storming...

"Mythologies" by Roland Barthes

[p.53] All the toys one commonly sees are essentially a microcosm of the adult world; they are all reduced copies of human objects, as if in the eyes of the public the child was, all told, nothing but a smaller man, a homunculus to whom must be supplied objects of his own size. (yeh...like -boys: toy car vs real car ; -girls: barbie doll vs clothing)

"Subculture: The Meaning of Style" by Dick Hebdige

[p.13] There is an ideological dimension to every signification: A sign does not simply exist as part of reality - it reflects and refracts another reality. Therefore it may distort that reality or be true to it, or may perceive it from a special point of view, and so forth. Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation....The domain of ideology coincides with the domain of signs. They equate with one another. Whenever a sign is present, ideology is present too. Everything ideological possesses a semiotic value. [Volosinov, V. N. (1973), Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Seminar Press.]

- PHENOMENOLOGY -

Phenomenology is both a philosophical design current in contemporary architecture and a specific field of academic research, based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties. Though interest in phenomenology has waned in recent times, several architects, such as Steven Holl and Peter Zumthor are described by Juhani Pallasmaa as practitioners in phenomenology of architecture. [i was once so impressed by "The Eyes of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses" by Juhani Pallasmaa...] Present-day architectural phenomenology has widened its scope to include theorists whose modes of thinking are bordering on phenomenology, such as Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson, and Paul Virilio (urban planner).

- CULTURAL REGIONALISM -

Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter placelessness and lack of identity in Modern Architecture by utilizing the building's geographical context.

- OBJECTIFICATION -

Marx argues that reification is an inherent and necessary characteristic of economic value such as it manifests itself in market trade, i.e. the inversion in thought between object and subject, or between means and ends, reflects a real practice where attributes (properties, characteristics, features, powers) which exist only by virtue of a social relationship between people are treated as if they are the inherent, natural characteristics of things, or vice versa, attributes of inanimate things are treated as if they are attributes of human subjects. This implies that objects are transformed into subjects and subjects are turned into objects, with the result that subjects are rendered passive or determined, while objects are rendered as the active, determining factor.

Thoughts:

_Okay, to be honest to myself, what do i like? and what do i like to do when i am free (or most likely to do)? Well...despite the fact that it might sound shallow and cheesy, i think i do like shopping much, particularly in shopping mall (which most people hate)...but honestly, i can't see any reason not to like it...it shelters us from unfavourable weather/environment (rain/wind/sun/pollutes from traffic/etc) and most importantly - ALL in ONE - you can get whatever you need at once [convenience/efficiency]...

earlier drawing
 showing octopus card in HKG (aka. oyster card in LDN) and iphone carry the ALL-in-ONE feature in them

_Like what i have done in the previous projects, i am interested in a space (warped space?) which infinite variety of things/events (regardless of orientation and scale) can happen at the same time. (and somehow find out how one event is actually related to another no matter how it doesn't look like to be?)

_Why am i doing it? Erm...because [A] i think nowadays time is more precious than it was in whatever time in history (?) because a lot of things are going on simultaneously that if one slows down 1 second, he/she will lose track of the whole wide world (?) so time is running faster relatively (?) people age sooner (?) so things (even architecture aka. space) should be efficient/flexibly-adaptive (?) [B] it's interesting to look at something in a different perspective instead of a general/generic one (?) because i think it's healthier (mentally?) to always question the things in life (?)

_How am i going to do it? [A] I am intrigued by the thoughts from Archigram (well...who doesn't?) - Plug-in City/Walking City...so using them as a prototype and think deeper into social issues which they neglected about (?) [B] Shopping = Owning? The importance of owning? How about just borrowing? Look into precedent studies about how perception changes with human psychology (?) To use daily un-noticed object and make them into (new) objects and test that out with the public of their representing meanings (?)

_[Second Try: Something that is more related to camera (/public goes over private) .] In the 21st century, with the help of Facebook, Twitter, and other kinds of social network apps, we fall into a tendency of exposing ourselves all the time. (Again, this constitutes to the shortening of time and spaces between one another, warping the spaces metaphorically.) And passively, we do expose ourselves all the time under the surveillance of camera everywhere, especially in London. So how did this continuous exposure of ourselves affect our perception/usage of space? More behaved/disciplined? How that lengthens short-distance and shortens long-distance (?) resulting in using the space that is not originally designed to be (?) And what can be the role of the camera - just for surveillance? Or other sort of records that provokes us to re-think the existing unnoticed space?

_Set up the cameras in both shopping mall and shopping street in London - 1) To observe the behaviour of people with a noticeable camera 2) To figure out the relationship of the camera and the space 3) To compare the modes of shopping from the recording (?)

Related Words: Shopping, Living, Desire, Display, Objectification, Subjectivity, Media, Publicity, Public/Social Space, Control, Surveillance, Phenomenology, Cultural Regionalism, Mobius Strip, John Locke, Perspectivism, Fetishism

Self-Note: *Performance of Space = Usage of Space *I may agree with the punk ideologies - DIY ethic, freedom to express, environmentalism, etc. but i definitely don't agree with stereotype punk fashion aesthetically. Re-think 'is there any subculture involved in my brain-storming above?'.