metaforms
metaforms w. Dana Karwas
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“This society which eliminates geographical distance reproduces distance internally as spectacular separation.”
Guy Debord December 28, 1931-November 30, 1994 “Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.” Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography Guy-Ernest Debord
Of all the affairs we participate in, with or without interest, the groping search for a new way of life is the only aspect still impassioning. Aesthetic and other disciplines have proved blatantly inadequate in this regard and merit the greatest detachment. We should therefore delineate some provisional terrains of observation, including the observation of certain processes of chance and predictability in the streets. The word psychogeography, suggested by an illiterate Kabyle as a general term for the phenomena a few of us were investigating around the summer of 1953, is not too inappropriate.(…) We know with what blind fury so many unprivileged people are ready to defend their mediocre advantages. Such pathetic illusions of privilege are linked to a general idea of happiness prevalent among the bourgeoisie and maintained by a system of publicity that includes Malraux’s aesthetics as well as the imperatives of Coca-Cola–an idea of happiness whose crisis must be provoked on every occasion by every means.
The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord translation by Ken Knabb Simulated cities, sedated living The shopping mall as paradigmatic site of lifestyle capitalism Robert Misik
If, as Rem Koolhaas has remarked, “shopping is the last remaining form of public activity”, why does sociology look down upon it as preserve of pop theory and window dressing manuals? Shopping malls simulate the buzz of city centres and create an atmosphere appropriate for consuming. Everything is planned in advanced and controlled; appropriation or adaptation of the space by passers-by is both impossible and forbidden. This rebounds on city centres: prettified, scrubbed, and tidied, they increasingly adopt the mall aesthetic. And in a final twist, malls have begun building reconstructions of city streets.
RESOURCES
biothing by aliza andrasek (columbia archi)
GSAPP ‘the expanded architect’
GROUP RESEARCH 1st thoughts… by JamesJamesPiama
water bridges islands roosevelt island tram docks terminals creating a trip holy sacred land cardinal archi sites of hidden histories times square wash.sq.park spaces bw buildings hidden places of quiet old industrial scaffolding abandoned floating lady pool smallpox hospital sculpture park noguchi museum world’s fair water tower nostalgia unused train stations arcade leading to bethesda fountain LES prospect park shuttle wealth of central park and surroundings levels of FDR con ed plant on west side holland tunnel monolith quaint e. 5th st safe unsafe transportation/time social contrasts temporary markets alleyways industrial places that connect thru sound grand central w. cars going thru w.side postal service interesting vistas/views terence conran shop texture facade lighting faultlines what is the center of the city? original 1811 plan changing neighborhoods reservoir in central park regimented gridlines and walking patterns
Something of interest from 1890:
Jersey Street is proposed to be pedestrian only.
Jersey Street Rookeries
Things a have really changed drastically in the “tenement apartments” in NOLITA (formerly the Five-Points area)
sign on a residence on Jersey st
a garage door on Jersey st
Jersey st at night-
photo and paragraph below by:
Mary Sargent’s blog (Manhattan Street Project)
At this point, I’m walking to pick up streets, although Jersey Street is pretty much an alley. There’s another leg of it that runs between Lafayette and Crosby Streets and I remember walking it in the 80’s and being a little apprehensive (I’ve been doing this map thing for a long time, but I’ve discarded maps as they fell apart and faded). And it was in the day time that I was uneasy. In my memory, the street wasn’t even paved, which is probably not true, and there were human feces lying about, which is true.
Now it’s dark and there’s nothing to worry about; everything’s neat and clean and neat and clean people are walking about.
See map
these next few posts from source:
Previously we reported on the Time magazine billboard at Houston and Wooster streets in Soho, NYC, where large colorful tags have appeared by NYC graf writer Cope2 (“CopeII”). The idea is that each week, more aerosol art will go up on the billboard screen, which hangs from the north face of a loft apartment building, until eventually the Time magazine logo and trademark red-border will go up in the space and frame the Krylon work.
Collective Unconscious
Collective Unconscious occupied a small, ratty and bizarrely decorated retail space on Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side. The space was a venue ruled by and for a diverse group of performance artists, writers, poets and creative scenesters who held regular open mic nights and shows there. CU represents a part of New York City’s post-post-modern underground at its best and most fun. Among the scene’s notable figures is the artist and author Reverend Jen. But Collective Unconscious had been battling a malevolent landlord and the indefatigable tsunami of Lower East Side gentrification. Before fleeing the space, the CU massive (allegedly, of course) put up some cheeky graffiti plugging their new location and hinting at the logo-fied retail giants who might occupy the space in the future; on the Collective Unconscious sign, “Starbucks” and “The Gap” have been spray-painted. CU will live on. A new space has been secured in lower Manhattan at 279 Church Street. You should pay them a visit when in NYC.
Ivan G. Corsa Photo
Massive Projection at HBO “Voyeur” Event – No. 3
Ivan Corsa Photo
Massive Projection at HBO “Voyeur” Event – No. 2
Obey Giant: East Village
Shepard Fairey’s icon of André the Giant pops up on the streets in various forms: stickers, posters and stencils. Here’s another example of a large wheat-pasted poster on the wall of a tenement building in the East Village, in New York. What makes this location noteworthy is that it’s adjacent to a vacant lot at the corner of 2nd Ave. and East 1st St., a block that has several vacant lots, abandoned vehicles and strewn junk, as well as lots of graffiti, making it one of the most decrepit and as yet un-gentrified blocks in lower Manhattan. The icon’s eyes stare directly at Mars Bar, a notorious dive bar across the street. (See previous image of Shephard Fairey’s Obey Giant poster here.)
Marketing Spiderman
With the Spiderman sequel hyped to be among the blockbusters of the summer movie season, marketing for the film has resulted in this larger-than-life balloon of a crawling Spidey attached to an apartment building in Union Square. There’s no denying that it’s a cool form of promotion. We just want to know what the residents were paid for allowing a giant superhero to cling to their building.
thanks to globalgraphica.com
A Guide to Former Street Names in Manhattan
example:
Charles st.
AT&T Bell Labs, 1861-1898. Converted to housing 1969
Roosevelt Island tram… places in MOTION
DESTINATION:
Central Park Reservoir (or the REZ)
First study of design for the Central Park. Woodcut, after Olmsted and Vaux’s Greensward plan, 1858. (Description of a Plan for the Improvement of the Central Park, New York, 1868)
Article from New York Times
The new FENCE around the reservoir installed last year.“
The irregular, curving sheet of water still changes, as it always has, with the light, the weather, the sky, the time of day. But now the changes are unobstructed.
In the morning, the sun lands on the west side of the track in a warm orange glow. At midday, the sky can seem impossibly blue. In the evening, people often gather at East 90th to watch the sun disappear and the lights come on throughout the twin towers of the Eldorado, at 90th Street and Central Park West.
Starting from scratch, they made their new billion-gallon upper reservoir, named to distinguish it from the lower reservoir from 79th to 86th, as virtuous a vice as possible. They carved out an undulating, irregularly curved basin 38 feet deep between 86th and 96th Streets. It was completed in 1862. (The reservoir has not supplied drinking water to the city since 1993, but could do so again in an emergency.)
In 1869, Clarence Cook published his book ”A Description of the New York Central Park.” Cook considered the new reservoir ”a glorious place: many a time we have taken this walk for no other end but to enjoy the evening sky, and we must always have cheerful memories of a place that, after weary days spent in the dirty city, has so often lifted us into an atmosphere where all unpleasant experiences were, for a time, forgotten.”
The reservoir, divided along its center into two separate basins, was fed via a brick tunnel and iron pipes from the Croton Aqueduct in Westchester through a gatehouse on the north end, and the water was sent farther south through a gatehouse at the south end.
An 1884 article in The New York Tribune recorded the ”first case of suicide in the reservoir since it was built” — that of an unidentified man in a brown Prince Albert coat with a loaded revolver in his pocket.
At night, the park’s old-style lampposts form a white-hot necklace of light around the track. A traffic light just in from West 90th blinks red and then green and then red across the water, like an illustration from a children’s book.
The reservoir has become an aqueous comrade of the Great Lawn to its south. And when the public is kept off the lawn’s great, grassy oval, it becomes a thing of pure contemplation, just like the newly visible reservoir.
Look For
Waterfowl resting on the dividing wall running down the center; the south and north gatehouses; the ring of lights at night; the reflection of the sky on the water.
BUILT — 1862
ADDRESS — Middle of Central Park, between 86th and 96th Streets.
HOW TO GET THERE — Any bus along Central Park West or Fifth Avenue; Nos. 4, 5 and 6 trains to 86th and Lexington; B and C to 86th and Central Park West.
“
Birdseye View of Central Park – John Bachman – 1859
Light Cycle by Cai Guo-Qiang
Explosions over Central Park
“Light Cycle” will begin at 7:45 p.m. and last about five minutes, Mr. Eleey said. The first stage — “Signal Towers,” referring to ancient methods of communication — will consist of five pillars of fire, each extending 600 feet into the sky at locations between 64th and 100th Streets. Each will be 30 feet in diameter. The towers will overlap in timing and at one point will all be visible simultaneously.
The second stage, “Light Cycle,” will be a sequence of halos 350 feet in diameter floating above the trees in the same locations as the pillars in “Signal Towers.” The final halo, 1,000 feet in diameter, will be over the Reservoir, creating an effect that Mr. Cai intends as a metaphor for “renewal, timelessness, benediction and wholeness.”
The final stage of the event, “White Night,” will consist of hundreds of exploding shells that will resemble signal flares, illuminating the sky and highlighting Central Park as the heart of New York City. “The park is always dark at night, and Cai will be making it the brightest point,” Mr. Eleey said.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s gates
and…by the reservoir
this swash of color is somehow reminiscent to me in a natural way-
miniature of central park and MET from an exhibition
1964 neo-retro painting of central park by Edward Shelton
Nicolai Cikovsky, “Boating in Central Park”, c. 1945
New York’s first water system was built between 1837 and 1842. Prior to those years, water was obtained from cisterns, wells and barrels from rain.Construction began in 1837 on a series of mostly underground conduits that would bring water from the Croton River in northern Westchester County to NYC’s spigots. Amazingly, it took only five years to finish the first connection given the technology available at the time.
Two reservoirs were built in New York City, one between the present-day lines of 6th and 7th Avenues and 79th and 85th Streets, and a smaller distributing reservoir on 5th and 42nd. The former was drained in 1930 and its site is now occupied by Central Park’s Great Lawn. The latter was torn down to make room for the main branch of the New York Public Library, which rose in 1911. Those reservoirs were replaced by two huge tunnels that were built in 1917 and 1937; a third is still under construction. Central Park’s present Reservoir was begun in 1858 and was a part of NYC’s water distribution system all the way till 1991.Presently, the Croton system’s remnants are surprisingly numerous. What is currently visible are mostly remnants of the Old Croton Aqueduct, which was in service between 1842 and 1890, when a newer aqueduct was built. Let’s work our way south noting where the Aqueduct relics can still be found…
We are going to JOG the path!
Been finding a bunch of articles mainly surrounding:
water purity of reservoir
old fence / new fence
croton dam-aqueduct path
jogging trail (5,000 per day!)and this article highlighting a letter:
The New York Times
January 8, 2001 Monday
Late Edition – Final4 Hats, 3 Shoes, One Letter
Not every document from the city’s water archives reflected monumental concerns. Here is a letter from a file unearthed by Cooper Union researchers.
From: Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity
Mt. Prospect Laboratory
Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Oct. 4, 1907
To: Mr. I. M. de Varona, Chief Engineer
Dear Sir:
During the inspection of Central Park Reservoir, South Basin, in connection with the collection of mud samples from the bottom, the following miscellaneous articles were noticed upon the rocks at the southwest corner opposite the Belvedere Tower:
4 hats
2 neckties
1 collar
7 whiskey bottles, (1 full)
1 kitchen fork
3 shoes
3 doz. marbles
remnants of underwear
The reservoir is protected on all sides except at this point, where there is a walk not far from the water. The Belvedere Tower is used for picnic parties.
Yours respectfully,
Frank E. Hale, Chemist
Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct
Walk – Sat. Oct 6 – Aqueduct Route in Manhattan
Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct lead this walk from Central Park to High Bridge Water Tower, as part of OpenHouseNewYork. See www.ohny.org for more
AqueFest! – Sat. Oct 13
All day trail celebration. More details to come. Please contact us if you are interested in volunteering.
NARRATIVE
As the first fresh blossoms push through their wrappings, the water regains its sapphire hue and the path crumbles softly under excercise–The Central Park Reservoir nudges back into its lush hold on the center of Manhattan Island.
Under piles of articles and images of the reservoir’s function– water purity history, flora, fauna, suicides, and aqueduct path to upstate– a curious find. Not every document from the city’s water archives reflected monumental concerns. Here is a letter from a file unearthed by Cooper Union researchers.
From: Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity
Mt. Prospect Laboratory
Flatbush Avenue and Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
Oct. 4, 1907
To: Mr. I. M. de Varona, Chief Engineer
Dear Sir:
During the inspection of Central Park Reservoir, South Basin, in connection with the collection of mud samples from the bottom, the following miscellaneous articles were noticed upon the rocks at the southwest corner opposite the Belvedere Tower:
4 hats
2 neckties
1 collar
7 whiskey bottles, (1 full)
1 kitchen fork
3 shoes
3 doz. marbles
remnants of underwear
The reservoir is protected on all sides except at this point, where there is a walk not far from the water. The Belvedere Tower is used for picnic parties.
Yours respectfully,
Frank E. Hale, Chemist
some words-
moody
serene
ripples
depth (story, water)
surrounded
connected
functional
mysterious
oasis
split / divided
habitat
ending place
slows pace of time
excercise
respitecenter of city (perceptually)
visitors vs. residents vs. passerbys
“i never knew this was here.”
“i should come here more often.”
crunching under feet
dodging people w/ purpose (joggers)
new yorkers are fast here too
air is different-still, moist, cool, not smelly
close proximity to water when on path
sky color / water color
do people care about historical info?
if it’s presented well… alternative to placards with long text
create physical ‘hotspots’ but very optional / non-intrusive
for when boaters float by and can reach over, see a video/live cam/miniature world
left bank of wild plants/greenery (didn’t notice much trash though bars of fence are ‘accessible’)
never go with your 1st thought…unless it’s pretty damn great.[floating dissolvable ducks get dispersed as per need of water chemistry that day- appropriate amount stocked and people dispense ..or are no chemical used, water purification--nyc known to never filter water bc it's pure from Adirondacks]
[a translucent cabin to visit that superimposes images on top of existing cityscape- have to find correct angle for viewing, or it tracks your movement or eye trajectory. reminiscent of Rome Then and Now book with translucent modern day overlayed on illustration of past]
[periscope. good metaphor or device to show history, source of water, gateway to secrets, mysteries]
[time capsule]re:
[laurie anderson's Japanese garden project
-haikus falling down digital stalks splaying into water from Japanese to English (Aichi Expo, 2005)
she is a perfect reference point of inspiration and combination of nature, evocation of thought and memory, and technology.]
[andy goldsworthy. wall at storm king (amongst all the rest of his incredible, delible work)
-modify with stones, convex and concave lenses that reflect, mirror, project]
-sense of humor?
-loch ness monster – mystery, search, apparitions
-construct a (hi)story, treasure hunt, game
…based on letter found of contents, mud samplesPLACE FOR
meaningful
peaceful
aware
comfortable
meditative
imaginative
imaginary
insightful
inciting
CONTEMPLATION-tanic steel (how, where, what). change over time of materials- shows age, use. this steel rusts and then darkens to black over years-
-automatically think of solid stoic sculpture but it doesn’t have to be!
-want it to have ACTIVE SUBJECTIVITY, CURIOSITY, LIFESPAN, subtle PRESENCE, MEMORY. and some satisfaction.
-vivid, not drab once you find it, a treat.
-giving someone a new power–something they didn’t know they had within.
-w/ touch, breath, senses your presence, weight
-scratch and sniff (willy wonka)
VISUALIZE
reservoir
recevoir
recherche
search
explore
happen upon
vids
WATER properties
<embed style=”width:400px; height:326px;” id=”VideoPlayback” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-288023216970768712&hl=en” flashvars=”"> </embed>
ITALO CALVINO
invisible cities–Italo Calvino sparks obsessions
Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is so called because it asserts that what makes up a city is not so much its physical structure but the impression it imparts upon its visitors, the way its inhabitants move within, something unseen that hums between the cracks. This, however, has in no way dissuaded people from attempting to give form to his works. One such example is the Hotel Tressants, a building in Menorca, Spain containing 8 rooms named after and inspired by various cities from the novel. Meanwhile, artists offer illustrations1,2,3, installations 1,2,3,4,5, music1,2,3,4,5,6 and dance, hypertexts1,2, computer programs and animations, even View-Master slides, while intellectuals offer readings and commentary1,2, lectures1,2, and critical texts1,2,3 sparked by the man and his writings. It has been dubbed “The Calvino Effect“. Do you know of any more?
posted by Lush on metafilterInvisible Cities- physicalized
Hotel Tressants, Spain
VIEW MASTER of cities
OF INTEREST in the stories..
- Marco Polo’s methods of describing a city without being literal, i.e. without having a complete control over the outcome;
- Kublai Kahn’s interpretations and his own descriptions of cities, using Marco’s signs and objects, trying to obtain from him the name of a city;
- Kublai Kahn’s attempt to grasp all the empire by the understanding of the elements and the rules that originate the cities;
- An Atlas, where all the past and future cities are described;
- A chess game, where all the cities can be created by rearranging the different pieces.
taken from this programming project
Italo Calvino’s prose is justly famous. The accumulation of unexpected detail, the vivid and unexpected imagery, and the alliterative listing of objects, people, and their properties continually create unforeseen pleasures.
IN PARTICULAR…
the city of FEDORA
The city of Fedora, for instance, preserves its multiple possible futures as tiny crystal globes in a museum. This reminds us that every city will do something with its possible futures. To say that these are general problems or dimensions implies, further, that any specific city will have some specific way of dealing with the preservation of potential futures: a city might preserve its futures, suppress them, ignore or forget them. “Our futures” are present, one way or another, in all cities. source
CITIES & DESIRE
In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis, stands a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the citycould have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today. In every age someone, looking at Fedora as it was, imagined a way of making it the ideal city, but while he constructed his miniature model, Fedora was already no longer the same as before, and what had been until yesterday a possible future became only a toy in a glass globe.
The building with the globes is now Fedora’s museum: every inhabitant visits it, chooses the city that corresponds to his desires, contemplates it, imagining his reflection in the medusa pond that would have collected the waters of the canal (if it had not been dried up), the view from the high canopied box along the avenue reserved for elephants (now banished from the city), the fun of sliding down the spiral, twisting minaret (which never found a pedestal from which to rise).
On the map of your empire, O Great Khan, there must be room both for the big, stone Fedora and the little Fedoras in glass globes. Not because they are all equally real, but because all are only assumptions. The one contains what is accepted as necessary when it is not yet so; the others, what is imagined as possible and, a moment later, is possible no longer.
inspired by this passage-
Linda Ganjian
The Golden City
Hot glue, gold paint, velvet, and wood pedestal
50×4x3
Helen Evans Ramsaran
Village Path, 2000
Bronze
7×18x25
Emily Feinstein
Interiors II, 1998
Wood with plexiglas and objects
61¾x32×8
from a BRIC exhibition
FINAL PRESENTATION
final presentation of concept for Metaforms and Live Image Processing and Performance. description of location- Central Park Reservoir and project-periscopes with alternate views on a path away from the hustle bustle.
SAMPLES OF VIDEO IN PERISCOPE
sampling of many different views one could have within a periscope. main goal is to have the reservoir at all different angles with elements that emerge and dissappear. the different views will incite people to walk down the path to find that same view in reality and stumble upon another periscope…
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