Creating the proto-shop. Manifesto draft 3
0 To spin an urban yarn
1 There are important manual skills within the traditional art school under pressure from digital production techniques
2 These manual art processes are hidden deep in the school
3 The choreography of manual production is invisible and removed from the polished final product
4 The ‘independent’ art school is absorbed into the educational portfolio of the ‘corporate’ university
5 During this assimilation, there will likely be a clash between the ‘dirty’ art school and the ‘clean’ university
6 How is the university without condition defined in this modern corporate system of secondary education?
7 The proto-shop is ‘spun off’ the established institutions to a peripheral space of dirty technical processes and unconditional discussion
8 In this location, the traditional studio system is turned inside-out
9 The quarantine of the digital lab is breached
10 The manual is pushed to the edges to interact and sustain the local industrial heritage
11 The illicit use of digital production is challenged, in order for its true value to be established
12 The digital fortress is established and defended, creating a physical manifestation of the independent space for unconditional discourse
13 The ideal is mixed with the pragmatic
14 The shopfront edge of the new art school is part of the active public space
15 The new art school looks for the next edge to inhabit
MA(RCA)/DIC in Industrial Design Engineering
Mentioned in Dyson's recent lecure - a joint course between Imperial College London and Royal College of Art. [Imperial] [RCA]
Seminar: The Bibiena
Presentation on the The Bibiena family and their influence on theatre design through two-point perspective.
Caught a portion of the Richard Dimbleby lecture by James Dyson last night on the BBC.
"James Dyson industrialist, designer, and inventor of the famous vacuum cleaner delivers the annual lecture in memory of the broadcaster Richard Dimbleby.He questions why we have become less interested in manufacturing and engineering at the expense of the service industries. He argues that, contrary to expectations, in the 21st century Britain needs to make some dramatic changes, both in society and in the city, to secure Britain's future."
There were some interesting points that could be woven into futureacademy. Transcript
here.
MA3 landscape reclamation crit
Invited by Lisa Mackenzie to the final crit for her MA3 landscape architecture year. Some interesting and very diverse projects. Problems with computer representation and photoshop, but there was not one similar agenda amongst the presentations I saw.
The Urban Archipelago
Today I have been developing the final theory essay "The Urban Archipelago" using the manifesto by the editors of The Stranger, Albert Pope's 'Last Horizon' and 'Splintering Urbanism' by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin. Maps from here and here are key illustrations.
Tutorial: images of manual creative processes
Presented manifesto draft 2 and the image booklet of manual creative processes today. Positive feedback. Feel that the manifesto is beginning to be a little clearer, having adopted the Urban Flotsam format of statement followed by project or expansion of idea. For next Tuesday - site analysis and revision of manifesto towards draft 3.
MA3 landscape reclamation studio teaching
Spent the day in the third year landscape architecture studio among somewhat panicked students who were working towards their final crit for this term's major design project. The landscape reclamation brief is for an area in Lanarkshire about to be open-cast mined by Scottish Coal. Brief set by Lisa Mackenzie includes a couple of texts I need to follow up: Jules Verne's "Black Indies" and "Reclaiming the American West" by Alan Berger.
Geddes day
A beautiful crisp blue morning spent touring the Royal Mile with Margaret Stewart and classmates wondering at Patrick Geddes achievements in saving the Old Town as we know it.
Manifesto draft 2
I've been working on draft 2 of the manifesto - struggling with opposing impulses to promote manual art processes along with integration of digital techniques.
"The practicing of these manual disciplines produces flowing powerful choreographies of human movement that are missing from the hunched, tense, staccato movements of digital art production. The manual techniques importance in producing the art of the degree show is usually hidden away from view and rarely visible in the display of the polished finished piece. The workshops are hidden in basements and backlands, away from the main body of the university."
"One after another, tiny hints, confirmed by third parties close to McLuhan decades ago, convinced Wolf that if the poster was not McLuhan himself, it was a bot programmed with an eerie command of McLuhan's life and inimitable perspective. After many rounds of e-mail, the conversation got down to the meat of the matter: What does McLuhan think about all this new digital technology?"
