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Arts in the Alps

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The value of exploring the wider context of your research.

In 2017, I took part in Arts in the Alps, a week long doctoral research school organised by the Maison de la création at the Université Grenoble Alpes. The call for participation caught my attention because it related to my research interests while at the same time provided me with an opportunity to expand my practice and research network.

My research and the topic of ongoing doctoral research centres on sensing and emotions in relation to wellbeing. This is informed by previous work, notably a project called Sensing the Urban Interior published in 2014. Following the principle of ‘spatial inversion’[1], whereby spaces between buildings habitually referred to as exteriors become interiors, I carried out a sensorial documentation of an urban interior, the More London Estate, a contemporary riverside business development in London. The location sits at the boundaries between inside and outside, private and public, enclosed and open space. This distinctive position and promise of interiority made it an ideal site of enquiry. The objective of the research was to uncover connections between the way we feel and our sense of belonging. This was achieved by documenting how the urban interior resonated with the senses to provide a framework for reflection as well as an incentive towards sensory transformations.

We use our senses to understand our environment, a form of data collection and processing that enables us to make sense of the world around us and, to find out why we feel the way we do about places and people within them, I develop sensory methods that enable me to document how we gather and process this data. My doctoral work relates phenomenology and ecology. Although the doctoral research is highly focussed I also believe that it is important to explore the wider context of the topic. For instance, as part of the Green Sky Thinking week of events, I recently attended a talk and demonstration by Atkins on digital technologies for urban environments and in June I am presenting the Sensory Flow, a documentation tool I developed in the Sensing the Urban Interior project, at a seminar on multi-sensory design organised by CIBSE Intelligent Buildings Group.

Prior to the start of my doctoral research, I also worked on a project called ‘Residual Ambiances – An Illustration of Urban Heritage as a Sentient Experience’. Our urban heritage incorporates many instances of abandoned buildings awaiting rescue, where residual fragments of past occupancies provide a stage for an immersive journey into the ambiance of the interior across past and present thresholds. Accordingly, this project illustrated a unique perceptual encounter between the abandoned interior of Poplar Baths in London and myself. Subsequently, I synthesised the emotion and intimacy of the sentient experience into a scenographic narrative and short performance. The interest of the project lied in its ability to articulate how sentient experiences activate a deep empathetic connection between body and space in the context of urban heritage. Following the completion of the project, I wrote a paper about it, which I presented at the 3rd International Congress on Ambiances in Volos, Greece, in September 2016. While there, I also took part in another activity called Volos Transects, a sensory mapping of the city.

Watch the film of the scenographic narrative and performance: https://vimeo.com/161299058

So, when the call for the Arts in the Alps research school came through, I saw this as an opportunity to further explore the wider context of my research, share knowledge and practices, participate, contribute and experiment within and international network of researchers and artists.

Below is the information sent by the Arts in the Alps organisers to call for participants:

The Arts in the Alps Spring School is bringing together a community of leading researchers, artists and PhD candidates from the fields of architecture, dance, geography, fine arts, performance, sound art and linguistics to explore, collaborate and experiment new practices of interdisciplinary and practice-based site-specific research entitled:

“Gestures of here & there: la fabrique sensible des lieux”.

During the week participants had the opportunity to experiment, discuss and share interartistic and interdisciplinary practices of site specific research. Specifically, centered on the question of the memory of a place, this research intensive week aimed at investigating the site of the Bouchayer-Viallet which has many historical layers: industrial, eco-cultural and artistic. This site held a strategic position in the hydroelectric sector in the early 1900s and is now reconverted as a development zone by the city of Grenoble. A nearly 3000m2 steel and glass factory building is now the home of Magasin les Horizons, a Center for Arts and Cultures which is where the school was based.

Throughout the five-day intensive doctoral school, participants had the opportunity to attend a series of workshops, seminars and events facilitated by an international group of researchers and artists. The mornings were dedicated to collective activities workshops, readings and seminars while the afternoon sessions focused on practice-based art and research platforms with smaller groups. Participants were encouraged to experiment with sensory based research practices and to re-enact the collective and individual gestures which wove and continue to weave the multi-faceted identities of this historical site.

Guest faculty

Guillonne Balaguer (France) / Martial Chazallon (France) / Daria Lippi (Italy-France) /

Erin Manning (Concordia University, Canada) / Brian Massumi (Université de Montréal, Canada) / Helen Paris (Curious UK and Stanford University, USA) / Rebecca Schneider (Brown University, USA) / Anne Volvey (Université d’Artois, France)

Organizing committee: Gretchen Schiller (Maison de la Création & UMR LITT&ARTS, UGA), Nataliya Grulois et Anne-Claire Cauhapé (Maison de la Création, UGA), Claudine Moïse (LIDILEM, UGA), Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary (PACTE, UGA), Anne Dalmasso (LARHRA, UGA) Martin Givors (doctorant LITT&ARTS, UGA); Rachel Thomas (CRESSON, UMR 1563 AAU, ENSAG), Inge Linder-Gaillard (ÉSAD, École Supérieure d’Art et Design •Grenoble •Valence), Béatrice Josse et Camille Planeix ( Magasin des Horizons, Centre d’arts et de cultures), Marie Roche (Centre de développement chorégraphique Le Pacifique), Rachid Ouramdane et Erell Melscoet (CCN2, Centre chorégraphique national), Matthieu Warin (Maison des habitants de Bouchayer-Viallet).

This was a complete departure from my usual ways of working. I tend to work alone when carrying out research or with participants. In the doctoral school, we worked in groups of 8 participants and there were 4 groups across the school in total, with 2 workshop leaders in each group. We also had a couple of people who worked in the school who came in and out of the sessions. People came from all over the world. In our group: UK, Canada, Belgium, Turkey, Australia, France, Spain who were artists, performers, academics, architects, philosophers.

Each day started with a somatic practice organised by Germana Civera. Amazing! A most emotionally invigorating activity. Every day for 5 days, a great way to start the day. Then we would take part in thematic workshops and there were also two seminars with  Erin Maning and philosopher Brian Massumi. The day would end with a conference. We started the day at 9am and finished at 8:30pm. Everyone would then meet for dinner into a restaurant booked by our organisers, a different place each day. We ended the week in a beautiful guest house in the woods outside Grenoble for a celebration and final goodbyes.


The theme for my group was Mapping Lost Gestures and the workshops were run by Gretchen Schiller and Helen Paris, both a pleasure to work with. They made everyone feel welcome and very soon, it became clear that we had excellent group dynamics where everyone was happy to participate, and no one was making judgements on others. In the thematic workshops, we were required to mostly express ourselves through bodily gestures. It felt very awkward for me at first because I didn’t know what I was doing but I soon learnt from observing others more familiar with performance and by day two, I became more attuned to bodily gestures, and by day three it felt like a completely natural way of communicating. All the activities we took part in in the first 4 days were designed to help us prepare a 40 minutes performance to present to the other groups and tutors on the last day. The group worked incredibly well and we were all able to make a contribution and enjoy ourselves in the process.

Detailed information about the activities with photographs and videos

This week -long research school was the most uplifting research event I have been to. People connected in a very positive way. There was a degree of freedom and an ability for us to take some ownership of what we did which means that we achieved a lot and it was also a pleasure to do it. The organisers recently sent us the link to a website where they posted filmed interviews of the people talking about the activities they organised. Watching the films brought back very fond memories. Although I haven’t had the opportunity to apply performance to my research since I started by doctorate, my work is about embodied experiences, including bodily movement and gestures, so there may be opportunities in the future to integrate performance led experimental interventions into my practice.

[1] Attiwill, S. (2011). Urban and Interior: techniques for an urban interiorist. In R. U. Hinkel, (Ed.), Urban Interior – informal explorations, interventions and occupations (pp. 12-24). School of Architecture and Desing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Baunach: Spurbuchverlag.

Mémoires d’espaces

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Juhani Pallasmaa – Retinal Architecture and the Loss of Plasticity

‘The architecture of our time is turning into the retinal art of the eye. Architecture at large has become an art of the printed image fixed by the hurried eye of the camera. The gaze itself tends to flatten into a picture and lose its plasticity; instead of experiencing our being in the world, we behold it from outside as spectators of images projected on the surface of the retina.’

Memoires-d'espaces

Unprecedented access to technologies of the visual enables us to capture and reference our environment with exceptional ease. We have become accustomed, even conditioned, to quickly record our surroundings and transform them into ephemeral moments of appropriation. It seems that we require tangible proof of our lives so as not to forget a single moment, a single encounter.

The cult of the image is also actively promoted by the carefully constructed ideals of glossy magazines and coffee table books celebrating architecture and architects. This gives us instant access to archives and desires but what are we losing or gaining in the process? Does the prominent role of the image in Western culture today affect our cultural identity?

The development of cultural identity happens over time as a historical set of recollected moments that shape our knowledge, thoughts and behaviour. So memories and the ability to remember are an essential part of not only our past, but also our present and future. As our understanding of architecture becomes increasingly conditioned by the way it is photographed, flat images become abstractions of buildings and we are presented with a series of fragmented views of externalised and idealised versions of our environment. Memory however is dynamic, not a simple storage device. It consists of mental images gathered through experiences. Environments are all encompassing multi-sensorial entities and immersion triggers what Marcel Proust calls ‘involuntary memories’(1), experienced through being, knowledge, matter, identity, time and space.

So the gaze loses its ability to form itself into the environment when, superseded by the eye of the camera, it cannot construct the relationships characterised by the multiplicity of meanings we encounter as we move through our surroundings. When the gaze is confined to flat restricted viewpoints, it cannot be interactive or participatory, nor can it facilitate, in the words of Jean Piaget ‘a gradual construction of meanings essential to our perceptions of our environment’(2). Positioning ourselves behind a camera creates a warped relationship between the body and its surroundings, a loss of direct connection and engagement. We look but we don’t see, we see but we don’t feel. Time accelerates and we are compelled to move quickly to the next subject, emulating what Fredric Jameson calls ‘the frantic economic urgency’(3). So, when experience is reduced to the unfulfilled encounter of the image and impoverished two-dimensional environments, the supremacy of the visual over other sensorial modalities means we are in danger of losing the knowledge that we need to inform awareness. Maurice Merleau-Ponty even suggests we become ‘programmed machines, removed from the open and active form of the sensing body’(4) and therefore it seems that in our postmodernist culture, awareness follows depiction.

The resulting fragmentation of our perceptions leads to both the dispersal and reconfiguration of collective memories resulting in subjective experiences defined by the media, where desires, manufactured with the help of semiotic advertising psychology, replace reality. Bernard Stiegler takes this point even further and expresses his concern about the communality produced by the similarity of images available in the media. He remarks that we ‘come to share an increasingly uniform memory. For example, those who watch the same television news channel every day at the same time become, in effect, the same person.’(5) Transposed into architectural images, this implies that those who repetitively view the same photographs of any given environment, are likely to develop the same perceptions of that environment.

Take Peter Zumthor’s celebrated Thermal Bath Vals in Garubunden, Switzerland. It is entirely designed through careful manipulation of sensory modes. Local materials are used for their relationship with the site and tactile qualities, room plans are labelled by temperature notation and slivers of light and dripping water are introduced to enhance atmospheric conditions. The character of its interior emanates from the considerations of its components as active participants to promote the feeling of wellness and serenity essential to the context of the environment. However most of us only know this building because we have seen carefully executed and selected images, not because we have been there and experienced it for ourselves. Yet many will profess the characteristics of the Thermal Baths with genuine enthusiasm. Although to a certain extent, memories, knowledge and imagination allow us to decode what we see and transpose it to stimulate other senses, we are nonetheless reduced to spectators in the construction of cultural ideals. Our architectural and spatial consciousness and by default our related memories, are defined by images more than by direct experiences. In the words of Susan Sontag ‘photography makes us feel that the world is more available than it really is’(6)

So the commodification of culture, imposed on us by the architecture of the visual and the drive to create striking and desirable images, favours the representation of form over real human enjoyment, and authentic pleasure is removed when architecture is staged to fulfil lifestyle consumer desires. Architecture becomes flat and lifeless, debased by its assimilation into consumer images, removed from human experience. The loss of plasticity, the lack of direct engagement with our environment and the proliferation of superficial encounters bring about an idealised, distorted and subjective view of reality whereby meaning becomes referential to the image rather than deferential to the multiplicity and complexity of the human condition. In other words ‘reality has come to seem more and more what we are shown by the camera.’(7) However, as Yi-Fu Tuan points out ‘what begins as an undifferentiated space becomes a place as we get to know it better and endow it with value’(8) and ‘the more our sense of touch is restricted or neglected, whether social relationships or urban design, the more we diminish our possibilities for aesthetic enjoyment and our sense of connection with the material world.’(9) As a result our cultural identity seems diffused and even confused. Faced with a much more disappointing reality when our expectations are not met, we can become prone to anxiety due to an inability to form meaningful relationships with our environment.

Science fiction cinema and writers have also expressed their unease at the potential the image for manipulation. For example, Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner is based on the impossible task of its main character figuring out whether his memories are real or implanted and his only link with his real or imagined past are photographs. Phillip K. Dick’s protagonist in ‘We can remember it for you wholesale’ merges reality and fantasies by selecting both factual and false memories, which are then further woven into his identity with the addition of images in the form of films and postcards as proof of his voyage to Mars. The alteration of photographs is today common practice, but unless someone remembers, are we not in danger of altering our collective memories by re-visualising history?

So is there nothing to be gained from images of our environment? Pierre Nora speaks of ‘lieux de mémoire’ (spaces or realm of memory), connecting the driving force behind the image with ‘the rise of the visual narrative in contemporary culture’(10) . Despite its experiential limitations and the danger of distortion in our cultural identity and history, photography enables us to preserve an archived version of past architecture displaced by urban development that regularly obliterates many areas of our cities. It provides us with a unique means to construct our own personal architectural mementos and in effect, curate our memories of places we have been to. It also offers us an opportunity to re-discover our environment by framing its components in ways that remove the surrounding visual clutter. The act of reinterpretation helps us stop and reflect. Although the image does produce a two-dimensional encounter, it also makes the invisible visible by helping move our gaze beyond the foreground and adjusting our environment to reveal previously unnoticed vistas, elements and details.

We often take our environment for granted yet our daily interactions are complex and dynamic. We are confronted with social constructs, historical products, personal emotions, memories and imagination. So, while spaces are constantly evolving and re-made, it is our memory, the way we retain information, that really creates the mental space each of us possess of individual or shared experiences. I agree that we need to immerse ourselves in our environments to fully experience them, but I also believe there is a place in our culture for images that are not about revealing all, but surprise and offer constituents of moments fixed in time, yet always evolving because they are alive with personal sensorial connotations; they are windows onto past experiences, unlocking hidden meanings to create alternative memories beyond the original moment in space and time. At a personal level, photographs trigger not only visual but also sensorial and emotional recalls beyond the limitations of time, whereby captured moments become permanent ones that we can revisit at will and public spaces become private memories.

Valerie Mace

Notes
1. Farr I. Ed (2012) Memory. Documents of Contemporary Art MIT Press [p.33 Para 2]
2. Malnar M. J., Vodvarka F. (2004) Sensory Design University of Minesota Press [P49 Para 5 / P50 Para 1]
3. Jameson F. (1991) Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism Verso [P9 Para 3]
4. Malnar M. J., Vodvarka F. (2004) Sensory Design University of Minesota Press [P25 Para 1]
5. Farr I. Ed (2012) Memory. Documents of Contemporary Art MIT Press [p.17 Para 2]
6. Pallasmaa J. (2005) The Eyes of the Skin. Architecture and the Senses Wiley [P31 Para1]
7. Pallasmaa J. (2005) The Eyes of the Skin. Architecture and the Senses Wiley [P30 Para5]
8. Malnar M. J., Vodvarka F. (2004) Sensory Design University of Minesota Press [P129 Para1 ]
9. Classen C. ed (2005) The Book of Touch (Sensory Formations) Berg Publishers [P49 Para2 ]
10. Farr I. Ed (2012) Memory. Documents of Contemporary Art MIT Press [p.20 Para 3]

Bibliography

Classen C. ed (2005) The Book of Touch (Sensory Formations). Berg Publishers
Van Schaik L. (2008) Spatial Intelligence. New Futures for Architecture. John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Williams R. (1976) Keywords. A vocabulary of culture and society. Fontana Press
Sturken M., Cartwright L. (2001) Practices of looking. An introduction to visual culture. Oxford University Press

Hoboken S. A. (2009) Place advantage: applied psychology for interior architecture (N.J. : Wiley ; Chichester : John Wiley [distributor])

Malnar M. J., Vodvarka F. (2004) Sensory Design. University of Minesota Press

Jamesom F. (1991) Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Verso

Pallasmaa J. (2005) The Eyes of the Skin. Architecture and the Senses. Wiley

Cairns G. (2010) …deciphering Advertising, Art and Architecture. New Persuasion Techniques for Sophisticated Consumers Libri Publishing

Belsey C. (2002) A Very Short Introduction to Poststructuralism. Oxford University Press

Farr I. Ed (2012) Memory. Documents of Contemporary Art. MIT Press

Gibson J. J. (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Psychology Press

Borden I. (2012) Stimulating the senses in the public realm. a-n Publications [P1 Para8] <http://www.a-n.co.uk/publications/article/341492/341479> [accessed 3rd November 2012]

Anthony Gormley ‘Model’

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Perceptual system data recording

Anthony Gormley ‘Model’ White Cube Gallery, Bermondsey, London. 02/01/13

Study based on J. J. Gibson perceptual system and Joyce Malmar and Frank Vodvarka ‘Sensory Design’

Model-exterior Model-interior1 Model-interior2

Duration of the visit: 45 minutes in the main installation’s gallery space

Chart completed: after an initial familiarisation with the environment (2nd visit) √

Participation: Active √

Visual system: the rust coloured surfaces of the installation and soft grey and white of the gallery creates a contrast of warm against cool and intense against dull. The visible patterns and soldering joints on the sculpture hint at the construction method leaving a memory trace of when the installation was assembled. The scale of the oversize exterior matches that of the gallery that contains the work but contrasts sharply with the intimacy of the interior chambers. The changes of light levels from very bright on the outside to semi-darkness or complete darkness on the inside reinforce the sense of mystery and anticipation I felt when walking across the threshold of the installation. It’s not possible to get a complete view of the installation on the outside because of its size. It almost covers the entire length of the gallery, leaving only a narrow passage between the surface of the installation and the back wall of the gallery. As a result it is difficult to get a sense of the work as a whole and its depiction of the body. I had to concentrate to identify body parts. A superficial evaluation resulted in seeing only cubic containers assembled together in a seemingly random manner. However the narrow passage at the back creates a sense of anticipation and mystery about the other side which is only revealed upon crossing the passage and stepping back from the work. The same material used throughout forces me to focus on surfaces, form and void.

Auditory system: the light and dull tone of the sound vibrations in the very large room of the gallery contrast sharply with the deep, intense and loud tone experienced inside the installation. The contrast is especially strong on the threshold, when coming out of the echoic enclosed space feels almost soothing. Inside, variations in tone and intensity occur depending on the size and shape of the chamber, the smaller the space the deeper the sound, as well as on the material used in contact with the metal. Hitting the metal with a hard object such as the heels of my shoes creates vibrations that travel through the metal surfaces and resonate inside the structure. Voices also reverberate against the solid surfaces. It is therefore difficult to pin point the source of a sound with accuracy.

Taste-Smell system: neutral, similar to the rest of the gallery.

Basic-Orienting system: navigation occurs as a continuous run around the sculpture with only two openings and only one of them being an actual entrance. The entrance and the exit are the same so I had to walk back where I came from, forcing me to re-experience the event. Little is revealed about the circulation and the entrance remained hidden until I arrived almost directly in front of it. No information was given to help locate the entrance to the installation upon entering the gallery so I had to make a decision whether to go right or left. I chose right, which impacted on my experience of the event because I’d almost been around the entire model before I found the entrance while those who chose left found it sooner before they could see the other side. This means entering the sculpture with a clear mental picture of the outside (right) or only a limited one (left). Inside with no variations in materials, form, scale and light from openings are the main visual cue to aid orientation. A few symbols left from when the sheets of steel were in storage could provide visual cues akin to a basic form of signage although the installation is small enough to learn its layout fairly quickly.

Haptic system: the hard solid steel didn’t feel cold because it looked warm and because the temperature of the gallery was controlled to be neutral. It was fairly smooth with only a little texture. The metal felt heavier when I touched it than when I looked at it, possibly due to my own expectation about the material and also because the scale of the installation is broken down into smaller cubes. Next to the metal, the polished concrete floor appears softer than it actually is. Kinaesthesia: The spacious exterior allows for unconstrained movement. The interior is a continuous run of chambers of various scale and light levels. As a result I became hesitant, slightly disorientated and forced to slow down in places, even bend down where the height was reduced to a minimum.

Temperature & Humidity: neutral. Controlled independently by the gallery.

Time Perception: I didn’t think about time while exploring the sculpture. The focus is on discovery and navigation and because the mind is busy mapping he environment time seems to stand still.