Hot Rod Biology

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?