PROJECT 3: CONFINEMENT

Collecting Data over 26 days of screen times, sleep schedule, food intake etc… I was trying to document my case of confinement in Paris France. I wanted to see the patterns created, putting myself as the subject studied and the scientist.

 

Ideally, I would have liked to have this model in 3D and map out the activities in 3D. I didn’t manage to do it in a short period of time and to figure out the point cloud (it is a very heavy file to import into blender 2.8Gb)

Studio Project 3 – Confinement

Foucault text notes:

“Punishment of vagabonds and the relief of the poor” (p.43)

“Houses of correction”

The Hospital General was initially to take care of the unwanted. “The great hospitals houses of confinement, establishments of religion and public order, of assistance and punishment of governmental charity and welfare measures” (p.43)

The poor were driven out of paris, arrested “Paris decided to arrest beggars and force them to work in the sewers of the city, chained in pairs.” (p.47)

“Beggars of Paris to be whipped in public square, branded on the shoulder”(p.47)

“Forbid entry to indigents”

“Purely negative measures of exclusion were replaced by a measure of confinement; the unemployed person was no longer driven away or punished; he was taken in charge. At the expense of the nation but at the cost of his liberty. Between him and society, an implicit system of obligation was established: he has the right to be fed, but he must accept the physical and moral constraints of confinement.” (p.48)

All the unwanted were to be confined and seperate from society, to not harm society?

Hopital General of Lyon 40 years before Paris.

In England it was work/ labor for the poor at a low rate, but because of economical reason and competition, the workers weren’t even meeting the price of their pension. 

In France it was more to put away the beggars rather than giving them occupation.

“Sometimes there were even arrangements which permitted private entrepreneurs to utilize the manpower of the asylums for their own profit.” (p.53)

“Even in paris, several attempts were made to transform the buildings of the Hospital General into factories” (p.53)

Mendicancy and idleness as sources of all disorder

Idleness: laziness; indolence.

“Between labor and idleness in the classical world ran a line of demarcation that replaced the exclusion of leprosy” (p.57)

Leprosy: a contagious disease that affects the skin, mucous membranes, and nerves, causing discoloration and lumps on the skin and, in severe cases, disfigurement and deformities. Leprosy is now mainly confined to tropical Africa and Asia.

“Men did not wait until the seventeenth century to “shut up” the mad, but it was in this period that they began to “confine” or “intern” them, along side with an entire population with whom their kinship was recognized” (p.58)

““To render them useful to the public” it was made quite clear that the origin of poverty was neither scarcity of commodities nor unemployment but the “weakening of discipline and the relaxation of morals”” (p.59) relating that to libertinage

“The libertinage of beggars has risen to excess unfortunate of beggars has  tolerance of crimes of all sorts …” 

“But also that of a moral institution responsible for punishing, for correcting a certain moral “abeyance””

“The hospital general has an ethical status” (p.59)

Making the hospital a place for the ones not following social rules??

Confinement was an institutional creation peculiar to the seventeenth century. It acquired from the first an impor- tance that left it no rapport with imprisonment as practiced in the Middle Ages. As an economic measure and a social precaution, it had the value of inventiveness. But in the history of unreason, it marked a decisive event: the mo- ment when madness was perceived on the social horizon of poverty, of incapacity for work, of inability to integrate with the group; the moment when madness began to rank among the problems of the city. The new meanings as- signed to poverty, the importance given to the obligation to work, and all the ethical values that are linked to labor, ultimately determined the experience of madness and inflected its course.” (p.64)

 

Project 2 – Defacement

For the defacement project, I wanted to focus on Haussmann’s defacement. For some reason, I was focussing on windows and directly saw them a looking glass, and a “window” into different perspectives.

I was interested in the question of how to we see a history we don’t want to accept. Of course, at the time, this reconstruction of Paris wouldn’t have been taken very well, especially from the people affected. But today we are very proud of the aesthetic of Paris and it has become its identity. It wasn’t a flop.

The Haussmannian defacement had a very political and economical agenda and wasn’t necessarily just an aesthetic move.

 

My first idea, I imagined a street with floating windows, no walls to hold them or form buildings.

But from there I considered putting floating window frames inside, then outside then projecting on it. Maybe having a map of the changes happen as an accompaniment.

Or maybe having the glass of the window have a double reflection, and a very sheet image imp resented on it.

PROJECT 2 – Defacement

I’m still not very confident about what the final representation and outcome of this project would be, whether it should be a mock-up of an installation with a description or something else?

I also want to try and find testimonials of people during that time, and as previously mentioned, project it into the future.

Bibliography:

  • Pinkney, David H. “Napoleon III’s Transformation of Paris: The Origins and Development of the Idea”, Journal of Modern History (1955) 27#2 pp. 125–34
  • Pinkney, David H. “Money, and Politics in the Rebuilding of Paris, 1860–1870”, Journal of Economic History (1957) 17#1 pp. 45–61
  • Soppelsa, Peter S. The Fragility of Modernity: Infrastructure and Everyday Life in Paris, 1870–1914 (ProQuest, 2009)
  • Walker, Nathaniel Robert. “Lost in the City of Light: Dystopia and Utopia in the Wake of Haussmann’s Paris.” Utopian Studies 25.1 (2014): 23–51

 

Gerhard Richter – Dialect  “4 panels of Glass”

– Aupidom Gaulois – Dassault Systems

 


Reading:  Brian Dillon. 2006. ‘The revelation of erasure’, in Tate Etc. issue 8

“Erasure is never merely a matter of making things disappear: there is always some detritus strewn about in the aftermath, some bruising to the surface from which word or image has been removed, some reminder of the violence done to make the world look new again”

“Every painting, said Picasso, is a sum of destructions: the artist builds and demolishes in the same instant”

 


Research:

 

Sketches

 

 

Because of the confinement, I had to adapt the project and develop it digitally.

Initially i wanted to create a 3D model on Blender, but that didnt work out.

Suggested by Lily, I then ended up doing a collage. Not necesarily as a mock up, but to show this poetic way of defacement using windows.

 

inspiration:

Räume by Gerhard Richter
Räume by Gerhard Richter
The Past is a Foreign Country I. Collage. 2010 by Elena Damiani
Collages for Elements (2014) by Annie Yuxi
Nemestudio: Museum of Lost Volumes

 

Cases found:

  • Defence
  • Cite international des Arts
  • Hotel Sauvigny
  • Place des fetes Belleville
  • Opera Garnier
  • Periferique (Ivry)
Avenue Opera Photograph by Charles Marville
Place des Fetes, Belleville
Quai Pont Marie, Paris
La Defanse

 

 

Zonier, Ivry

 

Using the window as a looking glass, looking out or in, I initially wanted to use the window installation as a capsule that will stand through time and future defacement, and in which we look in and out from it.

 

 

 

FINAL PROJECT 2

Project 2: La Villette

https://youtu.be/E54kmpEu9i0

 

 

Follow the flow and randomness in the park, walking around and taking a short video of each “scene” I found and took pictures of the details around that area, following the path and that I followed.

 

https://youtu.be/C5KgeB1n3WU

Version 2.0

The video is a photo montage of 3 straight pathways, overlapping with the point system (folie) when they connect.

 

 

Version 3.0 Final Video

For the video, I decided to go with the superposition on the system of lines and dots (les folies). Ideally, with the footage I had, wanted to show the alignment and repetitively of the folie, by taking pictures of them at the same distance, repetitively, creating a sequence. I went along the “vertical” path walk, the “diagonal” path walk, and the “horizontal” path walk of the park. For the sound, I tried to focus of the creaking of the folies created by the wind or movement on them. (a disclaimer: I was planning to go again to La Villette before confinement to reshoot properly and rerecord sound but I couldn’t due to timing.)

I find La Villette very disorganised and superposed as it is a theme of its design. It works in different layers put on top of each other, all together they don’t make sense anymore. Even if it is based of a grid, paradoxically, all these different systems create chaos and we don’t have the aesthetic of composition anymore.

Since I decided to go with photograph instead of video, with the sound, it makes the mind want to imagine and understand a space more, than when we’re looking at a video that depicts movement. We try to imagine the people walking, the trees moving and the flow the image gives. An urban environment isn’t static, it’s movement. When capturing an image, we are capturing a moment that will depict the constant of the movement. With sound it’s a bit more difficult, since what makes an urban space is the superposition of several different sounds that creates noise, or the sound of an urban space. In this project I approached sound as an addition to the visual, to complement it, and following the topic of the visual, which are the folies. 

Project 1: Method Dossier LAB

PLAYINCHATALET

For project 1, we focused on the metro system of Paris, and this interconnectivity of different paths in the same place, that create this organised chaos. People go from point A to point B, but each have a different attribute, which creates this intertwinement.

The idea started with the initial idea I had about a building that would obstruct all different kinds of systems in the urban space and would be considered a rural building and space in the city. I am still keen on the idea and would like to develop it more.

From there, the idea developed, and we focused more on the idea of disruption. Would it be considered a resistance? Going against the grain of the system? Or would people be unbothered

So we are mainly inspired by amusement park of fun houses plans, forcing the participants into a unfunctinal situation.

We did keep in mind the element of surprise, irony and satire as an ongoing thread throughout the project. We definitely are going against the system of the metro being functional and practical.

We are adding elements and changing the structure of the station in our favour. The audience will not knowingly be put in into the game in entering the station, and playing by our rules.

I think the way we presented our idea as a blueprint (-ish) way make it understandable, and the activities clear. I would have rather have more detailed description in an annex / index rather than having the logos and illustrations.

But that did limit us in a way, after the critique and the feedback we got, and have seen Fun Palace by Cedric Price, I would have loved to develop it more with illustrations. It is definitely a way I would have loved to develop more.

Cedric Price, Fun Palace
The Fun Palace by Cedric Price

I definitely think it could have been more aesthetically pleasing, I don’t necessarily like how the outcome is, but I do enjoy the initial idea.

Olivia and I have very different styles, and I feel like mine was overshadowed in this project.

 

Project 1 – Networked Cities

— Working with Olivia Bonner

For project 1, we focused on the metro system of Paris, and this interconnectivity of different paths in the same place, that create this organised chaos. People go from point A to point B, but each have a different attribute, which creates this intertwinement.

The idea started with the initial idea I had about a building that would obstruct all different kinds of systems in the urban space and would be considered a rural building and space in the city. I am still keen on the idea and would like to develop it more.

 

Using a cardboard / wood cutout of a silhouette, we’re going to disturb the crowd by putting it in several general pathways in the metro station (Châtelet – Gare du Nord – Saint Lazare) [putting the cutout on the rails???]

To document the disruption, we’re going the film the installation (probably in time-lapse), and it would be considered the final work.

Olivia wants to make the video more chaotic, with different layers overlapping (more crazy and colourful, a bit like under LSD) but I don’t agree.We have different styles and I’m having a hard time finding a middle ground.

[It will also be accompanied by an analytic text (written by Olivia) that analyses the obstruction that occurs.]

 

Would it be considered a resistance? Going against the grain of the system? Or would people be unbothered.

— I’m still interested in the phenomenon of the urban space, and how if we take individually urban layers and divide them from one another, it  no longer is an urban space.

This goal will be achieved if everyday practices, “ways of operating” or doing things, no longer appear as merely the obscure background of social activity, and if a body of theoretical questions, methods, categories, and perspectives, by penetrating this obscurity, make it possible to articulate them — Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

Statues Installation:

Installation proposal of statues of people walking in metal in the middle of hallways in the metro station

We finally decided on redesigning the Châtelet metro station in the style of a funhouse. Still on the topic of disruption of a system, we are creating a
“unfuctional” station. While the metro is used for fast commuting and for its fast and easy functionality, we are redesigning it in a nonfictional way.

So we are mainly inspired by amusement park of fun houses plans

 

forcing the participants into a unfunctinal situation.

– the element of surprise – irony – satire

We are adding elements and changing the structure of the station in our favour. The audience will not knowingly be put in into the game in entering the station, and playing by our rules.

 

Sketches

Initial brainstorming and planning of the “funhouse”

Miro

Inspo:

The Nolli map reflects Bufalini’s map of 1551, with which Nolli readily invited comparison, however Nolli made a number of important innovations. Firstly, Nolli reorients the city from east (which was conventional at the time) to magnetic north, reflecting Nolli’s reliance on the compass to get a bearing on the city’s topography. Secondly, though he follows Bufalini in using a figure-ground representation of built space with blocks and building shaded in a dark poché, Nolli represents enclosed public spaces such as the colonnades in St. Peter’s Square and the Pantheon as open civic spaces. Finally, the map was a significant improvement in accuracy, even noting the asymmetry of the Spanish Steps. The map was used in government planning for the city of Rome until the 1970s; it was used as a base map for all Roman mapping and planning up to that date.

The map is framed with a vedute by Stefano Pozzi. A scaled-down edition, a collaboration between Nolli and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, was published in the same year the original map was finished. Piranesi was instrumental in getting the work printed; Giuseppe Vasi also contributed.

I really like the aesthetic of this work, I would love to find a way to incorporate it.

 

The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from anti-authoritarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movementsof the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism.Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.

The work of the Situationist interests both Olivia and I, in the sense of the aesthetics again.

Initial changes of the map

Project 1

I started with a simple base of the map, of blueprints of Chatelet.

 

And then based on my sketches, I created the connections between the entrances and the lines, and the activities you have to get through to get to the Line. (using Miro)

Idea development, and planning of activities in the station using Miro

After presentation:

still don’t feel like the project is done, and not satisfied with the aesthetic outcome.
Looked into The Fun Palace

Joan Littlewood and the architect Cedric Price came up with the idea of the Fun Palace as one building in 1961. It was their dream to build a space where people in the community could come together to celebrate arts, science and culture.

I really like this aesthetic of the work, and feel like it mirrors well my view of it.

 

Place Observation

For my place observation exercice, I chose a Velib stop near Parsons. I decided to go with an audio recording to describe the spot. Since the city has a lot of noice (pollution one might say), it was hard to really get key elements with sound that described the spot . I’m am more and more interested in sounds, especially urban and how we can differentiate them from one and an other and what would we really call an urban sound if the sounds are not all mixed and overlapped together.

 

 

(Audio Files to be added)

About me

Confused

 

Still leaning towards photo, video and graphic design. (+ painting; going back to it)

 

Art or Design

Very interested in Architecture.

 

Focus more on Lebanon.

 

Excels at research, sucks at documentation. Rarely knows what the outcome is more go with the flow rather than plan (because it never turns out as planned)

[Stubborn / devil’s advocate]