Tuesday 25 August 2009
Flickr account
I now have a Flickr account where I am in the process of unploading and geo-tagging all my Hackney photos.
Letterpress posters - sneak preview
The letterpress posters I have been working on for the HTAP in/flux exhibition are based on snatches of overheard conversations within Hackney. The conceptual overview touches on the following...
Massey (1994, 2005) defines place as process, as something that is open, not static. For Massey, place is…
To me, this has resonance with Hackney and the idea of ‘transience’ as proposed by HTAP—Hackney is a space filled with converging and diverging multi-linear narratives.
Conversely, Tuan (1977:6), writing from an earlier Humanistic perspective, likens space to movement and place to pauses—the pauses enable us to know place better and inscribe our own meanings and value onto it, to become ‘rooted’ in place and to develop a ‘sense of place’ (Tuan 1977:198).
Walking through the streets of Hackney one overhears snatches of people’s conversations, and can gain a momentary window into their lives. By using traditional letterpress, a very time consuming, laborious process, to visualise these narrative fragments the work attempts to ‘freeze-frame’ that moment, to pause within the process.
The use of typeface, size, colour and positioning draws the viewer into the recreated moment, enabling them to engage with the fragment of conversation and construct their own narrative about the situation or the speaker. The series as a whole also attempts to reflect the diverse nature of Hackney and its residents.
Massey (1994, 2005) defines place as process, as something that is open, not static. For Massey, place is…
…the sphere of a dynamic simultaneity, constantly disconnected by new arrivals, constantly waiting to be determined (and therefore always undetermined) by the construction of new relations. It is always being made and always therefore, in a sense, unfinished…
(Massey 2005:107)
To me, this has resonance with Hackney and the idea of ‘transience’ as proposed by HTAP—Hackney is a space filled with converging and diverging multi-linear narratives.
Conversely, Tuan (1977:6), writing from an earlier Humanistic perspective, likens space to movement and place to pauses—the pauses enable us to know place better and inscribe our own meanings and value onto it, to become ‘rooted’ in place and to develop a ‘sense of place’ (Tuan 1977:198).
Walking through the streets of Hackney one overhears snatches of people’s conversations, and can gain a momentary window into their lives. By using traditional letterpress, a very time consuming, laborious process, to visualise these narrative fragments the work attempts to ‘freeze-frame’ that moment, to pause within the process.
The use of typeface, size, colour and positioning draws the viewer into the recreated moment, enabling them to engage with the fragment of conversation and construct their own narrative about the situation or the speaker. The series as a whole also attempts to reflect the diverse nature of Hackney and its residents.
I am wondering...
I have been trekking through Elephant and Castle underpass, from the old tube exit to LCC, on and off for the best part of 8 years and only this week did I notice that the number 1s stencilled onto the pavement along sections 12 and 10 are either upside down or back to front. Does that make me unobservant or just a bit of a weirdo for noticing at all?
Monday 17 August 2009
HTAP at Hackney Wicked, 1st August 2009
As part of my association with HTAP I was part of Pattern Making For Beginners held on Saturday 1 August at the Red House, behind the Counter Cafe. The event was described as a research and collection day that was primarily executed via a diverse range of mapping type tools. My contributions were a Type Cast Map and a Secrets Map.
The Type Cast Map follows on from my earlier work regarding place image and the Hackney Gazette headlines. Here I invited people to describe Hackney in general, or a particular part of it, in their own words. I then printed these words onto a map of Hackney using woodblock type and a basic ink pad, thus creating a landscape of text. People's responses ranged from the personal to the political, but the majority of the responses, unlike those of the Hackney Gazette, were of a positive nature. The three photographs below show the map in action at the festival.
The Secrets Map was an installation comprising a framed map behind a black curtain and a shelf with cards, envelopes and a wooden box. Participants were invited to share a secret that related to somewhere in Hackney, fill this in on a card, seal the card in an envelope and place it in the box. They were then asked to locate the secret by placing a red cross on the map of Hackney behind the curtain. The only elements included on the map were icons for Mosques, Churches and Synagogues—these, and the black curtain, hint at something of a confessional type experience. The three photos below show the map in action and a close up of its use.
I intend to develop this project further, by locating the site of the secret, gathering visual and other types of evidence, and speculating on the nature of the confession.
The Type Cast Map follows on from my earlier work regarding place image and the Hackney Gazette headlines. Here I invited people to describe Hackney in general, or a particular part of it, in their own words. I then printed these words onto a map of Hackney using woodblock type and a basic ink pad, thus creating a landscape of text. People's responses ranged from the personal to the political, but the majority of the responses, unlike those of the Hackney Gazette, were of a positive nature. The three photographs below show the map in action at the festival.
The Secrets Map was an installation comprising a framed map behind a black curtain and a shelf with cards, envelopes and a wooden box. Participants were invited to share a secret that related to somewhere in Hackney, fill this in on a card, seal the card in an envelope and place it in the box. They were then asked to locate the secret by placing a red cross on the map of Hackney behind the curtain. The only elements included on the map were icons for Mosques, Churches and Synagogues—these, and the black curtain, hint at something of a confessional type experience. The three photos below show the map in action and a close up of its use.
I intend to develop this project further, by locating the site of the secret, gathering visual and other types of evidence, and speculating on the nature of the confession.
Monday 10 August 2009
Screenprint workshop
I have recently completed a screenprint workshop at LCC run by Aida Haghshenas. After learning the process we had time to make a couple of our own screens, so I chose to use the opportunity to explore some images that I could use for some work on the 'stuff' project. I had just ordered 20g of assorted world stamps off the internet, which provided the raw material. Some of the stamps were beautiful single colour graphic images, which had great use of line. Blown up the photocopier these were just the job to test out my new found skills. Not only that, I feel I am but a frame away from a Christmas stall at Spitalfields...
Sunday 9 August 2009
'Stuff'
I have now got quite a few of the probe packs back in, and reading the responses to one of the postcard questions—What makes your house a home?—has got me thinking that a project about 'stuff' is in order. One of my respondents classifies her 'stuff' in a variety of ways. There are the 'collections' that might consist of things such as thimbles or paperweights; 'projects' that are more often than not art or craft based; and there are 'stocks' that could come in useful at some point or other, and have accumulated over the years.
Doing further reading around stuff throws up some interesting thoughts...
The phrase ‘an accumulation of stuff’ seems to imply there is no one involved, that the stuff increases imperceptibly with a life of its own, like dust balls silently forming under the bed. Perhaps it builds up like the layers of strata visible in cliff faces—deposits that build up naturally over time. However it accumulates, it is stuff that is imbued with a far deeper role than one might realise, one that is inextricably linked with our sense of self.
Things like photographs, travel souvenirs and childhood toys become autobiographical objects and form a spatial representation of identity—an autotopography, a ‘physical map of memory, history and belief’ (Gonzalez 1995:133-4). Integral to who we are is a sense of our past. Possessions act as mnemonic devices that can reconstruct the past within the present (Gonzalez 1995:136).
The stories that these collections tell are not necessarily linear. Often they are a series of seemingly unconnected events or fragments that exist without a tangible plot (Gonzalez 1995:144). As a viewer one might attempt to construct a narrative, but only the owner can relay the full story, filling in the gaps and translating the hidden meanings.
Collecting could still be seen as a way of obtaining a sense of control in our increasingly complex lives. It is a commitment that is evidenced as the collection continues to grow, with the ‘gaps’ getting fewer, as the collection gets closer to completion. Yet the desire to complete is a double edged sword; on the one hand the gaps cry out to be filled with ones own self-completion being achieved only at the completion of the collection; on the other hand, completion is feared as when the collection is completed the focus and commitment of the task is ended. Many collectors address this fear by redefining their collecting focus or goals as completion nears, thus recasting the finite task as infinite (Belk 1988:154).
Stocks are stuff that has been collected with a view to future usefulness. There could be a sense here of the collector stocking up and being prepared for some unforeseen disaster. Then again, a world shortage of jam jars, or a rash of buttonless cardigans are strange and unlikely disasters to prepare for. This irrational hanging onto possessions because ‘they might come in handy some day’ perhaps becomes a ‘grounding’ for our identities that reduces the fear that we can somehow be erased (Belk 1988:159).
One wonders if the stockpiles are more to do with a desire not to throw than there is to actively keep; or perhaps it a desire to keep and an inability to throw away? Perhaps it is also a mentality that comes with a certain age and experience—a generational thing. Mending socks nowadays? Why bother when its £1.99 for seven pairs at Primark.
But what happens when we die?
All of our lives will inevitably ‘peter out in a residue of old coats and shoes, stacks of faded newspapers, and all kinds of memorabilia lodged in jars, boxes, chests and cupboards, their significance poignantly annulled’ (Cardinal 2001:23). The ‘stuff’ that once held significance for us and created our ‘physical map of memory, history and belief’ reverts to be just stuff. Its inability to communicate beyond the individual renders it mute, it becomes confined to its material reality, still three-dimensional, but in this respect a one-dimensional signifier, incapable of enlightening us of the memories and meanings that once were ascribed to it.
Doing further reading around stuff throws up some interesting thoughts...
The phrase ‘an accumulation of stuff’ seems to imply there is no one involved, that the stuff increases imperceptibly with a life of its own, like dust balls silently forming under the bed. Perhaps it builds up like the layers of strata visible in cliff faces—deposits that build up naturally over time. However it accumulates, it is stuff that is imbued with a far deeper role than one might realise, one that is inextricably linked with our sense of self.
Our fragile sense of self needs support, and this we get by having and possessing things because, to a large degree, we are what we have and possess.
Yi-Fu Tuan 1980:472
Things like photographs, travel souvenirs and childhood toys become autobiographical objects and form a spatial representation of identity—an autotopography, a ‘physical map of memory, history and belief’ (Gonzalez 1995:133-4). Integral to who we are is a sense of our past. Possessions act as mnemonic devices that can reconstruct the past within the present (Gonzalez 1995:136).
Remembering is like constructing and then travelling again through a space.
Umberto Eco 1986
The stories that these collections tell are not necessarily linear. Often they are a series of seemingly unconnected events or fragments that exist without a tangible plot (Gonzalez 1995:144). As a viewer one might attempt to construct a narrative, but only the owner can relay the full story, filling in the gaps and translating the hidden meanings.
Collecting could still be seen as a way of obtaining a sense of control in our increasingly complex lives. It is a commitment that is evidenced as the collection continues to grow, with the ‘gaps’ getting fewer, as the collection gets closer to completion. Yet the desire to complete is a double edged sword; on the one hand the gaps cry out to be filled with ones own self-completion being achieved only at the completion of the collection; on the other hand, completion is feared as when the collection is completed the focus and commitment of the task is ended. Many collectors address this fear by redefining their collecting focus or goals as completion nears, thus recasting the finite task as infinite (Belk 1988:154).
Stocks are stuff that has been collected with a view to future usefulness. There could be a sense here of the collector stocking up and being prepared for some unforeseen disaster. Then again, a world shortage of jam jars, or a rash of buttonless cardigans are strange and unlikely disasters to prepare for. This irrational hanging onto possessions because ‘they might come in handy some day’ perhaps becomes a ‘grounding’ for our identities that reduces the fear that we can somehow be erased (Belk 1988:159).
One wonders if the stockpiles are more to do with a desire not to throw than there is to actively keep; or perhaps it a desire to keep and an inability to throw away? Perhaps it is also a mentality that comes with a certain age and experience—a generational thing. Mending socks nowadays? Why bother when its £1.99 for seven pairs at Primark.
But what happens when we die?
What will my children do with it when I peg out?
CL 2009
All of our lives will inevitably ‘peter out in a residue of old coats and shoes, stacks of faded newspapers, and all kinds of memorabilia lodged in jars, boxes, chests and cupboards, their significance poignantly annulled’ (Cardinal 2001:23). The ‘stuff’ that once held significance for us and created our ‘physical map of memory, history and belief’ reverts to be just stuff. Its inability to communicate beyond the individual renders it mute, it becomes confined to its material reality, still three-dimensional, but in this respect a one-dimensional signifier, incapable of enlightening us of the memories and meanings that once were ascribed to it.
We have to face the fact that all things, including ourselves, are doomed to be classed one day under the single ultimate heading: EPHEMERA.
Roger Cardinal 2001:30
Saturday 8 August 2009
Death of the author, 2009
Death of the author reveals the process of headline writing and the part the reader plays in constructing the story from the truncated sentences. The ‘headlines’ used in this publication are generated from the alphabetical list of the most emotionally charged words used in the headlines from the Hackney Gazette over the past two years.
We are so used to reading the verbal shorthand of newspapers we don’t question the sentence construction, but fill in the blanks and generate our own meaning for the ‘Critical Drama Frenzy’. Through the act of reading the words move from a more passive, arbitrary, alphabetical context, to an active one, reacting with each other and generating a narrative informed by the reader’s own cultural experience.
It is therefore the reader that ‘writes’ this text. As Barthes (1977:142) says ‘a text’s unity lies not in its origin, but in its destination’. The ‘birth of the reader’ is always at ‘the cost of the death of the author’.
We are so used to reading the verbal shorthand of newspapers we don’t question the sentence construction, but fill in the blanks and generate our own meaning for the ‘Critical Drama Frenzy’. Through the act of reading the words move from a more passive, arbitrary, alphabetical context, to an active one, reacting with each other and generating a narrative informed by the reader’s own cultural experience.
It is therefore the reader that ‘writes’ this text. As Barthes (1977:142) says ‘a text’s unity lies not in its origin, but in its destination’. The ‘birth of the reader’ is always at ‘the cost of the death of the author’.
Type Cast, 2009
Type Cast reveals how headlines, in this case, those from the Hackney Gazette, contribute to the representation and construction of place through the development of place image, an oversimplification and labeling of place (Shields 1991:47).
This labeling has a negative impact, and in turn creates further headlines, changing not only one’s perception, but also spatial practices—if a ‘knife maniac’ is on the loose, we are perhaps unlikely to visit. It is often said that ‘today’s newspapers are tomorrow’s chip papers’, with the implication being that a newspaper is ephemeral in nature. Printed on cheap stock, primarily in one colour and more often than not recycled or thrown away before the end of the day, it is easy to see why.
However, the emotionally charged rhetoric of headlines is not as easily pulped as the paper they are printed on. It is likely that the place-image remains prevalent long after the place itself has changed in nature. The contrast of the cheap newsprint stock with the time-consuming craft of the letterpress process highlights the inequality between the media and its lasting effect.
This labeling has a negative impact, and in turn creates further headlines, changing not only one’s perception, but also spatial practices—if a ‘knife maniac’ is on the loose, we are perhaps unlikely to visit. It is often said that ‘today’s newspapers are tomorrow’s chip papers’, with the implication being that a newspaper is ephemeral in nature. Printed on cheap stock, primarily in one colour and more often than not recycled or thrown away before the end of the day, it is easy to see why.
However, the emotionally charged rhetoric of headlines is not as easily pulped as the paper they are printed on. It is likely that the place-image remains prevalent long after the place itself has changed in nature. The contrast of the cheap newsprint stock with the time-consuming craft of the letterpress process highlights the inequality between the media and its lasting effect.
Friday 7 August 2009
Map Books, 2009
This first, short project primarily provided a way of getting back into the process of making visual work after a long period of time spent developing the theoretical, written aspects of the research. Developed with the proposed Place as Book project in mind (see below), the resulting work places the visual language of a map into the space of the book, and is perhaps more of an abstract exploration of the two types of visual language than a piece of work that explores or communicates a sense of place of Hackney.
Fifteen developmental variations were produced, of which six are illustrated here. Placing the coloured block that signifies the type of landscape into the space of the page that contains the block of text, makes links between the visual language of the map and the written language of the book. It also alludes to the idea of ‘landscape as text’, yet executed in this way the blocks communicate little about the nature of the space.
Some of the versions allude to a journey either by using street and place names, or by the use of a dotted line, the colour of which references that which is used by the Ordnance Survey maps to denote a footpath. Some contain ‘borders’ that define the beginning and end of the story, or the edges of the space. One contains a number of photographs in place of the map-like visual language, which enables this version to offer more of a ‘peopled’ sense of place. Later versions also explore how the use of a map might change the use of a book, with text blocks rotated to imply the way a map is often turned round to pinpoint how the map relates to one’s own position within place.
This project may at first glance seem nothing more than an abstract experiment, however, this is primarily because at the point of undertaking, I had not generated any ethnographic content about Hackney with which to drive the process or even ‘fill’ the pages. Once the cultural probes and my own observations begin to provide this content, it may be worth revisiting some aspects of this work either through the project as it is, or within the context of the Place as Book project.
Fifteen developmental variations were produced, of which six are illustrated here. Placing the coloured block that signifies the type of landscape into the space of the page that contains the block of text, makes links between the visual language of the map and the written language of the book. It also alludes to the idea of ‘landscape as text’, yet executed in this way the blocks communicate little about the nature of the space.
Some of the versions allude to a journey either by using street and place names, or by the use of a dotted line, the colour of which references that which is used by the Ordnance Survey maps to denote a footpath. Some contain ‘borders’ that define the beginning and end of the story, or the edges of the space. One contains a number of photographs in place of the map-like visual language, which enables this version to offer more of a ‘peopled’ sense of place. Later versions also explore how the use of a map might change the use of a book, with text blocks rotated to imply the way a map is often turned round to pinpoint how the map relates to one’s own position within place.
This project may at first glance seem nothing more than an abstract experiment, however, this is primarily because at the point of undertaking, I had not generated any ethnographic content about Hackney with which to drive the process or even ‘fill’ the pages. Once the cultural probes and my own observations begin to provide this content, it may be worth revisiting some aspects of this work either through the project as it is, or within the context of the Place as Book project.
Thursday 6 August 2009
Letterpress workshop, 2009
This short project was undertaken alongside MA Design Writing Criticism students at LCC. It provided both an induction to the process of letterpress printing, and also the opportunity to engage with a set brief that, although not directly relevant to place in terms of its content, revealed the potential of an engagement beyond the surface of the page, at ‘the level of the text’, and the human link between text and page that Ingold fails to see.
The brief was to create a poster to illustrate a particular rhetorical device, in this case, the ‘parergon’, which Derrida describes as ‘that which is outside of the work, external to it, yet undeniably and unutterably part of it’ (Gibson nd:np). The solution employs the idea of the text of a book, with multiple ‘texts’ used to create a text block on the page. One ‘ex’ within the ‘texts’ is printed in red, highlighting the concept of something that is ‘out’, as in ‘ex’, but also within the word ‘text’. Other elements of the traditional page format are used to further emphasise this idea—the running header implying the ‘whole’ text and a footnote explanation of the term being seen as a smaller secondary text, yet still part of the whole.
Whilst letterpress is clearly not the primary means for generating printed matter, it is perhaps an appropriate example to use, as it is the advent of mechanical print—which in the West is seen as Gutenberg’s 1455 invention of moveable type—that Ingold sees as the catalyst in the ‘silencing’ of the page.
The images of the work clearly reveal an engagement with a craft that demands a level of skill to execute, and which in its complexity, could hardly be described as ‘merely technical’ or lacking human presence. Letterspacing is deduced by eye; registration on the page by a process of paste up, measurement and test printing; each print requires careful positioning of the paper and turning of the roller by hand; and this process is repeated for each separate colour.
The design process also illustrates an engagement ‘at the level of the text’, working both with meaning and with visual elements to generate a holistic solution.
The brief was to create a poster to illustrate a particular rhetorical device, in this case, the ‘parergon’, which Derrida describes as ‘that which is outside of the work, external to it, yet undeniably and unutterably part of it’ (Gibson nd:np). The solution employs the idea of the text of a book, with multiple ‘texts’ used to create a text block on the page. One ‘ex’ within the ‘texts’ is printed in red, highlighting the concept of something that is ‘out’, as in ‘ex’, but also within the word ‘text’. Other elements of the traditional page format are used to further emphasise this idea—the running header implying the ‘whole’ text and a footnote explanation of the term being seen as a smaller secondary text, yet still part of the whole.
Whilst letterpress is clearly not the primary means for generating printed matter, it is perhaps an appropriate example to use, as it is the advent of mechanical print—which in the West is seen as Gutenberg’s 1455 invention of moveable type—that Ingold sees as the catalyst in the ‘silencing’ of the page.
The images of the work clearly reveal an engagement with a craft that demands a level of skill to execute, and which in its complexity, could hardly be described as ‘merely technical’ or lacking human presence. Letterspacing is deduced by eye; registration on the page by a process of paste up, measurement and test printing; each print requires careful positioning of the paper and turning of the roller by hand; and this process is repeated for each separate colour.
The design process also illustrates an engagement ‘at the level of the text’, working both with meaning and with visual elements to generate a holistic solution.
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Cultural Probes, 2008
In discussing the recording of everyday life, Highmore (2002:171) suggests a ‘tool kit’ that enables the ‘different registers of a polyphonic everyday’ to be heard is needed, and this could perhaps be seen as a description of cultural probes. Originally developed as ‘part of a strategy of pursuing experimental design in a responsive way’ (Gaver, Dunne & Pacenti, 1999:22), the first probe packs included a set of postcards, maps, a disposable camera and a photo album and media diary, and the focus of the research was to enable the development of new interactive technologies that would increase the presence of the elderly in their local communities. Although the probes were initially developed within a specific piece of interactive design research, they have since been used widely in a number of disciplines, including ethnographic research (eg Robertson 2008). The probes are designed to be fun to use, to break down the barrier between researcher and participant, and to provide inspirational responses rather than information. They are primarily designed to understand ‘people in situ, uniquely, not abstractly en masse’ (Hemmings, Crabtree & Rodden 2003:50).
Probe returns encourage the construction of narratives about the participants, they make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, but they don’t dictate what should then be made through the design process (Gaver et al 2004). With their philosophical approach rooted in the disciplines of art and design, and their ability to provide ‘fragmented illustrations and narratives’ (Jääsko & Mattelmäki 2003:4-5) the probes are an appropriate method for this research. The fragmented nature of the narrative, perhaps has parallels with Massey’s spontaneous and disconnected sense of place, but also offers the designer an opportunity to develop a fuller narrative from the responses. As Gaver et al (2004) state
The cultural probes in this instance consist of a series of postcards, a 12 shot disposable camera, a memory/story sheet, a recipe sheet and a journey log.
All materials are designed in such a way as to both remove associations with traditional ‘scientific’ types of questionnaire-based research and to reduce the ‘distance’ between researcher and participant. To this end the language used is open and informal and the majority of images used are bold and colourful photographs, and are predominantly everyday types of objects or scenes, for example, a doormat, road markings and a view of blue sky and clouds. For the postcards in particular the chosen images attempt not to ‘lead’ or prejudice the participants in any way regarding what the question might be trying to elicit in terms of their response. Through the information sheets, participants are also reassured that it is their opinions that count, that there is no such thing as a ‘wrong answer’ and that their answers may be as simple or as detailed as they wish.
Initial responses to the packs have been very good. Participants have been engaged by both the design and the content, and have been positive about both the research project and their contribution via the cultural probes. Many participants have commented on how the pack will make them look afresh at familiar spaces and routes. For groups of older residents the recipe and memory sheets have prompted lively discussions about their past experiences within Hackney and how life has changed.
Probe returns encourage the construction of narratives about the participants, they make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, but they don’t dictate what should then be made through the design process (Gaver et al 2004). With their philosophical approach rooted in the disciplines of art and design, and their ability to provide ‘fragmented illustrations and narratives’ (Jääsko & Mattelmäki 2003:4-5) the probes are an appropriate method for this research. The fragmented nature of the narrative, perhaps has parallels with Massey’s spontaneous and disconnected sense of place, but also offers the designer an opportunity to develop a fuller narrative from the responses. As Gaver et al (2004) state
Rather than producing lists of facts about our volunteers, the probes encourage us to tell stories about them, much as we tell stories about the people we know in daily life.
(Gaver et al 2004:55)
The cultural probes in this instance consist of a series of postcards, a 12 shot disposable camera, a memory/story sheet, a recipe sheet and a journey log.
All materials are designed in such a way as to both remove associations with traditional ‘scientific’ types of questionnaire-based research and to reduce the ‘distance’ between researcher and participant. To this end the language used is open and informal and the majority of images used are bold and colourful photographs, and are predominantly everyday types of objects or scenes, for example, a doormat, road markings and a view of blue sky and clouds. For the postcards in particular the chosen images attempt not to ‘lead’ or prejudice the participants in any way regarding what the question might be trying to elicit in terms of their response. Through the information sheets, participants are also reassured that it is their opinions that count, that there is no such thing as a ‘wrong answer’ and that their answers may be as simple or as detailed as they wish.
Initial responses to the packs have been very good. Participants have been engaged by both the design and the content, and have been positive about both the research project and their contribution via the cultural probes. Many participants have commented on how the pack will make them look afresh at familiar spaces and routes. For groups of older residents the recipe and memory sheets have prompted lively discussions about their past experiences within Hackney and how life has changed.
Tuesday 4 August 2009
Visual Ethnography, 2007 on
Throughout the course of the research I will be recording photographic images of Hackney. The images focus on traces of human interaction within the environment, whether that be notes pinned to lampposts, graffiti painted on walls, official signs or belongings left amongst derelict flats. Rather like the probes, the images reveal a fragmentary narrative of place. The images will be used to generate further in depth exploration of particular areas or issues within Hackney, to develop ideas for geo/graphic design projects and to illustrate those projects where relevant.
See loads more of my photos, and find where they were taken at my Flickr page.
See loads more of my photos, and find where they were taken at my Flickr page.
Place as book?
Following on from the notion of landscape as text, is it possible to translate place to book? Using materials generated by the participant observation and the cultural probes, alongside secondary sources of historical and contemporary information about Hackney, can the book format offer an experience of place that transcends the ‘flattening out’ of the map? Within this project it may be useful to apply Schön’s strategy of ‘generative metaphor’ (Schön 1993 cited in Gray and Malins 2004:68). By seeing, in this case, ‘place as book’, the strategy enables the researcher to question how this might be possible, in what ways the two things are similar or different, etc and therefore to actually see one thing as another and to view the design problem in a new light. In this case, perhaps districts could be seen as chapters, paragraphs as streets, and sentences as buildings. It may prove useful to revisit ‘map as book’ in order to furnish the book and its narrative with some unusual navigational tools.
This project, which may form the culmination of the geo/graphic design practice, can draw on many of the theoretical references from both the literature and practice review, including explorations of: pace and rhythm that draw on the contradictions between Massey and Tuan’s definition of place; structure and physical form that move beyond the flat space of the map; multi-linear narratives that draw on place as process and post-modern ethnographic writing; and, an holistic engagement with content, design and typography that works at ‘the level of the text’. Within its narrative it could also include aspects of the smaller projects already developed, those listed as potential ideas and those generated via the cultural probes.
This project, which may form the culmination of the geo/graphic design practice, can draw on many of the theoretical references from both the literature and practice review, including explorations of: pace and rhythm that draw on the contradictions between Massey and Tuan’s definition of place; structure and physical form that move beyond the flat space of the map; multi-linear narratives that draw on place as process and post-modern ethnographic writing; and, an holistic engagement with content, design and typography that works at ‘the level of the text’. Within its narrative it could also include aspects of the smaller projects already developed, those listed as potential ideas and those generated via the cultural probes.
A book is a sequence of spaces. Each of these spaces is perceived at a different moment—a book is also a sequence of moments… Written language is a sequence of signs expanding within the space; the reading of which occurs in time. A book is a space-time sequence.
Carrion, 2001, np
Monday 3 August 2009
Realising the geo/graphic landscape of the everyday, 2007 on
The title of my PhD—abstract as it stands at the moment is as follows...
This cross-disciplinary, practice-led research centres on the geographic visualisation of urban space and the possibilities print based graphic design and typography could bring to that process. Perkins (2006:np) notes that currently geographers are ‘very good at deconstruction, not so good at construction’, as they fear print defines place in a ‘fixed’, one-dimensional manner. This research asserts that print offers the potential to produce artefacts that offer the reader an interactive, multi-linear and ‘peopled’ experience of place that goes beyond the flat, geometric space of the map. In the context of this research, place is defined and explored using Massey’s (1994, 2005) idea of place as process, and Tuan’s (1977) contrasting notion of place as pause.
A qualitative, naturalistic and reflective methodological approach will be taken, drawing on both social science methods and design practice—an approach that could be described as that of the bricoleur (Denzin and Lincoln (1994:2). This will form the framework for the development of a ‘geo/graphic’ design process. Ethnographic research methods of participant observation and cultural probes will generate content from the London Borough of Hackney—chosen as a testing ground due to its complexity and contrasting juxtapositions. These findings will be used as both content and inspiration with regard to design projects that will test and further develop the geo/graphic design process. Drawing on Ingold (2007) and Mermoz (1998 on), the practice will engage beyond the ‘surface’ of the page, at the ‘level of the text’. The evaluation and development of the design practice will be underpinned by Schön’s notion of the reflective practitioner.
This new synthesis of theory and practice from both graphic design and cultural geography, resulting in the development of the geo/graphic design process, positions the representation of space not as a by-product of science, but as a process itself.
Key words
Graphic design, typography, cultural geography, sense of place, ethnography, cultural probes, reflective practitioner, geo/graphic design process.
Clearly this will refine and develop further...
This cross-disciplinary, practice-led research centres on the geographic visualisation of urban space and the possibilities print based graphic design and typography could bring to that process. Perkins (2006:np) notes that currently geographers are ‘very good at deconstruction, not so good at construction’, as they fear print defines place in a ‘fixed’, one-dimensional manner. This research asserts that print offers the potential to produce artefacts that offer the reader an interactive, multi-linear and ‘peopled’ experience of place that goes beyond the flat, geometric space of the map. In the context of this research, place is defined and explored using Massey’s (1994, 2005) idea of place as process, and Tuan’s (1977) contrasting notion of place as pause.
A qualitative, naturalistic and reflective methodological approach will be taken, drawing on both social science methods and design practice—an approach that could be described as that of the bricoleur (Denzin and Lincoln (1994:2). This will form the framework for the development of a ‘geo/graphic’ design process. Ethnographic research methods of participant observation and cultural probes will generate content from the London Borough of Hackney—chosen as a testing ground due to its complexity and contrasting juxtapositions. These findings will be used as both content and inspiration with regard to design projects that will test and further develop the geo/graphic design process. Drawing on Ingold (2007) and Mermoz (1998 on), the practice will engage beyond the ‘surface’ of the page, at the ‘level of the text’. The evaluation and development of the design practice will be underpinned by Schön’s notion of the reflective practitioner.
This new synthesis of theory and practice from both graphic design and cultural geography, resulting in the development of the geo/graphic design process, positions the representation of space not as a by-product of science, but as a process itself.
Key words
Graphic design, typography, cultural geography, sense of place, ethnography, cultural probes, reflective practitioner, geo/graphic design process.
Clearly this will refine and develop further...
Sunday 2 August 2009
New Basford—A visual typographic terrain, 2006
Undertaken in conjunction with Joseph McCullagh, this research project, and associated paper, explored place via the design and use of a contextual font developed from the graffiti research undertaken in New Basford as part of the previous Mapping Meaning work.
This work investigates typography specifically through the creation of the ‘New Basford’ font family as a way of extending our understanding of text/writing in the urban landscape. It allows the reader/user to interact with the specific location and the typo/graphic data via the language of typography. We have developed a ‘typographic experience’ that will tell both sides of the story—allowing the reader/user to travel ‘within’ the space through their screen, offering a voice to the silent spaces of the territory and yielding new associations. We are inviting the reader/user to utilise the given narratives, but in doing so creating new narratives—retelling stories and reading between the lines. The work offers a further reading of the graffiti writers through typographic intervention, referencing typographic and literary traditions such as concrete poetry and automatic writing, and engaging with some of the most contentious debates on the subject of typography.
To begin to create the typographic terrain of New Basford, the reader/user is presented with two elements: a book and a font family. The book content is traditionally set in justified ITC New Baskerville for continuous reading. It contains the first layer of diverse material sourced from many genres and media comprising of narratives, anecdotes, oral histories, and factual information drawn from newspapers, websites, and books.
The New Basford font family allows you to de-construct the text to form further readings. It engages you to open up a dialogue with the physical space of New Basford in typographic terms. The interaction takes place through the utilisation of the font weights within the New Basford family. One is asked to re-set the original book text using a particular weight, or combination of weights.
The font begins to reveal traces of an alternative narrative, left by the graffiti writers of the area. We explore the terrain virtually, with the font giving access to place. The blank screen becomes a street; the letter becomes a door. Like the street graffiti there is no official system or order that we comprehend, therefore leading us to fragmented words on the screen. The contextual font is pre-text ready, to be cut-up in the manner of Tristan Tzara, all within a low-fi technological approach.
The project was disseminated at two conferences; the Friends of St Bride Annual Conference 2006—Fast Type, Slow Type—and the Writing Landscape symposium organised by Exeter University in 2007. This paper is available here. The above photographs are from the Fast Type, Slow Type conference.
This work investigates typography specifically through the creation of the ‘New Basford’ font family as a way of extending our understanding of text/writing in the urban landscape. It allows the reader/user to interact with the specific location and the typo/graphic data via the language of typography. We have developed a ‘typographic experience’ that will tell both sides of the story—allowing the reader/user to travel ‘within’ the space through their screen, offering a voice to the silent spaces of the territory and yielding new associations. We are inviting the reader/user to utilise the given narratives, but in doing so creating new narratives—retelling stories and reading between the lines. The work offers a further reading of the graffiti writers through typographic intervention, referencing typographic and literary traditions such as concrete poetry and automatic writing, and engaging with some of the most contentious debates on the subject of typography.
To begin to create the typographic terrain of New Basford, the reader/user is presented with two elements: a book and a font family. The book content is traditionally set in justified ITC New Baskerville for continuous reading. It contains the first layer of diverse material sourced from many genres and media comprising of narratives, anecdotes, oral histories, and factual information drawn from newspapers, websites, and books.
The New Basford font family allows you to de-construct the text to form further readings. It engages you to open up a dialogue with the physical space of New Basford in typographic terms. The interaction takes place through the utilisation of the font weights within the New Basford family. One is asked to re-set the original book text using a particular weight, or combination of weights.
The font begins to reveal traces of an alternative narrative, left by the graffiti writers of the area. We explore the terrain virtually, with the font giving access to place. The blank screen becomes a street; the letter becomes a door. Like the street graffiti there is no official system or order that we comprehend, therefore leading us to fragmented words on the screen. The contextual font is pre-text ready, to be cut-up in the manner of Tristan Tzara, all within a low-fi technological approach.
The project was disseminated at two conferences; the Friends of St Bride Annual Conference 2006—Fast Type, Slow Type—and the Writing Landscape symposium organised by Exeter University in 2007. This paper is available here. The above photographs are from the Fast Type, Slow Type conference.
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