Studio and Seminar 2 Final Presentation Reflection
Seminar Research Paper: An Aperture into the Marble Arch-2bnh0oy
Washington Square Park is known to be one of New York’s most densely used greenspaces. Iconic for its white arch, the park has a rich and colorful history. The park serves not only as a public park but as campus quarters, activist site and an attraction to tourists.
In order to better research and a get a feel for the energy and aura of this greenspace, I set out to go to the park and talk to a few people. There were many findings which I was actually quite shocked to learn.
Because of all my learnings, I decided to make an aperture in the form of a book. After drawing inspiration from Printed Matter, I decided to make a book that could open from front or back. There is a note behind the first cover which reads “turn the page to put a face to the voice” and the note behind the back cover reads “turn the page to put a voice to the face”. I wanted it to have the effect of breaking preconceived notions and judgments we have about people. After talking to people about the park, I learned so much more about their personalities through the emotional attachment and personal associations they had with the park. The beauty in this is that it truly is an aperture into people’s personalities.
The following are some quotes from the readings throughout the year that led me to making this project.
“Nonplaces” by Marc Auge
“Modernity in art preserves all the temporalities of place, the ones that are located in space and in words.”
I really liked the concept of Non-Places. Auges talks about homogenized public spaces such as airports, railway stations and hotels. He refers to these places as “non-places” and speaks of how these places provide people with almost a fallacious sense of “home”. Auges even goes on to speak of globalization and urbanization in a supermodern context.
“A Thing Like You and Me” by Hiro Steyerel
“To participate in an image—rather than merely identify with it—could perhaps abolish this relation. This would mean participating in the material of the image as well as in the desires and forces it accumulates. How about acknowledging that this image is not some ideological misconception, but a thing simultaneously couched in affect and availability, a fetish made of crystals and electricity, animated by our wishes and fears—a perfect embodiment of its own conditions of existence? As such, the image is—to use yet another phrase of Walter Benjamin’s—without expression. It doesn’t represent reality. It is a fragment of the real world. It is a thing just like any other—a thing like you and me.”
City Lore
- Big inspiration for this project
- Celebrate culture, tradition and diversity
- Found on the basis of fostering New York’s urban folk culture
- New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions.
- Bring light to immigrant stories and provide cultural equity
Mapping Assignments
- Sound map
- Information visualization
- Helped me develop the design for how to think about a place and do this project
Future Projects
- Gift the book to the park
- Maybe bury it so one day someone can find it like an archive
- Collaborate with CityLore
And thus, “what I’ve made for the final bridge project in studio and seminar is not what I would have made on the first day of either of these classes.”
