Is this a narrative environment?
The 2nd year has started! and its time to get back to posting and stuff and keeping this blog alive. I’m hoping to use this as a platform to develop the ideas that will hopefully emerge throughout the year, as a record and diary but also as a store place for some of the material people and project I will find along the way.
So - the 2nd year beings with a question: WHAT IS A NARRATIVE ENVIRONMENT??
I’m hoping we will get a chance to develop a debate this important questions which really touches at the theoretical core of the course and the practice we are creating together. Judging by the first debate, which is led by our 2nd year Tutor and Narrative Environment honcho Stuart Jones I’m very optimistic. We have some very smart people on the course and it’s a great opportunity to get the collective intelligence to come alive.
So - to begin our disucssion Stuart produced the following artefact and posed the question.
Is this a narrative environment? >
“the sofa is the physical world where the physical Mr Dog and Rabbit hang out with their friends and relations and associated trains, cars, houses, floating chairs etc. Most of what happens is fairly mundane, including floating. The sofa is in fact the diegesis of a meta or framing narrative in which smaller narratives are acted out. Mr Dog and Rabbit have a parallel existence in ’story’ narratives, where they have a house in the suburbs and a group of friends, most of whom live near the Natural History Museum. This parallel world is further paralleled in Hairyland.”
Is a narrative environment simply a space where stories take place (like this sofa), or is a narrative environment a space/place that tells stories.
I would tend to go with the latter. The former would mean that any space that conatins the act of story telling can be included (cinemas, theatres).
Why can’t all advertisng be like this?
just too good.
An ethnographic look at Youtube
Michael Wesch professor of digital anthropology at Kansas State university presenting an amazingly comprehensive, optimstic and insightful look at the youtube community.
Perhaps the most interesting concept that emerges out of this is the idea of “context collapse” - Wesch coined this term when he examined with his students the experience of recording a first you tube “vlog”, and the difficulty this poses:
“an infinite number of contexts collapsing upon one another into that single moment of recording. The images, actions, and words captured by the lens at any moment can be transported to anywhere on the planet and preserved (the performer must assume) for all time. The little glass lens becomes the gateway to a blackhole sucking all of time and space – virtually all possible contexts – in upon itself.”
According to Wesch this experience of actively communicating with an unknown audience, a context less conversation creates a state of heightened self awareness and possibly space reflection (did I say optimistic?).
A very interesting concept that could be expanded to think about how we deal and cope with many of the situation we face (and will face) in our increasingly connected/public/private lives.
Its an hour long but well worth it:
thanks mom!
I’m proud to say we have won an award for “Future Diggers” our project for the London Festival of architecture.
The Fetsival’s judging panel decided that our project was the most successful out of this years entries in revealing a chosen site in London in a new and informing way. I’m very happy this project was received so well - thanks to my great team mates Helmut Feder, Georgina Chimarrides, Giulia Sala, and my mom without whom I will probably not be here to receive this award.
Future Diggers @ LFA 2008
Finally after more then 6 months of work, and about 150 changes to the initial concept “Future Diggers” has come to life.
Its been a fantastic weekend - and the responses were amazing. Much learned…and had lots of fun! Here’s the album and a detailed explanation of the process.