End of Year Show Wrap-Up

So the semester is over and the show has just wrapped up. Take a look below at images from the opening of the Year End Show and a little explanation about the exhibit:

The intention of the exhibit was to provide a glimpse at my thought process and to illustrate literally the connections I’ve made across the research conducted during the course of this past semester. As one can imagine, visually representing pages and pages of written notes and blog posts in an interesting way was a little bit of a challenge. Conveying the interactive nature of the blog as an outlet and forum for the topic of the Architecture of Fear could have also been problematic. As a response to both challenges the exhibit consisted of two layers.

The first layer illustrated information specific to the blog. In previous work I had come across a beautiful and informative world map put together by a crisis management company which showed levels of threat caused by terror and the groups which could be responsible. This image became the basis for plotting the locations of blog hits over the duration of the study which were surprisingly diverse (in as much as it can be expected being a blog in the English language). The overlapping of this info could also correlate the interest in the site with high risk areas. This could be true however strictly on the basis that developed nations (ie with reliable access to the internet) are for the most part the highest targets of potential terror attacks.

The second layer contained all the writing completed for the blog postings and the notes which preceded them. The goal was to make the summary of the reading (the notes) available to view and then the corresponding blog post. The connections between the notes were then literally connected visually with twine. One color (light green) was given for internal connections (between the notes and the corresponding post) another color (dark green) was given for external connections (ideas and concepts found in multiple posts). A third color (orange) was assigned for the viewers to make their own connections as they saw fit since they were provided the information to make their own decisions. This aspect of the exhibit was less successful and admittedly wasn’t anticipated as being the most popular (dozens of pages of tiny text still doesn’t lend itself to quick digestion by a full house of gallery patrons). Finally as a last ditch effort to draw in participants, pins were provided for them to locate their hometowns and places of origin to chart the crowd which viewed it. This was a little more widely used. Anyway as an exercise it proved valuable on my end since putting it together allowed me to see all of the work I’ve done as a connected body and not just as individual thoughts. I hope to get more on these connections and the digestion of the viewer input up in the near future.

Thanks to all those who attended and participated and to the school for providing me the space.

Exhibition

Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is having a Year End Exhibition of which this Independent Study will be a part of. Check back in the next week for images of the event or if you are in the neighborhood please feel free to come see for yourself. Details for the event:

GSAPP End of Year Exhibition
Opening Saturday May 12th 6pm - 8pm
Avery Hall, Columbia Univerisity
116th St and Broadway
New York City

The Architecture of Fear will feature an interactive exhibit and will be located in Avery Hall on the 4th Floor.

The exhibition will continue until the 25th of May.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to the Blog.

Here's a brief idea of what this is all about:

The post 9/11 condition in America has added a frightening realism, even if only subconsciously, to an everyday fear for safety and fear against attack. It is this condition that has been perpetuated by continued foreign policy and other international incidents.

The addition of current technology which has created instantaneous communication, not just to the privileged but to a mass market, also complicates and makes this condition different than previous historical precedents (i.e. the cold war).

What are the current architectural implications of a fearful society combined with instantaneous communication and connectivity? How does the architecture of survival and fear manifest itself in the context we find ourselves in now? How might lessons learned from this study be applied in a positive real world application?

Over the course of the Spring 2007 semester I will be posting responses to readings and I with any luck I will begin to construct my own theories and connections between them. I welcome your insight and criticism.