SPONTANEOUS VOID

the space of the exhibition

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the projection

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photographs of the projection

close up photograph of the projection

The microvoids book

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The second layer.

I come up with the idea of using close-up photographs in an effort to micro-investigate my surrounding environment and manage to work with the notion of void simplified. Details hide a weird dynamic; complexity is translated in two dimensions and then becomes more digestible to the eye. In close ups local identities of the place are lost and what remains is the object photographed itself, in effect there is no surrounding to influence our vision. Moreover, in close ups we recognize objects of our everyday life (unperceived details), forms rather than objects; we do not get but the essence and in that way we can easier locate ourselves.

“By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action […] With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended [...] An unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man [...] The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses”.
Roemer van Toorn, (1997). Architecture Against Architecture, Radical Criticism Within Supermodernity, Retrieved from URL http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=94, Viewed 20/12/2006

The urban voids book

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The first layer.
“To look at what you wouldn’t look at, to hear what you wouldn’t listen to, to be attentive to the banal, to the ordinary, to the infra-ordinary. To deny the ideal hierarchy of the crucial and the incidental, because there is no incidental, only dominant cultures that exile us from ourselves and others, a loss of meaning which is for us not only a siesta of consciousness but also a decline in existence” Virilio Paul, (1980), The Aesthetics of Disappearance

It traces the first layer of the notion of void. I consider it a straight forward presentation of my research. With this selection of photographs I tried to capture social, cultural and spatial details of the city and present a tapestry of void.

The photo-books

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microVOIDS and urbanVOIDS

The books may be viewed both as a narrative and as an experience; both as space of reflection and emergence. As Actar Architectura (Guayabero Oscar et al, 2003) placed it ‘the objects around us can be effective elements of information, communication, reflection and criticism”. They try to bring together both the idea of void and use its physicality [form] as a mode of navigation. Through the books void is translated while simultaneously it inscribes itself in the physicality of the book. Specifically, it adopts the outer visible characteristics of the book itself and via versa; in that way it becomes both the earth and the mother -reflects and generates (Βασίλης Κάλφας,, 2000). Through their design I tried to present not only the qualities of void but also qualities of the process of making; the autonomous process of creation. The readers will find out what these books are about as they go along. Finding out is part of the process. Reading becomes an experience.

Their content was based on the findings of my research. The use of images and short text had as initial goal to bring the viewer in frond of ‘familiar’ contents. The avoidance of abstract images and extensive text was intentional as I did not want to infuse the work with abstract ideas and notions, neither to attribute to them a clinical feel but rather I chose to place it between familiar and digestible ideas and spaces. I tried to keep the content as simple as possible.

Ideally the books would have no order to them and the reader would have to discover his own. Accordingly to void which has no pre-designed order in the spatial terrain, new spaces inside the book emerge through the missing parts of the pages that intersect each other; new images are created. Just as void is a fluxionary space–in the state of creation- similarly the books emerge both spatially [physically] and mentally [new notions and functions of void are instigated through reading]. The experience of reading goes beyond the rhetoric to visually explore the potential, to trace the creation mode, to define and create new communication experiences.

I used the holes both as a metaphor and as a physical element of the book because just as urban voids can be the place of self expression and of variable possibilities likewise holes work as a sign that will guide the eye for personal understandings and findings. “We do not need always to spell out the point of the message; […] we can leave openings which can be completed in a variety of ways, allowing a freer rein to ‘extra-coding’ through which the receiver combines different elements to produce tentative or novel meanings”. (Morgan John, Welton Peter, 1986). An initial structure of the ‘void patterns’ was essential though, as there should be an inner code. The holes trace my routes in the city from where I took the photographs. I chose three areas of London for the action: Camberwell (SE5), St. Johns Wood (NW8), and Tower Hill (EC3). I chose these three areas as I wanted to map the physicality of voids of completely different places regarding the use of the place, its everyday dynamics, its structure and architecture.
____________________

Guayabero Oscar, Lorente David, Mus Pons Roseta, Santacana Amadeu, (2003). Crossed lines, New Territories of Design. Barcelona: Editions de l’Any del Disseny (FAD) and ACTAR
Morgan John, Welton Peter, (1986). See what I mean: an introduction to Visual Communication, London, Edward Arnold.
Βασίλης Κάλφας, (εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια), (εκδ. 2000). Πλάτων Τιμαίος. Αθήνα: εκδόσεις Πόλις.

the void line

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I used the metaphor of line in order to visually communicate void as a linking element which depicts the route in the city. I used photographs of both categories (microvoids, urban voids) as the walk in the city focus also in variety and calls for variable understandings. [Initially I tried to create two different routes but soon I realised that the final line was ‘boring’ graphically, I thought that this would reflect also to the quality of the route; we need both micro and macro in our everyday life. As soon as I started using photographs from both groups the line obtained interest].

The line both literal [the physical line] and figurative: a path which leads into and away from the city, a destination –on the state of creation- between destinations, but also an almost invisible and fragile strain; acquires our attention also affords further weaving and challenges new routes. There is neither beginning nor end; hence the line itself can be understood as a node, as the territory and route of personal reflections.

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The key words [list]

in a continuous state-of-formation

the left over/ residual land

organic/ vital

non places

emergence

the in between

MARGINS

creative reflections/ self expression

open systems

potentiality

NO USE

urban gap/ empty space

URBAN VOIDS

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MICRO VOIDS

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What is void?

Void can be the notion of absence, the empty space -ready to be filled-
Quite often it is already filled.
is the territory of variable interactions, an expression of future possibilities
is the idea of the space that emerges. The space which not yet exists.
the space that absorbs, generates, reflects; mother, nurse, earth [chora of Plato, Timaeus];
void can only exist in its wholeness.
void is defined by its duality the present and the absent, the empty and the filled, black and white.
But unfolds beyond its duality [it is also the in-between-space]. One attribute would countermand the other
Void is a paradox. Controversial attributes

Does void exists (in the sense of empty space)? No; a paradox. Void is always filled (social, cultural, and political, invisible details that define space and attribute to it its ‘physicality’), in a perpetual motion. And even if it seems empty it is always ‘preoccupied’ like chora.

How it unfolds? It unfolds while creating new forms/ images/ spaces/ void produces space. It receives so as to give place. It reflects while generating.

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insights: patterns that came out of the research

-Do you believe on the interdependence of name and identity? Ask the women. -Yes, I do.
-why don’t you change your name?
-Because I’m still Rumpelstiltskin, says Half of Rumpelstiltskin. I’m just not all of him.
-you are still Rumpelstiltskin? Even after having lived as Half, and only half, of Rumpelstiltskin for oh/so/many years?
-Yes.
….
-If you are granted only one wish, ask the women, what would you wish for?
-Bilateral symmetry, he says.[1]

Void; the space that absorbs, generates, reflects; woman, mother, nurse,[2]; void unfolds beyond duality [it is also the in-between-space]. A dichotomy. One attribute would countermand the previous. The research was defined by complexity and quite often was spread more than I would have expected. Constant re-location. Back to the initial questions; new key words in the list; words and images weaved together; void exist both in its mentality and materiality. I could have chosen to use as contextual base of my project one of its attributes, I choose to elevate all as void can only exist in its wholeness. Key words gave the context to void. void: Filled. Not. Empty. Not. Ready. Not. Not only.

Diverse perspectives define its boundaries just by making clear that actually there are no boundaries. One of the most valuable outcomes of the research was that we are accustomed to move, learn, exist inside boundaries, and spaces without boundaries are a threat. Boundaries restrict but also provide a safe environment, a base on which we can exist free (?). Notions and spaces outside the boundaries evoke fear and place ourselves in unfamiliar and awkward situations; most times we exclude them from our everyday life. In order to understand space we meter it, we weight it, we categorise it by talking with percentages. We feel, we understand and we live the space through numbers; numbers pre-require margins and limits. Everything non countable does not exist nowadays. “New equations increasingly relate one thing with another thing, producing new quantifications of the world: incidents per passenger mile, defects per million, parts per billion, deaths per vertical meter, complaints per staff unit, stabbings per traffic hour, blood volume per minute. With every new, increasingly improbable relation, a threshold is defined”. - Andre Lepecki

What if there were no boundaries? Does design exist without the aim to control? Can we count everything? Or else, do we need to count something in order to understand it? Can we perceive the immeasurable? Can we design for the unperceived? Does design finds itself through the process or requires process in order to exist? Inside the [given/created] boundaries or beyond them?

[1] Brockmeier Kevin, (2002). Thinks that fall from the sky. NY: Pantheon Books (Brockmeier Kevin, 2002)

[2] Βασίλης Κάλφας, ( εισαγωγή, μετάφραση, σχόλια), (εκδ. 2000). Πλάτων Τιμαίος. Αθήνα: εκδόσεις Πόλις.

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beyond the boundaries?
Collapse maps the terrain beyond the boundary. Beyond the threshold, there is the struggle to regain composure, to reconstitute equilibrium, to feed the lungs starved for oxygen, to find our place in the world again, to understand the new conditions of this world, to assess the contours of this new life form, this new body, this new state of being beyond. Andre Lepecki

The feedback I received from my presentations was stressing me to define the boundaries of void, which is rational; we are used to set the limits, we create boundaries in order to define and understand space. We find meaning inside the boundaries. Limited space is a pellucid space but void like chora is neither sensible nor intelligible[1] in the context that is in a ceaseless state of formation, it is always there (pre-existing). Which are the boundaries of void? Do we need boundaries?

Boundaries create margins –‘margins exists as a leftover of the attempt to structure things’[2] and thus create voids –the left over, the in between space. Notions and spaces outside the boundaries evoke fear and place ourselves in unfamiliar and awkward situations; most times we exclude the remaining from our everyday life. Moreover you can not define the boundaries of flux, of a state-in-formation -as void is defined before-. And even if we can perceive void space in relation to certain spatial boundaries, these would be temporal ones defined by us in order to perceive space, we can talk of boundaries of a certain moment (time related) and of a specific place (space related); in effect there are no boundaries. Any permanent definition of boundaries would dislocate us and lead us to faulty conclusions. Void should be understood in its wholeness, infinite and undefined as it is.

[1] Chora L Works. Kipnis Jeffrey and Leeser Thomas (editors), (1997). Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman. New York: the Monacelli Press.

[2] Cupers Kenny, Miessen Markus, (2002). Spaces of uncertainty. Wuppertal: Germany, Verlag Muller + Busmann KG.

2007-09-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

spatial documentaries and a projection
For my research practice I used digital photography in order to document the plurality of contents that define void, also the importance of the seemingly insignificant. Photographs provided the visual reflection to the theory and facilitated me to further understand its variable contexts and investigate new dimensions of void. For my documentation I used FinePix E900 digital camera both for the photographs and the videos. My goal was not an outcome of high quality, rather, I wanted a flexible portable medium to ‘freeze’ as many moments of void as possible.

I took more than 1000 photographs which then I spread on the floor (the void unfolded in frond of me) and tried to find connections and/ or categorise them. It was then that I realised that many of them were close ups (the physicality of the void). I am willing to present the photo-books which can be perceived both as documentation, as a narrative and as a contextual base of my research. The outcome of the categorisation I mentioned before.

Moreover, I am aiming to visualise my research and context with projections. The photographs expose the traces my reading left behind: tiny moments in the city, a detail, a note in the margin, a line in my sketchbook, absence of material, formation of texture, and a narrative hidden in the left over. These traces not only add new interpretations to the void, they also constitute an alternative catalogue of the plethora of its topologies and its characteristics.

In that context, the projection indicates that what is missing is at the same time the linking element. The viewer is challenged to make his/her own translations, while void becomes simultaneously a threshold and a linkage. The construction of the space on which I project, is important as it materialises the space so as to accommodate the void.

Through both the books and the projection I want to present not only the qualities of void but also qualities of the process of ‘making’; the autonomous process of creation. Finding out is part of the process. The space that emerges is the latent image.

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2007-09-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ready. Not.
Void Spaces: Places of Generation and Creativity

My investigation of the concept of emergent space and its possible correlation to the concept of design, is based on a visual and conceptual analysis of “void space.”

What I call “void space” can be seen as that territory of variable interactions, or space of potentiality, in which the very idea of space emerges.

I used the spatial terrain as my principal object of analysis in order to explore the concept of the void, and these initial explorations into the visual and conceptual representations of “void space”, which were essential to the development of my understanding of its blurred “physicality”, led me to even further consider its possible correlations to the concept of design. A fact that has ultimately helped me enormously in the pragmatic mapping of the consequences or insights of my research, that was at times extremely abstract and theoretical, onto a more practical basis.

Indeed I have ultimately come to see this space as an almost perfect reflection of the infinitely variable space of future possibility that design represents. This exploration also helped in my desire to merge the differences between theory and practice and somehow create a space that was capable of not only reflecting the possibility and potential of “void space” but actually embodying its emergent, generative, or creative possibilities as well.

Indeed one of the principle ideas that emerged in my research was not only how we represent this space but how I could emulate its emergent and generative nature. I wanted to explore how we engaged with this space and how it might transform our perceptions of presence and absence.

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READY. NOT.: I chose this as a title of my project because I have ultimately ended up feeling that elements were missing in my project… Not because I thought that the project was unfinished, but rather because I believe that void includes this dilogy; It cannot be considered as finished. One understanding, description, or attribute of it can countermand the other; as Derrida[1] has suggested in his attempts to describe the extremely ambivalent and indeterminate “space” of ‘chora’ in Plato (Plato, Timaeus), void, like chora, can be understood as that territory, in which everything is imprinted, while at the same time it erases everything that is imprinted on it.

In this light void can be seen to be:
Inertia. Not. Action. Not. Filled. Not. Empty. Not. Black. Not. White. Not. Presence. Not. Absence. Not. Reflects. Not. Adapts. Not. Generates. Not. NOT ONLY.

[1] Kipnis Jeffrey and Leeser Thomas (editors), (1997). Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman. New York: the Monacelli Press.

chance introduced by circumstances

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"And I forgot the element of chance introduced by circumstances, calm or haste, sun or cold, dawn or dusk, the taste of strawberries or abandonment, the half-understood message, the front page of newspapers, the voice on the telephone, the most anodyne conversation, the most anonymous man or woman, everything that speaks, makes noise, passes by, touches us lightly, meets us head on." (Jacques Sojcher)

‘Leave the back door open’

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Void for the urban planer Stefano Boeri (GUST, 1999) is “a peculiar type of empty space that does not posses a clear or univocal identity and seems to lack any code”. Areas occupied by groups of diverse cultural backgrounds who infuse the place with their unique characteristics. The same phenomenon (usual to contemporary cities) is described by the geographer Doreen Massey with the term ‘power-geometry’ as ‘a global sense of the local, a global sense of place’ while referring to her own London neighborhood, Kilburn. “…the specificity of a place is understood as constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus”. (Phil Hubbard et al, 2004). In that case void is understood as the locus defined not by lack of codes; on the contrary, the dominant feature turns to be the coexistence of multiple codes which attribute to space a ‘hidden’ dynamic ready to be expressed and give to space variable contents. “Boeri’s concept of polysemous urban voids ties in with a characteristically postmodern insistence that personal identity is not stable and singular” rather, it is organic as molecules stringed together “and it possesses –along the same lines- a liberating potential, a possibility of moving beyond established social values” (GUST, 1999).

Thus void obtains the morphology of an organic territory with open possibilities, unlimited opportunities, ready to be the locus of self-expression and provide differential interpretations through a procedure of mix-and-match, then void transforms to the contemporary match-point. As Adriaan Gueze stressed ‘We need to create surrealistic environments, we should provide anarchic environments and even subversive cities and green areas’ (GUST, 1999). Anarchy then becomes another crucial component of void space that entails the transformation of void to a vital space.

‘Leave the back door open’ in the context of breaking the boundaries of a space which is designed -on purpose- to be closed. As if a ‘mistake’ exists in the process of design which will allow spontaneous action and variety to find their place, so as some ‘fresh’ air will ‘accidentally’ trespass on the space and will establish new boundaries or no-boundaries in a process of recreating the space.

Why not?

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You see things and you say ‘why?’. But I see things that never were; and I say ‘why not’ George Bernard Shaw

emergence and autopoiesis

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Systems that are too stable and ordered cannot cope with change, conversely, too much irregularity and disorder hinders persistence and survival… Autopoiesis and the edge of chaos provide a conceptual foundation for beginning to scientifically define and understand many life-life qualities.

Autopoiesis means self-making and central to the theory is the idea that a living system consists of a network of entities which make one another. … Autopoiesis theory recognises that in living systems there is a constancy of organisation although physical structure is always in flux. The structure embodies the organisation of a system through a dynamic process.

It is this promise of autonomous creation that lies behind the use of the artificial evolution of emergent complexity in art works such as Biotica. The attraction of these systems for the artist is that they no longer create objects (or systems) directly, but create a space of possibilities in which objects grow according to their own dynamic …so the next fifty years are going to be based on emergence, evolution and depiction (rich internal representations of external worlds).

Richard Brown, Igor Aleksander, Jonathan Mackenzie and Joe Faith, (2001). Biotica: art, emergence and artificial life. London: RCA.

a new punctuation mark

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Void could be a new punctuation mark which would represent the space for personal interpretations and for personal comments.

How reading would be afterwards? Would our understanding of things change? enhancement or a new complexity?

answers from the questioner

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ATTRIBUTES GIVEN TO VOID

Expanding. Space without use. Without content. We do not perceive its use. Duality. The same space is empty for somebody while filled for somebody else. Solitude. Calmness. Tranquility. Emptiness. Nothingness. Inertia. Space full of light. Darkness. Silence. Loss. Hunger gives the impression of void. Ready to be filled. State of conception. Starting point of creation. Endless territory. Peaceful. It does not exist. Nature always fills it. Void equals idea. Possibility to accept plenitude. A certain potentiality. Internally driven. The province of imagination. Falling with a parachute. Cosmos-universe-space. Space in which we think/ discover/dream. The opposite of something. Lack of imagination. Mind without thoughts. Not accepted. Insecurity. Not occupied. Resulting from lost can be negative but also a relief. Full of possibilities. Absence. Existence pre-requires void. Void is a verb [action]. It is the linkage [links rather than separates, the gold background in byzantine paintings]. Super villain comic hero. Includes antilogy and conflict.

questioner

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SPECIFING VOID

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“in the future, there is some human confidence that unities may be formed out of confusion, patterns out of irregularity…” (Highmore, 2001)

Void: a territory of variable interactions, as an expression of future possibilities, a space of emergence.

SPECIFING VOID

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CHORA L WORKS

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getting inspired from literature: chora L works: a project based on the collaboration of an architect [Eisenman] and a philosopher [Derrida]. Parallelizing 'chora' with void.

CHORA L WORKS: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman

THE 3rd ELEMENT OF EXISTENCE: CHORA: 'TIMAEOUS' PLATO

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experiments towards visualizasion of void

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VOID AS ORGANIC SPACE

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extract from my essay on Void space

VOID AS ORGANIC SPACE

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ANARCHIC ENVIRONMENTS

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HOW WE PERSCEIVE SPACE?

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Lefebvre translated space through his well known ‘trialectics’ of spatiality where space is represented through the perceived, the conceived and lived space.

We can understand space always in relation with
something else. Objects, ideas are inside or outside a certain
space. We pass through a space or space contains something. We
are trying to understand the physical relationship between objects
and we are using behind, in front, up, down to describe their position
in the space.

Space can never be alone. Available ~, position in ~, lack of
~, deep ~, wasted ~, wide open ~, ~ of a moment, outer ~, living
~, ~ bar, ~time, artificial ~, social ~, common ~, personal ~, insufficient
~. Even empty space is the space that contains nothing.
Space is never the same as its components change as well. So does
the light, the color, our position, our habits, our needs and beliefs.

ETYMOLOGY OF SPACE

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Definitions of space:

1. An empty area which is available to be used (or filled)

2. that which is around everything that exists and which is continuous in all directions. CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY

3. Unoccupied ground or area

4. the dimensions of height, depth and width within which all things exist and move
5. a blank between typed or written words or characters
6. the freedom and scope to live and develop as one wishes.OXFORD DICTIONARY

Space, that which surrounds everything that exists and which is continuous to all directions, the open space land –both spatial in the content of urban condition and plasmatic/ nominal/ notional in the context of the space in which the designer acts, performs and creates new spaces of challenge.

Space here is perceived as an empty area which is available to be used, moreover the space is: the freedom and scope to live and develop as one wishes (Soanes Catherine, Stevenson Angus, 2004). I am borrowing those interpretations from dictionaries in order to use them as a stepping stone for better understanding and analyzing void space.

notes on void

2007-07-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Arthur told me void is a verb.
I think he is right. Void includes 'action', it is not passive, it is the space of emergence and in that way it is also implied that transformation occurs. The space that surrounds us is never the same, it is characterized by variable dynamics. We, as well, are part of this change, most of the time we provoke the change, probably without even noticing. What we can not perceive or see we can not understand... we call it void, spatial, motional, notional void. We invented void to explain what we can not 'see', cause everything has to be explained so as to be controlled. Only WHAT IS MEASURED EXIST(?)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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References:

Amnesty International Campaign Graphics. It’s happening now, but out of sight [on-line]. Available from: http://www.articlesandtexticles.co.uk/?p=101
Annink Ed (editor), 2003. Bright minds, beautiful ideas: parallel thoughts in different times: Bruno Munari, Charles & Ray Eames, Martí Guixé and Jurgen Bey. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers, 2003.
Atkins Peter, Jones Loretta. (2002) Chemical Principles: the quest for insight 2^nd ed. USA: W. H. Freeman and Company
Augé Marc, 1995, Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London: Verso Books
Berger John et al (c1972), Ways of seeing, London: British Broadcasting Corporation; London, England; New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books
Carly Berwick. An Interview with Toyo Ito: “Tower of Winds and the Architecture of Sound” [on-line]. Available from: http://www.thetake.com/take05/take04/html/42ndst.html
Castells Manuel (1989) The informational city: information technology, economic restructuring, and the urban-regional process. Oxford: Basil Blackwell
Cautereels Vic et al. (2004) [Im]Perfect by design 4: triennale voor vormgeving = triennale du design = design triennial, Bruxelles: Musees Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire
Ghent Urban Studies Team (GUST) (1999) The Urban Condition: Space community, and self in the contemporary metropolis, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers
Circle Line Party, Available from: http://circlelineparty.org.uk/
Dunne Anthony, 1999. Hertzian tales: electronic products, aesthetic experience and critical design. London : RCA CRD Research Publications
Edward Booth-Clibborn (1995), Essays on Design: AGI's Designers of Influence: v. 1, Booth-Clibborn Editions
Fletcher Alan, 2001. The art of looking sideways. London; New York: Phaidon
Florian Bohm (editor) (2005). KGID, Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design. London ; New York: Phaidon
Freesearch, dictionary. online British English dictionary [on-line], Available from:
http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/space+%28empty+place%29
Harmon Katharine A., c2004. You are here: personal geographies and other maps of the imagination. New York: Princeton Architectural Press
Hubbard Phil, Kitchin Rob and Valentine Gill (2004), Key thinkers of space and place. London: Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications
Kate Abbott and Holly Bentley, 2007. Party on at Paddington. The Guardian [on-line]. Available from: http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/guides/freestuff/story/0,,1976261,00.html
Lefebvre Henri (1991), The production of space, Oxford: Blackwell
Plato, The Myth of the Cave, Republic VII (514a-521b) [on-line]. Available from:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3497/cave.html
Ramakers Renny (editor) (2004), Simply Droog: 10+1 years of creating innovation and discussion. Amsterdam: Droog

Further Reading

Giddens A. (1991) Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press
Lefebre Henri (1996), Writings on Cities. USA: Blackwell Publishing.
Lefebre Henri (2005) The Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 3, From Modernity to Modernism (Towards a Metaphilosophy of Daily Life). London, New York: Verso
Maeda John (2004). Creative code. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004
Maeda John (2000). Maeda@media. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000
Mau Bruce (2000). Life style. London: Phaidon
Mau Bruce, Leonard Jennifer and The Institute without Boundaries. (2004), Massive change. London; New York: Phaidon.

Leave the back door open

2007-04-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Leave the back door open

the role of void space in design. organic space. space of anarchy.
void space as productive space.

Emptiness was always influential to me as a territory defined by potentiality. All my expectations for space are summed up in the sense of void, to the dynamics a blanc page hides. Void to me was not a gap neither a negative space but a locus of unlimited possibilities, ready to either be formed or remain empty by keeping its ‘silent’ physicality. I need my space (personal space of self-expression) but space is qualified and influenced by its components -constant expressions of strong dynamics; moreover space is ephemeral thus the less components form a space the more ‘mine’ is.

...

My deep concern with design is centered on what was described as ‘organic space’ or else the importance of existence of void space (in the context illustrated in previous paragraphs) both to the process and the outcome of design. Design process does not mean to follow one single (and identifiable) pattern, which is quite common nowadays. Those identifiable norms which without doubt add ‘value’ both on the designer and the product (Berger John et al, c1972) at the same time they limit creation while evoking expectations to the audience by categorizing the products, by giving them certain identities and moreover by denoting lifestyles. Rather, randomly generated objects, or else spaces, that allow variable usage and emphasize the existence of individualization both of the creator and the user should be the outcome of design process.

[excerpt from my essay on space 'leave the back door open']