>>>>> [P1.2] Who? What? Why?/ Constructing Fiction
>>>Duration: 1 week
Designs
for clothes (Teddy Tinling) for the ‘inhabitants’ of the House of the Future by
Alison and Peter Smithson 1956 [1]
>>(…) To live is to leave traces," writes Walter Benjamin,
discussing the birth
of the interior, "In the interior these are
emphasized. An abundance of
- covers and protectors, liners and cases is
devised, on which the traces
of objects of everyday use are imprinted. The
traces of the occupant
also leave their impression on the interior. The
detective story that
follows these traces comes into being. . . . The criminals
of the first
detective novels are neither gentlemen nor apaches, but private
members
of the bourgeoisie."
There is an interior in
the detective novel. But can there be a detective
story of the interior itself,
of the hidden mechanisms by which space is
constructed as interior? Which may
be to say, a detective story of
detection itself, of the controlling look, the
look of control, the controlled
look. But where would the traces of the look be
imprinted? What do we
have to go on? What clues?(…)<<[2]
Beatriz Colomina
Privacy and Publicity
The detective story is a vehicle
for observing, following, recording, unraveling habits and discovering traces left
by characters. Both writers and architects construct places- using different
mediums. In the first stage, the architect uses representational tools as a
means to generate new scenarios-
construct new realities. In 1955 The Daily Mail newspaper sponsored the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition in
London, Alison and Peter Smithson were commissioned to design the future house.
In this set-up they had to imagine also the future users. During the
exhibition, hired models- dressed by designer Teddy Tinling – in the role of
the inhabitants, performed the future
life- the way the house worked.
You will also be asked to define
characters- Mr./Mrs. Black or Mr./Mrs. White who will reside in a
place that responds to the peculiarities of their activities. They may either
be a real person you met during the visit to the site or totally unknown. Using
your Atlas [P1.1]- you will be asked
to (re)-construct the narrative about the site, involving the characters and
responding to the questions Who?
(characters) What? (diagnostic) Why? (arguments) and presenting your story,
both through text and visually (video,
which should not exceed 2 minutes and drawing/collage).
>> (…)Like
Jarmusch's
earlier work, it is about relationships, and chance encounters (though in this
case the various groups inhabiting the
three rooms don't actually meet - even
though some of them are acquainted with one another - but pass on, blissfully
unaware of
the others proximity). Like his previous two features, it shows a
fascination with changing light as an index of time and place [...]. It also
serves,
to some extent, as a playful exercise in genre: its three parts may be
viewed as offbeat variations on the romantic comedy, the ghost story, and the
crime thriller.
[…]
The result of Jarmusch revealing
the connections between
all these disparate elements only gradually is not only that we are forced into
the position of having
to investigate the 'mystery' of the narrative - to piece
together the jigsaw, as it were - for ourselves; it also means we are
continually required to reassess the meaning of what we have already
seen and
heard, as people, places, events, sounds, objects and
sounds recur in different
contexts or are shown from different
perspectives. The film, then, explores,
and makes explicit, both
the fundamental methods of cinematic storytelling and
the
experience of watching and understanding a film: in each activity, meaning
is derived by positing some sort of relationship between characters, actions,
objects, sounds, time and
place, and alters precisely according to the changes
that occur within those very relationships.(…) << [3]
Geoff Andrew
Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch
[1] In: RISSELADA Max; HEUVEL van den, Dirk (eds.): Alison & Peter Smithson: From a House of
the Future to a House of Today, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, 2004, pg. 95
[2] COLOMINA, Beatriz: Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, MIT Press, 1996, pg. 234.
[3]ANDREW, Geoff: Stranger Than Paradise: Maverick Film-Makers in Recent American Cinema, Limelight Editions; 1st Edition, 2004, p. 151 - 152
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