essentially lives in the marchlands - a place between the borders. On one side is the ocean, on the other is the town but the marsh is neither sea or city. Kya sees crossing the boundary to the city as scary - she has a preconception that she will be judged there. This relates back to Gannon's theory that a frontier never opens out onto completely foreign worlds, you always have an idea of what is on the other side.
Kya is both part of humanity but separate from it in the book, in the same way she wont cross the border to the town because she is frightened, people from the town will not cross the border to the marsh because they too are scared. She lives in between humanity and nature, kept at bay by both. She is happy being ignored by both the sea and the people of the town. I thought this book explored the idea of living 'in between' and isolation beautifully.
“She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn't her fault she'd been alone. Most of what she knew, she'd learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.” Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing
Before Sunrise [12]
Before Sunrise is about two people meeting on a train and walking around Vienna all night. They are both in between their holiday and flight home, wasting time and wandering around a new city. I think this movie also relates back to the situationist idea of the dérive, not following maps or guidebooks and instead wandering aimlessly to discover.
It is just about these two people, who would usually be completely unnoticed in the city, talking and exploring. To any onlooker in the film it seems utterly unremarkable, but it is a night that changes both of their lives. This made me think about people coming to the borders illustrated by Gannon, they seem ordinary and to a degree uninteresting but this frontier crossing might change their lives too. Whether that is escaping war, visiting a lover or moving countries.
I was captivated by the mundane in this film - they just walk and talk and that's it, but it's beautiful.
“This was a waltz for one night” Julie Delpy, Before Sunrise
Interview with my mum about crossing the Berlin Wall
My mum (left) was a nurse in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps from 1982 - 1990. She was posted to Germany soon after joining. I recalled a conversation I had with my mum years ago about how she was in Berlin the night the wall came down and the relief she felt. I called her to ask her about her experience crossing this frontier and experiencing the 'Marchlands' in-between the wall. Here is our conversation.
My words are in italics, my mums words are not.
So, mum, when did you first cross from west to east Berlin?
In 1986, before you were born.
Yes, I was born after the fall of the wall so I'd assumed so.
Do you want me to help you with this or not?
Yes, sorry, so can you tell me what you knew about East Berlin before setting off?
I knew people could be quite suspicious. We had to wear our uniforms the whole time so they knew we were from the west so I expected the reception to be a bit frosty. We knew that people were poor in East Berlin and the buildings dilapidated.
What was the crossing of the wall like?
It was daunting, you had to drive down the Berlin corridor, the road between the two walls. It was bleak, all you could see was concrete. You had to stop at the first checkpoint and show your papers then set off to the next one. You had an allotted amount of time to get to the next one in, too quick and they gave you a speeding ticket, too slowly and they thought you were spying.
Was there nothing in between the two checkpoints?
No, it felt like a road to nowhere. Almost like you were missing, you weren't in the west and you weren't in the east. It felt like a weird, grey purgatory. Immediately after crossing the threshold from West Berlin into the corridor all the colour drained.
How did you feel when you came out in East Berlin?
I felt really emotional, the people were so poor and they had so little compared to on the west side of the wall. The colour didn't come back, it was all grey and colourless. I could feel the hopelessness of the homeless people on the streets as we walked. I also felt angry that this was allowed to happen. West Berlin was vibrant, it was full of colour and energy, like Berlin today, and people on the east were living in poverty. I really felt that this divide needed to be healed and colour brought back to the east.
Thanks mum, that will really help, I appreciate it.
That's okay honey, don't forget to send Heidi a birthday card.
Workshop
This week will involve you going out to really look, explore and record a local geographic area.
Identify your chosen geographic location. Select a street nearby to you within 1 or 2 miles from where you live.
Document it, explore it, evidence it.
Come up with something unique to your street.
Present your interpretation of your street in the media and format of your choice.
My immediate reaction was to pick a street I walk down all of the time but never really look at. Also because of my research on frontiers I wanted it to be between two significant places, a border to cross or even a marchland. London is full of recognisable places, Oxford Street, Leicester Square, Hyde Park so I wanted to go for a more ignored residential street. I started by thinking about all the places I walk, my (old) commute, my 'covid' walks, the journey to my best friends house. I decided to take this down a really personal route and picked the frontier between my flat and my best friends flat. It is a street I have walked down both on my commute and walks as well as the route to Laura's, called Broomhill Road. So I went on my first walk to notice the ignored...
The first thing that struck me was how quiet the street was and how used to it I had grown. Pre pandemic this street was constantly busy with school children, commuters, shoppers and residents. Now there was barely anyone around. I then noticed the strong smell of a medley of different meals - Broomhill Road comes off Wandsworth High street which is jam packed with restaurants and takeaways.
I also found the juxtaposition of old and new so closely residing interesting - the old school building which used to be a boys boarding school back when the cane was allowed with the brand new electric car chargers. This made me remember one of the reasons I love London - the way old and new sit side by side, the Shard next to London Bridge, the Gherkin near St Paul's Cathedral. Like the architecture the attitude in London is a welcoming diversity. Walking down a street I see every day but really looking at it this time made me rediscover my love for this city. One that had become a little lost with the closure of everything. And with that I felt like I understood the dérive.
One thing I noticed that wasn't so good was the fact that every person I passed was looking down at their phone. No one was looking at where they were going or who else was there, they were just staring at their device. I then realised that I had been doing exactly the same thing. My first thought when I came to document the street was taking photos using my phone. This was where I started to look at the workshop task in a different way, I need a different way to document this, one that doesn't involve my iPhone.
I thought back to the reading on sketchbooks and remembered Ed Fella's view of his sketchbook and my observation that sketchbooks were a silent observer, always there, always seeing but not always acknowledged. So I decided to go back to Broomhill road and... dun dun duuuun... leave my phone at home. So I took a pen, pencil and sketchbook and spent around 2 (pretty cold) hours drawing what I saw, trying to find the beauty in the mundane. These are the sketches I came back with;
I liked my sketch observation however I feel like I need to do more to show the idea that people are always looking down at their phones so they don't see what's right in front of them. When I was researching the Charles and Ray Eames film "The Power of 10" I found it on a list of films about cities. Another of the movies on this list was Ferris Beuller's Day off, a film that has been described as a love letter to Chicago. I remembered there was a quote from Ferris Beuller about looking around;
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it
I thought this was extremely apt as the main focus of my piece so far had been not using technology as a distraction from beautiful things all around you. My next idea was to set my sketches to the quote, this is how it turned out.
I really liked this, however I thought something was missing. It wasn't clear that I wanted these sketches to be like blinks, to seem like it's someone seeing all of these things for the first time because they're finally not looking at their phones. So I added a blink in between each image. I also really like the way the quote ends by saying "you might miss it" as the screen goes blank. This was a mistake at first but they do say some good ideas come from the accidents along the way!
I'm really pleased now I have added the blinks in, it really gives the effect I want it to, like Polaroid's of somewhere you have never noticed before. I wonder if I could push this one step further and zoom right into the sketches to give a more abstract and close up look at the forgotten bits of the world.
No, no I shouldn't push it further by zooming in. While I think some of them, like the cable on the fence work really well in close up, some of the other sketches like the postbox, bricks and fence in front of a tree are almost unrecognisable more zoomed in. The next step is to match the scale and see if the further away images can be zoomed i to a similar scale to the ones that are already close up, for example the brick, postbox and fence.
Final Piece
I actually think the different scaled work well and offer a more natural and honest look at Broomhill Road so I have decided to go with this video for my final workshop piece this week.
Reflection on week
I found the reading and research a bit difficult to get into this week. While I did find it interesting, I thought the volume of people mentioned in the lecture was slightly overwhelming. However, when I reminded myself that I didn't have to look into everything it seemed like a much more manageable task. I found the situationists particularly interesting because it is something I have never heard of before and it was such an extreme view. I also thought Rachel Gannon's Frontiers project was breathtaking and revealed to me an interest I didn't even know I had - the idea of being in between frontiers. I had no idea this was the link between one of my favourite books (Where the Crawdads Sing) and my favourite movie (Before Sunrise) until researching the idea of Frontiers. I also got to interview my mum about a time in her life I didn't really know about which was lovely.
The workshop task was really interesting. I was slightly skeptical at first as I genuinely thought I took quite a lot of notice of my surroundings - turns out I did not. I am really pleased with the way I have linked research and the workshop task this week, carrying on the theme of frontiers through my research and my street choice. I wish I had had the time to do more sketches for my video as I initially wanted them to be much faster to be more like a snapshot. If I was to continue developing this idea I think I would find more quotes about frontiers and marchlands from pop culture and overlay them wi more, faster paced sketches to give the idea you are running through parts of London you have never noticed with the quotes as a soundtrack about noticing the ignored. I also think if we hadn't been confined to our immediate area because of Covid I would have ventured more into central to explore the shrapnel scars on building from WW2. But overall, although like with every project there are hundreds of ways I would develop and improve it, I am happy with my outcome.
Peer Review and Discussion
References
[1] Winter, E. (2016). Why Is It Hard to Live for the Moment. Available: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-smart/201609/why-is-it-hard-live-the-moment. Last accessed 02/03/21.
[2] Moss, R. (2020). Without Future Plans, We're Living In An 'Infinite Present'. Available: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/without-future-plans-were-living-in-an-infinite-present-heres-why-thats-hard_uk_5ebe6f1bc5b6500cdf66b468. Last accessed 02/03/21.
[3] Ananthaswamy, A. (2017). Deviate attempts to alter the way we perceive the world Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431231-000-attempts-to-alter-the-way-we-perceive-the-world/#ixzz6nyUAQgED. Available: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431231-000-attempts-to-alter-the-way-we-perceive-the-world/. Last accessed 02/03/21.
[4] Lotto, B (2017). Deviate The Science of Seeing Differently. UK: Orion. p1-256.
[5] Anadol, R. (2018). Melting Memories. Available: https://refikanadol.com/works/melting-memories/. Last accessed 06/03/21.
[6] Drake, N. (2018). They Saw Earth From Space. Here’s How It Changed Them.. Available: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/astronauts-space-earth-perspective. Last accessed 06/03/21.
[7] Hara, K. (2015) Ex-Formation. Lars Muller: Zurich.
[8] The Atlantic. (2017). David Lynch on where great ideas come from. Available at:https://vimeo.com/182093266. Last accessed 06/03/21
[9] Brereton, R. (2009) Sketchbooks; The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives. (Links to an external site.) Lawrence King: London.
[10 ] Gannon, R. (2020). Frontiers. Available: https://www.rachelgannon.co.uk/Frontiers. Last accessed 6/3/21.
[11] Owens, D (2018). Where the Crawdads Sing. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
[12] Before Sunrise. (1995). [DVD]. Richard Linklater. USA. Columbia Pictures. [7/3/21].
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