Wednesday, 30 September 2009

eye movements

My survey 'Do you need timeout' has also generated ideas from areas such as the treatment of post traumatic stress, where unanticipated triggers can provoke spontaneous memories that cause panic attacks. EMDR Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing is a technique where the patient is encouraged to use bilateral eye movements (e.g left-right-left) when recalling traumatic and distressing events. This technique has been found to reduce the intensity of the  memory. I am wondering whether there might be a connection between this and the sensation you get on a speeding train? I often find my thought processes run smoother when I am in motion - watching the world go by?

Monday, 28 September 2009

hiding places

Getting peoples preferences on their version of a space for time out has generated some good nuggets of ingredients to chew on so far:
  • ' a haven of the unexpected' that is 'deliciously enclosed' 
  • ' a womb like flotation tank'
  • ' pre-menstrual huts complete with stacks of plates for smashing'
  • ' padded cells'
with 
  • 'natural colours and patches of intense pigment'
  •  wind and breezes quite popular

Monday, 14 September 2009

Bin Bowl Water

If sunlight, a bowl of water and a waste paper bin can make this there is potential for magical shelters...

Sunday, 13 September 2009

tidy sleeping

Is it the density of the population and the limited space that makes some people in India so organised and tidy? A place for everything and everything in its place, including yourself. Work done, time for a break. This was in a Bangalore market in April

Saturday, 12 September 2009

the colour of churchill square

Having done a combination of mapping with google maps and pacing the streets, I made a colour sampler to demonstrate the (visual) experience from photographs that I took in churchill square using the eyedropper in photoshop. This is a colour palette of the environment, not the people.

Friday, 11 September 2009

unregulated spaces

Sennet keeps returning to the need for ambiguity in urban environments . He seems to be responding to the over design of certain modern buildings and streets that do not allow for an evolution or interaction developed over time with use, that do not accomodate adaptations. But also that we  need more, not less, challenging spaces. Guy De Bord coined the phrase psychogeography in a response to the perception that everyday life is controlled and manipulated by over regulation. Are there examples of actual places and spaces that respond to these ideas?

le mur vegetal

It turns out that the growing wall concept was invented by Patric Blanc, who is giving a talk at 100 percent . That one I saw in Paris is probably one of his and he did the one for the Ministre de Culture (architect Jean Nouvel). oddly reminiscent of my brother's overgrown garden that recently had to be scoured because the ivy was eating into next door..

small growths


Hafsteinn Juliuson has produced this range of jewellry he calls grings