ARCH1142 - Reflection!

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Ahh, and now at the end of semester I can look back and reflect on the course. I won't start with the usual reflection stuff, like "this subject was challenging and very rewarding, I feel I have grown as a person, etc." I'll be honest, and say that it stressed me out, at times defeated me, really annoyed me, but I actually did enjoy it.
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Unfortunately I'm not in the greatest position to give a proper critique, due to the disrupted weeks and Special Consideration and all that. I don't think I got ANYTHING in on time, or was ever prepared for a class (I even still have that animation to do...). But maybe not being able to work for periods of time meant I enjoyed it more when i did work? Every week at 3am I'd sit down to start whatever was due, and after getting into it would wish I had more time to do it because I liked where it was going and it was actually kinda cool.
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I think as a subject its rotating workshop structure was, though good as an idea and an experience, too intensive for short bursts. I know nothing will be easy, but it was too stressful at times, and your creativity is limited when all you're thinking about is this week's due date. But I still liked it, and can't complain at all about what was taught and what I ended up producing. So thankyou to all!

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And we got to make playdough :)

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"Text and Form Entwined" - Model

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This is my model from the task "Text and Form Entwined", a 3D mountboard exploration of a text. Out of all the tasks, I am most proud of it!

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The idea that appealed to me from studying the text ('The Fold') and an artist's work (DeCOI's Ageis Hyposurface) was that of fluid individual elements always coexisting to form a whole.

I attempted to represent this by massing small enclosed spaces as the elements. The larger mound is the whole, and some of its elements fly out of it to form a breakaway section, but then flow back into it in a constant loop; though fluid movers, they are always relative to the whole.
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"Body, Space, City" - Text

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Here is the accompanying text that went with my collage poster for the 'Body, Space, City' task:

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" No Smoking.

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Alright. Thank you dear government representative for putting up that sign and wanting to save my lungs. And sure, I won’t smoke. But I came to see Sydney, I came to experience it, not to be told how, where and when to.

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That seems to be the modern city. So big and busy has it become that it fashions with its own hands a system to regulate itself. It’s not a group of buildings atop grassy hills to explore, but an omnipresent network of signs and directions. I’m accosted by a fluid river of polished plates, of aluminium lollypop ladies holding my hand and moulded shapes sparkling their contrived and controlling smiles.

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They make me too conscious of the options my footsteps have, too conscious of what is ahead and what isn’t, instead of letting me see and feel and discover and wonder.
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It’s almost insulting. What if I want to consider the distance to the nearest station in terms of place and not metres? What if I want to turn right here, to park between 10am and 10pm there?

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Yeah yeah, realistically it’s all perfectly understandable and undisputable. How else would you get around? How else could everything be safe, be legal, be commercial, be efficient? And yeah, I know... all these signs are there for my own good, so I don’t pester every shop assistant for directions, or drive in a frustrated loop, or return to my home country espousing what an exercise in uncontrolled lunacy this place is.

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But a city should be about more than control. Engaging in the fluid existence of towering structures and historical places is a humbling experience, that you can only feel right there in a sudden moment. A city of signs and directions betrays that, even though I know without them the modern city can’t exist.

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And I do appreciate my lungs being saved. But that single, uninterrupted moment is something you can’t factory-cut and polish, or point someone in the direction of. "

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"Body, Space, City" - Model and Poster

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For week 3, we explored an aspect of the urban city with a collage poster and model.
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In considering the framing, space and time within a city, I quickly thought of the network of signs that the modern city is made up of, which frame your experience of it and always position you in a space and time. So my poster recreated this network, and for my model I made a miniature city that is being consumed by the playdough ground level and wire signs.

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Other works

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Below are a number of drawings and the final model from Workshop 3, Material Modeling, put together for one photograph. The model is incomplete, but I feel these works are not as successful as my other models (see above).

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WORKSHOP 3

2 - Final animation

My workshop 2 animation, finally done! I changed my animation around a little from what was originally intended, and feel it turned out better.

It begins with a Red Centre internal view, and the interior and a figure become "boxed" in - this is essentially a straight-lined, 'building block' world. The block figure looks longingly out the window, then, the railing suddenly "scribbles" to life and takes over the figure's hand, bringing them to life too. The railing then takes them on a flight outside as the building and environment all "scribble" to life.

I originally just had the railing take the figure on the flight, to show how the building would come to life around those within it. I came up with the block and scribble ideas so the idea of coming to life was much more evident, and so the architecture literally interacted with the person and reacted to their thoughts.