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January 28, 2006

Self aware and/or self obsessed

More than any other city I've spent time in, New York seems to be obsessed with it's self. It often refers to itself through advertising bill boards, radio stations, local news, etc as "the greatest city in the world". Of course there's something distinctly American about self obsession... but it's ultra palpable in New York... and I think it relates to my research?

The image at the top here is of a group of Manhattan's architects dressed as it's iconic buildings ó it's from the Rem Koolhaas book 'Delirious New York' which I got when I arrived here. Initially I'd heard about this book because he calls it a "retroactive manifesto" and I was interested in that idea... my original manifestoes were attempting to posit nostalgia as having generative/productive possibilities. Then actually finding my self in NYC it seemed also the perfect intro to living here...

In tracing the lineage of the skyscraper, Koolhaas begins with the Latting Observatory...

"For the first time Manhattan's inhabitants can inspect their domain. To have a sense of the island as a whole is also to be aware of its limitations, the irrevocability of its containment.
If this new consciousness limits the field of their ambition, it can only increase its intensity.
Such inspections from above become a recurrent theme under Manhattanism; the geographical self-consciousness they generate is translated into spurts of collective energy, shared megalomaniac goals." [p25]

and then on Coney Island...
"Like the Latting Observatory, the Centennial Tower is an architectural device that provokes self-consciousness, offering that birds-eye inspection of a common domain that can trigger a sudden spurt of collective energy and ambition." [p33]

Of course in reading this I was thinking about the maps I made where I had Anna photograph me from above (head) and below (feet), and my concern that my research was becoming narcissistic. I'm interested in this idea that in becoming self-aware you also inevitably become a little self-obsessed... and that somewhere within this self-obsession lies the dormant potential to become a monster... which is, after all, exactly what Manhattan is!

The picture above of the notice board I was originally looking at in relation to my search for people to play music with, but also linked nicely to something that Cameron brought up at my last seminar in October. I was attempting to negotiate the anxiety that all this self-reflexivity caused me in a more-or-less humourous [jocu-serious] way, and Cameron mentioned Woody Allen. I've been planning to watch some Woody Allen films ever since I got to NYC and haven't yet, but also I've been thinking about Seinfeld, and Sex In The City... narratives set in NYC that revolve around characters who are funny primarily because of their nuerosis, anxiety and self-obsession. Was psychoanalysis invented for NYC? Why is "I'm going to see my therapist" so unmistakeably New York? Maybe it's because self-awareness is actually a very dangerous thing...

I think what I'm trying to get at here is something about a critique of practitioner-led research (Schon's 'reflective practitioner) in which the monstrous is a side effect? A problemóa deviation, an aberrationóbut full of unexpected potential if you can find a strategy to cope with the beast? I like the idea that the original topic disappears as you ascend the observatory/tower... and you just end up seeing yourself. I like that this idea would be kind of disturbing and horrific to Design too.

Anyway, initially I just wanted to post the first image here of designers dressed as their work. I thought it related to my interests in performance and narrative, but also to the importance of approaching your work with a sense of humour. I like how these guys are attempting to engage more obliquely (momentarily) with their practice. Alsoóand this is not a rhetorical questionóam I right in thinking there's a lot of research done on how design engages audiences/users, but very little into how design engages designers?

Posted by Luke Wood at 04:17 AM | Comments (2)

How not to advertise for a drummer

How to advertise for a drummer in New York City...

How not to advertise for a drummer in New York City...

It seems I have inadvertantly created a monster here... exagerrated, too big, out on it's own. It doesn't look like what it's supposed to be... I've seen a lot of people stop and look at it but so far I've only had one response...

From: _____ @hotmail.com
To: rev.holdengunn@yahoo.com
Subject: Drummer
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:34:34 +0000

_____ is a very famous drummer in Europe.
Since his very young age, he has worked with very well known artists
from all around the world, such as Alpha Blondy, Mory Kante, Luther
Allison, Koba (Bjork), Matbone( Bootsy Collins), St.Germain, Delegation,
Village People, Emery Thompson (Massive Attack), among others...

He has recently composed Luc Besson's last film (Banlieu 13). He currently lives in New York where he plays with the haitian singer Michou, lead of the band Mangus, a fluid rock pulsed with a tribal percussive backbeat.

He is always open to know different artists from all different musical styles and backgrounds, as long as they got the right groove...
contact: _____ @hotmail.fr
or:_____ (manager) _____@hotmail.com


... perhaps you need to know me to get the humour in this? Of course I'm pleased though that I even got any feedback (although to be honest I did expect that I'd be pretty much swamped in drummers by now!), but want to pick up on a couple of things that I think this response points too...

The poster looks far too professional (out of place/alien)... I'm assuming this is to do with it's size and it's 'design, esp relative to the image at the top of this post (notice board in Union Square). The poster says really clearly "Technical proficiency not required", but the size and design obviously override the what the text says (misunderstood/read aesthetically rather than textually)? Also, people (well this person) haven't noticed or engaged with the map in the background... which I intended as a kind of pointer as to the kind of stuff I was interested in playing.

This poster then has been a failure (although they're still all up... and who knows maybe I'll get another bite or two). I could easily have gone and put up 'notices' written by hand, or type-set in Microsoft Word, but I liked the idea that these posters could be a good way to kick-start back into my research this year... esp in a different city. Only I hadn't expected them to be about my research in the way that they are... and so in their failure they're also kind of perfect.

I've been re-reading my first monstrous manifestoes from last year and also looking back at the Inviting The Monster DVD I made, and this could easily have been a direct outcome of that. What I find interesting about this is how it's like I have to have forgotten what I was trying to do and then 6 months later it'll just come out naturally... when you're not looking, when you least expect it (which is another thing about monsters... they're never there when you look for them, you only ever see them out of the corner of your eye).

Posted by Luke Wood at 03:27 AM | Comments (1)

January 23, 2006

Putting up posters in Brooklyn

Finally went out and put up the 'Drummer Wanted' posters. They've been sitting here for almost 2 weeks now! Lastnight was warm and I had no excuses not to. It was quite spooky... did it alone at 3am, and was paranoid that I'd either get mugged or arrested!? Of course once I'd put a couple up it was kind of a rush ó exhilirating I guess. I tried to work quickly, but the paste I had was pretty shitty and the paper was kind of glossy so I had real problems getting them to stick. I came home feeling like it'd been a bit futile, that they'd either be ripped down or fall off on their own. But I went out today and they were all still up... and a lot of people around cause its a sunny Sunday morning.

This poster was supposed to be a (pragmatic) precursor to what I want to do next (see previous post: January 10, 2006 "Restart / Not Myself")... which I'll try and flesh out here... at this stage I'm planning to produce a series of posters that feature me as different characters. Two at first; the Rev. Holden Gunn (perhaps a different name?) as an evangelical 'save-the-world' type figure, and a monster (Werewolf?) as a doomed, disaster waiting to happen kind of character ... George has pretty much agreed to be my blonde damsel in distress (I'll have to explain that in a seperate post). I've recently decided to publish last year's Monstrous Manifestoes along with some stills from my 'Inviting The Monster' DVD in The National Grid. This retrospective act has re-ignited my interest in them, and the prospect of writing/designing new versions based more around the practitioner than the artefacts... so I'm obviously beginning to consider how these posters might also work as both map and manifesto... describing and prescribing through/around the generative metaphor of monstrosity.

Posted by Luke Wood at 06:50 AM

January 17, 2006

The National Grid, finishing, and having a plan...

Going to see Lisa today. Actually talking to her about contributing to The National Grid project. Talking to her earlier I mentioned that last week, because Jonty had been here, I didn't really do much on my Masters research and was working on The National Grid instead. I keep saying/thinking that this project should be part of my Masters although whenever I'm confronted with it I treat it as 'something else'. So I've been sitting here quickly trying to think about how I could talk about it in relation to my research? The obvious answer is that maybe I wouldn't have ever embarked on this kind of project if I hadn't been engaged in 'Design' in the way that this research project has caused me to be.

I'm trying tie things together, and I quite like the idea that perhaps things 'happened' that were directly related but that I didn't notice. I've been wondering if the series of postersóthat I know I haven't really explained here yet!óbut that I'm keen to do, could maybe be used to map these different permutations in my research... helping me frame some kind of semi-cohesive outcome?

My research has always tended towards divergent tangents... could I map these through the development of myself as different characters? Who would all play a role in the final 'narrative' (chapter?) of this research project?

Posted by Luke Wood at 06:57 AM | Comments (2)

January 14, 2006

Posters, Karl Gerstner, galleries and research outputs

Jenny asked when I would be having my exhibition here... I'd obviously mentioned this last year, when as part of my coming to NYC involved taking part in a group show with other Masters students from RMIT. In fact I'd also planned to try and organise a couple of other smaller, maybe even solo, shows in or around the Manhattan/Brooklyn area. The RMIT thing fell apart... this bugged me at the time, not only because I thought we had a show and seminar series organised, but because this 'plan' was a part of my application to the university for my funding to be here! Anyway, that was a while ago now, and I'd practically forgotten about it. What caught me by surprise in Jenny's question was that I'd not even considered approaching a gallery since arriving here almost two months ago now.

Because Jonty was here as well, this sparked a brief conversation about "research outputs", and how my putting up posters all over Brooklyn wouldn't really be scoring me any research outputs at the university back home. Obviously this really bugs me! But then I've been thinking, it's kind of interesting in relation to my project's unplanned but inevitable questioning of what it means to "research in the medium of design". The answer seems obvious... one is generally invited to show work in a gallery, so you can say there's usually some kind of peer review involved. But what if, as Designer you're not interested in showing your work within the conventions of the art gallery? For years now I've been doing posters (even for galleries!?), and it makes sense for me to be carrying out my research in public, on the street. I guess the problem, for the university (or more precisely, the 'PBRF'), is that anyone can stick up posters on the street... so how can the research be quality assured? Rather than be negative and disgruntled, I'd like to think this could be a part of my thesis perhaps... there is an epistemological issue here about the nature of Design Research and it's evaluation.

I was reading Dot Dot Dot #4 this morning (Lisa has it!?), and in it is an article on Karl Gerstner (that's him above) by Richard Hollis (see also Eye book review). In the article Hollis says...

If Gerstner naturally integrated his work as an artist with work as a designer, and considered the designer to be an artistópart of the everyday economic and cultural lifeóhe was also keen to confront the public with artists' work, to make it more accessible and, produced as multiples, more affordable. He founded a company to produce art in multiple editions, and in 1961 persuaded the company that owned poster sites to display signed prints by his Concrete artist friends and got them printed free. They went up for twelve weeks on 500 sites in central Zurich.

The image at the top here is actually from last July in Christchurch, a project I did, One Week Poster Project, where I put up a poster as I was designing it at the end of each day for a week until it was "finished". I'm linking to this here as I'm thinking the project(s) I'm embarking on here might, in format and convention at least, follow on from this one... but also because much of what I've mentioned here occured to me then.

Posted by Luke Wood at 04:21 AM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2006

Restart / Not Myself

I haven't been feeling myself lately, but I quite like how when you go to a new place where practically nobody knows you you can kind of start fresh, be somebody else, fantasize ... for a while at least, until all your old hang-ups kick back in and you start getting comfortable again. On new years eve here I went out ó to the Norton Records party ó as my alter ego, Holden Gunn.

Anyhow, I'm aiming at doing my penultimate review in May, and so my goal from here on in is to reflect on what the hell I've been doing for the last two years and frame it some relatively conclusive kind of way. I'll be doing this through writing, but also through a final project (or two?). and the image above is perhaps a starting point for what I might do while I'm here in New York City...

I thought about making it when I was working on the image below...

This is a poster that I'll be putting up around the Williamsburg area later this week. The image of me is from the 'Inviting The Monster' DVD I made in May 04, and the back ground map is one the ones from late last year with designers removed and musical influences put in instead... click on it to see it bigger.

Thoughout my research I've been becoming more and more interested in ideas around the creation and inhabiting of characters, and of playing out narratives... that became more obvious in the DVD, and specifically in my last seminar where I looked back at that as an artefact of my research. I've talked a bit my anxiety about being required to be so self-reflexive that it begins to feel like pathological narcissism... and I guess actually putting myself into my work has something to do with that.

The eventual realisation that my research has always been 'about' research, but more specifically the research of practice, using myself as the model, has been important in the sense that I've been able to begin to see it's value... in this sense one of the things I wanted to do was to begin to map the trajectory of my research over the last 2 years. To look at questions I was asking then and how I'm asking them differently (or maybe even answering a few?) now. In doing so I'm going to consider Cameron's suggestion that it is researching design through the process of designing that is actually monstrous. Further to that (but in keeping with the exploration of the 'generative' metaphor) I'm thinking about how characters and narratives ó stories, fantasy, horror, etc ócan be used to map (and navigate) practitioner research. It was always the "illumination" of the maps that interested me most anyway...

Posted by Luke Wood at 09:10 AM