Post transit: memorizing noisy streets

Its been a while! And the memorizing act on Buenos Aires features is more real than ever. This is the next photo-sketch of the “Atmospheres captured and bottled” project. It became really intense i colors and detailing. The streets of the neighbourhood Palermo are quite equal in their representation. Thinking of the distinct urban organization by square blocks, streets punctured by old trees and of course cars everywhere.  But the facades and the shuttered windows sometimes reveal incredible insights. Hidden green gardens and amazing dwellings covered by the enclosed facades and property walls. These places contradict the noisy streets and remain hidden quiet places of the city.

Las calles de Palermo – Maria Riddervold©2010

Atmospheres captured and bottled!

Atmospheric mapping: Buenos Aires

This is a couple of early sketches from an ongoing project. The idea was to document different places of Buenos Aires city without revealing the places distinct characterisations. Only showing a certain feeling to the place, the mixture of solids and transparent coloured by light, weather, and people. I visited more and less known places of Buenos Aires and made some series of photos. I didn’t know what my idea would result, but gave myself two rules:

#1: No detailed revealing of the actual place or object

#2: No black & white photos (this is a tough one..)

This is a first selection. Multi-exposure: The illustrations each hold 25 layered photos. Atmospheric memorizing of the Proa Foundation exhibition centre in La Boca and the Japanese Garden of Buenos Aires.

Fundación Proa – Maria Riddervold©2010

Jardin Japonés on a rainy day – Maria Riddervold©2010

Paper roll storage

In an earlier post, Restoring creativity, I referred to the blog post, ‘Overcoming creative block’, where artists and creators shared their tips on how to improve creativity. Several tips were about storing inspiration for later use. It is about making the ‘library’, personalize it and keep whatever that trigger creativeness. It might be hard to pinpoint the value of the inspiration at the current moment. But later on, while searching for something new, things suddenly ‘click’ and old projects and stored inspiration initiate new ideas.

Today I opened a box I’ve stored away for six years. I knew it contained drawings and sketches from earlier work, but I didn’t recall the details. The feeling of sitting on the floor digging through old paper rolls create a sense of appreciation that opening a forgotten folder on the computer will not match up.

‘What architects actually do’

What is it that ‘architects actually do’ and do theorists and practitioners share a common ground? Edwin Gardner and Action! ( Archis blog) look closer to the relationship between practice and theory and ‘status quo’ of the architectural practice in the post “Architecture left to its own devices”.

“..There are so many very specific processes in architectural practice, and the hands-on experience in the studio is of the utmost importance. Especially now, when legitimation through grand narratives has evap orated, there is room to reconstitute confidence in practice by drafting a theory which is instrumental in obtaining a deeper understanding of practice, one that can provide architects with insight in their actions. When architects start building a deeper understanding of what it is that they’re doing, they can progress the architectural process, and with it architectural thinking. It could provide a solid ground from which architecture would engage and collaborate with other fields and disciplines more confidently, without becoming pseudo-professionals of those disciplines…” (more at Action!)

Winterland

I’ve  exchanged the warm summer nights of Buenos Aires with crispy cold Norwegian weather. The beat is slower and the sound of silence is comfortable. This is a photo from the icy garden. Hopefully back with more stuff soon…

Cuba Gallery

The photos are by Andrew, a New Zealand based photographer and designer. He specialize in Adobe Lightroom techniques and runs the Cuba Gallery, an online gallery where he shows how the work is created and other inspiring stuff for Lightroom enthusiasts. His flickr profile is also worth a visite.

Gallery: www.cubagallery.co.nz

Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/cubagallery

Restoring creativity

The creative process can sometimes feel like a lonely and narrow road and be more of a drag than a pleasure. How do we restore missing creativity and how do we keep the good ideas flowing? I’m looking for a creative kick myself these days and stumbled across a fascinating post by Alex Cornell, one of the authors on the ISO5o blog. He invited 25 artists and creators to share their ideas on how to overcome creative blocks. The result is a list of cool tips on how to nurture your creativity. My favourite; the one of Christopher Simmons from MINE.

 

Go and have a look!

 

Atmospheric transformation by a click

I found this lamp tree in a hidden backyard on a Greece Island.  I took the photo (to the left) with my cell phone and the bad resolution perfectly captured how I remember the place. The lamps were the only light, creating this mysterious but inviting atmosphere. The conversion into black & white came out a bit different than I thought. Making the atmosphere chilly as a scene of an old horror movie.

Treelamp by Marblemagpie

The beauty of Uncertainty and the act upon a ‘hunch’!

I am thinking a lot about the creative processes these days. It’s a kind of attempt to understand my own work as an architect. The process is about following the unknown path and act upon the hunch of something and keep the production going even though the outcome is not certain. KT Tunstall has a song called “The Beauty of Uncertainty”  that I really like, especially for the poetic explanation of uncertainty as something potentially good.

Uncertainty, as a description of the unknown, can result in multiple outcome. Normally we try to predict the uncertain aspects of a case, as a management of risks in order to push the outcome into a more desired direction. In creative processes uncertainty stands for a more adventurous and curious approach in the exploration of something new. The uncertainty is a vital force in the non-linear process of creating and the compass, or the ‘hunch’ factor, is a kind of awareness that will mark the direction.  

The non-linear process

Nothing is perfect: Imperfection as a quality

In an earlier post, In-between spaces: Non-places and cool places, I mentioned an appreciation for incompleteness as a spatial quality due to the lack of planned purpose.  I am in a process of defining incompleteness more thoroughly and explore its capacity within creative processes. I noted different terms that have an opposite or a similar meaning, for example complete which describes a state of not requiring anything to be added. The term imperfect also has a similar meaning to incomplete. Both terms contain a negative sense, but I was searching for positive uses of the terms.  

In Japanese aesthetic thinking there is an old tradition called Wabi-sabi, that celebrates the simplicity of things by the realities that “nothing last, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect”. This aesthetic world view is discussing the nature of beauty and how ‘imperfection’ is a higher quality. The word Wabi refer to natural limitations of things, but also unpredictable aspects in creating processes that gives each thing its uniqueness. Sabi can be interpreted to the rusting and limited lasting of things. The flaws represent the beauty and the imperfect quality. Wabi-sabi is a way to observe and understand the natural processes of things, and appreciate emotions of melancholy and contemplation that imperfect things or places can awake. It is a well-used term describing a wide range of aspects from Japanese pottery to interior trends, but I caught an interest in the positive viewing of a somewhat negative word. 

In creative processes imperfect and incomplete can be linked to failures. These failures are not necessarily negative, but has to do with the amount of attempts you have to overcome in order to reach a planned goal. But “failures” are also positive products that might serve other purposes. These imperfect “leftovers” can be triggers to creativity. The imperfect result raises new questions, allow the discussion to continue and in the end make sure to evolving of things and places. 

See also: Serendipity