MA GCD _ Stella

Author: Zhuochen Gong

Categories
Unit 01

01 Method of Investigating Process log Week 2

Categories
Unit 01

01 Methods of Investigating Process Log

01 Methods of Investigating
“Learning from London” – Investigation of a selected Site

JOURNEY OF THE PROJECT

About the Site
  • Location: Earth – Europe – United Kingdom – London – N1C – Camley Street – the living room in my flat
  • What: a room stuffed with suitcases and boxes
  • Why: this makes me think about space and humans, the living space, storage space, why people needed space (Initially), is this spacing reflects certain groups or communities, etc. The site also reflects on emotional value and the impermanent way of living.
  • How: Writing & Observing, Notetaking, Mapping/Diagramming, Photographing
  • Who: Myself, the overseas students community, people who migrated away from their original location, people who do not have a fixed place to stay.
Week 01 Documentation with different Methods

01 Writing

The writings made when observing in the living room

Inspired by ‘Species of Spaces’ by Georges Perec from the reading list, I was quite interested in his way of writing, the writing feels descriptive and the details and thoughts are slowly built up. (His chapters where demonstrated the obsevation from tiny spaces to broad environment was quite inspiring, especially from “The Street” to “The Neiborhood”.)

Following Perec’s method of writing and observing as writing a letter which he mentioned in one of the chapters, I selected writing as my first method of investigation, observing the basic constructions of this chaotic site, including the number of objects and what are the objects (as well as the categories) in the site, I was also trying to give the objects and site an emotional value.

02 PHOTOGRAPHING

Photo of the Living Room
Photography Documentation of the Site in One Sunny Day

I took a panorama photo of the site, through the process I developed the photograph with the idea to extend the site, therefore I took more flattened shots with Instant films and played around with the arrangements.

03 MAPPING

I started with categrising what is in that site
Then I started to relocate the tabs, following by the order of what could be throw away and what could not
The result turns out that most of the things (almost everything) I could not throw them away

Related to method 01 (writing), I investigated more into the emotional value that the site and the objects carry, the method I used was to categorise the boxes, first categorised them into 5 different functions, then categorised the functions into different extends (what could I throw away and what could not).

The result end up that most of the items could not being throw away, I felt there were not much room for further development and no visual were produced through the method, therefore I give up on keep categorising.

04 COLLECTING

Things were Collected from 6 of the boxes.
Boxes are marked as Bedroom 01, Kitchen Mix, Living room corner, Kitchen, Tools, Other

Based on method 03 (Categorising), I collected random objects from the boxes stuffed in my site and this action led to collecting and analyse in further development.

05 NOTETAKING

Inspiration from the site

This method worked as a brainstorm, I documented my thoughts about the site and possible topics for development. The ideas were mostly about emotional attachment with objects and way of living as a migrant. These has became inspiration for my second week development.

FEEDBACK + Improvement

  • Work with the silhouette
  • More systematic way
  • More visual
  • Typeface/text could be a point to develop into
Week 02 Further development
The texts and labels in the site is the proof of my personal migration.

For the second week development I began with collect the texts and different typefaces in the site, it is quite interesting that the text almost documented the trace of migration (especially texts on moving boxes, written labels and flight tickets.)

The different typefaces were being collected and labeled with where they were found.

Based on the previous development the typeface were further being developed into an alphabet, the idea is to have a “Migration Font” that shows different changes and objects in one’s journey of moving.

REFERENCE AND RESEARCH

Agnes Varda, The Gleaners and I

  • documentation of stories and experiences
  • People have different (unexpectable) purposes
  • “Modern” gleaners
  • Reduce and Reuse
  • The Meaning of “Gleanings” Today
  • Rules & Laws
  • Things: Food waste, field/farm, furniture

Georges Perec, Spaces and Other Places

What Perec’s writing felt for me – visualisation
  • Descriptive, describe
  • State fact
  • Detailed
  • Public space with a personal sense
  • Notetaking about the environment, people – could write as pretending to write a letter

Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites

http://www.thetoasterproject.org/page2.htm

The Toaster Project record the process of making a £3.99 worth of toaster beginning with raw materials.

  • thought-provoking commentary on consumerism, sustainability, and our relationship with the objects we often take for granted
  • Documentation
  • Video and Book

 Let’s be honest, the weather helped

  • Investigation through bullets, colours, marks
  • Collecting and digging from things collected

Related Resources

The Poetics of Space

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://whslibraryblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gaston-bachelard-the-poetics-of-space.pdf

P183 

  • explores the emotional and psychological attachments people have to different spaces, from childhood homes to intimate nooks. Bachelard delves into the concept of “top analysis” and how spaces influence our memories and dreams.

Development

Further investigation may be through:

  • writing – about human (emotional) attachment to space relating to the sense of belongings/home/memory
  • photographing – as a method of documentation
  • visualising and diagramming
  • Relating to Migrant Birds