Dirty / Sticky Project Idea

I have an idea that would show the effect of time. If I could create posters (or other mediums) that showed one message in light colors, I'm thinking type-heavy, that was printed with a light texture of shapes or words in a clear sticky substance on top, much like rubber cement, the debris / pollution / dirt from the outside world, over time, would eventually collect on the sticky substance and create a message over the printed poster's first intentional message. Possibly this could be applicable for some sort of environmental issue, the new Global Warming movie, or something humorously referencing NYC?

Playboy Architecture

"The approach to the past only becomes creative when the architect is able to enter into its inner meaning and content. It degenerates into a dangerous pastime when one is merely hunting for forms: playboy architecture."

-S. Gideon from "Space, Time, and Architecture" p xliii

Propose we are experience Playboy Design.

Do I need a section on Pop Culture?

If so, I would include:

Movies:
*about time travel, distopia
-Back to the Future
-How to Draw a Bunny
-Bladerunner

Music:
-Pink Floyd
-Forrest Gump Soundtrack
-Simon and Garfunkel

Products
-Secret Deodorant - use of decades as representative of smells

Quotes about Ruin

"The ruin does not supervene like an accident upon a monument that was intact only yesterday. In the beginning there is ruin. Ruin is that which happens to the image from the moment of the first gaze. Ruin is the self-portrait, this face looked at in the face as the memory of itself, what remains or returns as a specter from the moment one first looks at oneself and a figuration is eclipsed. The figure, the face, then sees its visibility being eaten away; it loses its integrity without disintegrating. For the incompleteness of the visible monument comes from the eclipsing structure of the trait, from a structure that is only remarked, pointed out, impotent or incapable of being reflected in the shadow of the self-portrait."- Jacques Derrida

"The ruin is not in front of us; it is neither a spectacle nor a love object. It is experience itself: neither the abandoned yet still monumental fragment of a totality, nor, as Benjamin thought, simply a theme of baroque culture. It is precisely not a theme, for it ruins the theme, the position, the presentation or representation of anything and everything. Ruin is, rather, this memory open like an eye, or like the hole in a bone socket that lets you see without showing you anything at all, anything of the all. This, for showing you nothing at all, nothing of the all. 'For' means here both because the ruin shows nothing at all and with a view to showing nothing of the all."- Jacques Derrida

"We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings."- Alfred Jarry

"Whence the love of ruin. And the fact that the scopic pulsion, voyeurism itself, is always on the lookout for the originary ruin. A narcissistic melancholy, a memory- in mourning- of love itself. How to love anything other than the possibility of ruin? Than an impossible totality?"- Jacques Derrida

"Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin, comforter
And only healer when the heart hath bled;
. . . Time, the avenger!"- Lord Byron

"We moralize among ruins."- Benjamin Disraeli

website: http://www.brynmawr.edu/visualculture/journal/t_ruins.shtml

for memory quotes: http://www.brynmawr.edu/visualculture/journal/p_benjamin.shtml

Architect's view on the environment

This is from Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's book "The Architecture of Signs and Systems":

"There can be little doubt that the art of illusion, the art of the television screen and of electronic fantasy, will play a considerable role in the architecture of the future, much as painting and sculpture did in the architecture of the past. Perhaps the appropriate use of computers for architecture in an Electronic Age is not to compose contorted forms but to validate valid surfaces, for an Information Age." (p100)

IE in planning for the future, technology and new electronic mediums will lead the race

"...Today we would discuss as well how patterns of living, working, leisure, educatioN, commerce, and production are evolving in relation to computer-generated changes in the technology of communication and in response to global economic and social forces." (p153)

IE life evolves in relation to technology

In his argument about whether form follows function, and also relating to planning for the future, he stated, "In many projects, sacrificing some adherence to the specifics of present programs may be worthwhile for the flexibility this offers the future." (p153)

Kevin Lynch - suggested ways to design buildings that plan for the future by:
1. providing extra space so that structural and mechanical elements could change over time without interrupting activities they were currently serving.
2. structures strong enough to take a range of uses
3. lighting systems allowing for a variety of activities
(p154)
"Lynch felt buildings planning for changer per se had a better chance of satisfying over their lifetime than those based on predictions of specific changes to come. He recommended PLANNING FOR THE UNPREDICTABLE." (p154)

From "Learning from Las Vegas" by Robert Venturi:

"The integration of the arts in Modern architecture has always been called a good thing. But one did not paint on Mies. Painted panels were floated independently of the structure by means of shadow joints; sculpture was in or near but seldom on the building. Objects of art were used to reinforce architectural space a the expense of their own content." (p7)

IE you can change a space with art / design. the art works as an evolving part of the environment because they are free standing or floating pieces that are able to be moved and replaced / changed.

Ray Johnson (How to Draw a Bunny)

I think this could be applicable in a Rauschenberg sense. I am thinking of Ray Johnson's work that he mailed out, I don't recall what they were called, but his mailed pieces. I think there could possibly be something there of relevance in that they existed in life and were sent out over time, molding with the changes of the mailing system, not to be put on a wall but an integral part of existence. I am referencing this here so I don't forget.

"How to Draw a Bunny" the documentary about the life of Ray Johnson.

Oklahoma epiphanies

i am reserving this section for breakthroughs in the brainstorming of projects. I keep having ideas while I am on vacation in Oklahoma and forgetting them the next day.

So far I have considered applying the idea of a product that's folds create a constant change, or something that the uses is forced to interact with and through that interaction creates a different and eternally changing / evolving design. At the moment I am thinking of something physical that could be folded. Or possibly clear and plastic that could be viewed differently at each angle.

Another note, on the plane I read the infamous Tibor Kalman vs. Joe Duffy debates in Print Magazine from 1990. I thought it would provide more into the nostalgia issue of design, but really I felt that Kalman's argue against Duffy's use of nostalgia was extremely weak, as Duffy countered by showing Kalman's work, and its use that was quite obviously the same. They both use nostalgia to tell or be appealing in some fashion. Kalman felt he was educating, but really couldn't even substantiate his argument when asked questions by Duffy. So yeah, that gets me no where, but is at least one thing to check off as options.

This week I am focusing on architecture, which I feel is quite parallel, especially when speaking of preservation, restoration, reconstruction, and the viewpoints / schools of thought on the subjects.

I think it would be quite interesting too to look into current shows and gallery openings in NYC that use street art or urban art, showing decomposition.

Final thought, Klinkowstein says to check out Cage and his Buddhist influences on art and design.