An Explanation (In Part)

This play, I Meant to Build A House, grew out of a collaboration between 2 architects and a playwright.

This play is a work – the first – of Studio TRIMTAB, a collective of artists who believe in working on projects that transcend disciplinary boundaries and that respond to Buckminster Fuller’s vision of social action:

“Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary—the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, call me Trim Tab.”

For our first project, we wanted to create a piece that explored this concept – the individual as a trim tab. (How better to start, than with a self-examination, right?) We wanted to create an experience that explored the facets of individuality, individual experience, memory, helplessness and agency, walls and threshold and doors. An experience that empowered the audience as participants, builders, creators, movers and shakers. A play by the audience for the audience – or as much as any curated experience can be.

A play at the micro-level.

We started out with this premise – that we wanted to create a microplay for a microstructure for a microaudience. All of these things were to be developed simultaneously and organically. We called the idea 4:2 (for two) because we wanted the play and the space to be perfect for two people to share an intensely personal moment.

A play for the individual.

We agreed that each individual’s experience of the play must be unique, a moment that will not be replicated or shared by anyone else, but that it needs to be a part of a collective engagement.

We agreed that the play must be reproducible, but that each iteration must be unique to its context, its space, it audience.

We agreed that there should be a single performer.

A space for the individual.

It must be16x32 or smaller. It must be built within a larger structure, designed specifically for that space, and intrinsically attached to that space.

The audience must move through it, one at a time.

It must have walls and thresholds, opacity and translucence, light and shadows.

It must be enjoyed from the inside and the outside, as a functional space and as an object of beauty. 

What a weekend

We had an extremely productive weekend!

Sam and his girlfriend Heili came in on Thursday evening of last week, staying with us until Monday morning for what was our best weekend yet. We also had surprise guests from Toledo with my brother Markus Beck and Meri Mullins sharing in the festivities.

On Friday of last week we hosted a sort of brainstorming, writing charrette to get some "narrative clarity" (as Owen puts it). We collected 50 random objects from around the house and from local thrift stores, building a collection of things ranging from an antique perfume bottle to an old baseball glove.

The idea behind the objects, and the narrative theme we are working with is the idea of "memories being tied to objects; the objects acting as relics of past experiences." 

At the event we hosted on Friday night, we displayed the 50 objects in our foyer, along with a piece of paper. Guests were asked to choose an object, pick up a piece of paper and writing utensil, and move in to the kitchen. 

Each piece of paper had a set of loose instructions:

"describe your object; your object is a memory; your object is the threshold of a story; describe your memory"

The guests responded to these directions in the kitchen and wrote approximately 5 sentences each about each object.

We curated the event by hanging a grid of strings, with clothespins attached at the end, from the ceilings of our kitchen and living room. The writings were held at about head-height in both rooms for people to read and discuss the various writings, which created an awesome atmosphere.

Saturday morning we read through and discussed the writings everyone had done. Moving forward, the various responses will serve as a starting point for Sam, the playwright, to respond to in creating the 50 scenes we will have for the production. 

Here is what we have established so far:

The narrative will focus around a singular actor/actress

The audience members will enter the theater space, and through a series of ritualistic stages, will be given an object, which they will carry with them through the space, finally exchanging the object for a 2 min, one-on-one interaction with the actor/actress within an intimate space that we are referring to as the "memory box." 

The different objects will each act as cues to their respective scenes, 50 objects/scenes in total. Each object will reference a different scene, keeping each audience member's experience unique to any others. 

The hope is that upon exiting the "experience," the audience members will mingle and share their experiences with one another, forming a loose narrative of the character's life

We were also able to take Sam into the warehouse space we will be using to host the event, and were able to make a ton of progress and now have a strong sense of the general layout of the space for the production.

We developed the floor plan of the spaces, taping it out in the warehouse last night.

The taping-out was really good, with the design/build process working for us, evolving and problem solving in the space in real time!

The rest of this week we will be acquiring wood and fabric materials for the construction, so that we are able to test and experiment with the actual materials in the actual space.

Here are some photos from Friday for your viewing pleasure!  Also if any of you out there in blog land have photos of the event, please email them to us!

Things I Need to Read/Research

I am currently rereading The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin because one of the ways I write is by creating a web of intersecting, contiguous or vaguely related research. Something along the lines of: 

"This play deals with mechanical reproduced objects! = The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction! = the play is created for reproduction! = the process of reproduction is Act 1 of the play! = Sol Lewitt Wall Drawings!"

During a similar train of thought I realized that if I were to do this project justice I would read/research the following:

1. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust (seven volumes)

2. Theatre for One

3. The Conventions of Cartography by David Hancock

I will let you know how that goes.

Scrap #1

Here is Scrap #1 of some of the exploratory writing I did at the beginning of the process: 

The front door opens onto a hallway, which leads to another hallway and another, which leads into another, slightly smaller hallway and another, each a fractal piece of the last. And the pattern continues with minor irregularities - elevators and stairwells - channeling into smaller and smaller spaces until finally all of it spills onto the parquet floor of my apartment.

And

The first days I’m there I get lost a lot.

The first years I’m there I get lost a lot.

I walk in the front door, which creeks like an old man sitting down slowly, and I look up into the hallway, up through the hallway towards the elevator doors – two for twenty floors

The floor is marble - black and white tiles - and just recently polished because I shift my foot to adjust the load of moving boxes balanced against my hip and my sneakers squeak against the step and I think the sound is going to echo up and down the cavernous hallway but instead it’s stifled, swallowed up by the space, instantly split apart into smaller and smaller bits until nothing remains.

The boxes are heavy and my arms hurt and my chest is tight because I already know that I have too many things too much junk to fit in my tiny studio and I’m going to have to throw something away.

My arms hurt and my chest is tight because I know already and I knew it before. I knew it when I signed the lease and I knew it when I was packing and I knew it when I was putting things in the car and I knew it when I was driving over and parking and unloading

But I couldn’t decide

I laid everything out like a guillotine queue shuffling towards the big industrial trash bags

But instead I packed everything into boxes and hoped that neglect and attrition would do the job I couldn’t.

Smiljan Radic_Casa Habitación

Casa Habitacion, designed by Smiljan Radic, a Chilean architect of Croatian descent, has served as good reference for our efforts. The small cabin is envisioned as a “storehouse of experience.” A wooden framework forms the structure of the space that is transparent to its surroundings. The elegance of the structure is apparent in its honesty and clarity. The pockets of spaces created are intended to be filled with the contents of the inhabitants, referred to as the textures of our lives, the bonds that are formed between experience and objects. In the cabin, objects are displayed, they form the space. The objects are relics of memories, a theme prevalent to our exploration of the narrative being written. 

Local vs absolute axiality

There are a lot of different ways to explore sequence, order and placement of spaces.  For this project we are going with local axiality,  this means that the spatial organization will be developed with each space’s orientation and focus derived from internal motivations rather than a external system.  This might not make a lot of sense.  So here is an example: Forbidden City china: everything is based on one super imposed axis and everything from there on out is derived from that.  vs the Acropolis Greece, the layouts of the buildings was based on approaches views and relationships to natural features an other structures.  That is more what we are after but ideas will be our driving site characteristics. 

Shameless boat bits

Ok here is some sexy boat hardware. Why? We were talking about the idea of the audience bringing in objects and Sam wrote up a couple test scenes.  Sebastian and I were struck by how much of it could be hung up or tied of to something so we did a little poking around and here are some of the nice things we found. 

Have your own nice tie of point detail?  Let us know.

Ise Grand Shrine

This one is a little harder to explain.  It is a Shinto shrine complex in Japan.  The wood detailing is beautiful, as you would expect. But that is not the real reason I am putting it up here.  Every 20 years the shrine is rebuilt as an exact replica on an identical adjacent site.  This is really interesting because not only doses it create a unbroken knowledge of the construction techniques of ancient Japan, but it also means that in some ways the building is one of the oldest buildings in the world.  I like the cyclic nature of it. And the idea that the apprentice in one rebuilding will be the master for the next.   I wonder is there some way that we can give the audience  that same experience of doing the same thing first as an apprentice and then as the master.

Any ideas?

Wall House_FAR Architects

The Wall House by FAR architects, out of Santiago, Chile, was one of our first reference projects we looked at in the initial stages of development. Both in materiality and spatial composition, the Wall House embodies a sense of transition and threshold through its vague boundaries and the ambiguity that is created in the translucent borders of fabric draped from the solid core of the house. 

Salle Des Departs

This one comes to us from radio lab.  I think if you are interested in space, and how it can effect at all it is worth checking this project out.  Rather than make a mess out of trying to explain it I recommend you just go to radio lab and listen to their amazingly well put together show.  It is worth your time.  I love the photo they chose for their page, but if your like me and would like to see the larger space is a image I scrounged up. also here is a video of stills with the sound.

"What is Up?" by de Pakkerij

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Einsteinon the Beach.

Sometimes you have to look at something and say:  Ok in the context of its time it was earth shattering, yes there is some impressive visuals, but at the end of the day it maybe a little over intellectualized.  Einstein on the beach was one of those times for me.  I am not saying I didn’t enjoy watching it sitting in a dark library room eating peanuts and slurping a huge coffee.  There was some really interesting incites in the interviews, but I think my takeaway was ok this is the polar opposite of what we want to do.  it was huge.  Technically complex.  Designed to dissociate the audience form the experience so that they felt completely apart. It was observed, not experience.  It was long.  It was expensive.  It was intended for a very specific audiences at a specific time.  Ok inverse all those, and I think you have a fair list of the goals we have in our project.

I would say it is worth a watch especially if you are interested in theater, the sets are incredible, again the choreography is impressive and the music by Philip Glass is by Phillip Glass so yah that sums that up.

[update] Apparently there is a new commentary on about the show haven't watched it but it yet but looks interesting 

Did I miss the point of “Einstein”?  let me know your thoughts. Thanks

Diller + Scofidio : A Delay in Glass

“A Delay in Glass” was a theater project initiated by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio in the late 1980’s. The project was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,” taking the approach of a tragicomedy in which the objective was the “irreconcilability of text and image.” The performance depicts 4 human elements, a bachelor, bride, witness, and juggler, interacting the 3 constructed elements, the field, apparatus, and mechanical bed. 

What interested us most was the way in which the characters were able to interact with the set. Abstract, yet incredibly functional and straightforward, the set was designed within the three terms of “glass, cut, and hinge,” each defining a characteristic that the set very successfully embodied and communicated. The term “glass” was described as “a slow liquid, continually molten, a reversible vantage and vanishing point.” The term “cut” was described as “a section cut through time, through the moment of desire.” The term “hinge” was described as “a generatx (a point, line, or plane that is moved in a specific way to produce a geometric figure), a form of spatial contradiction, a strategy of reprogramming.”

Physically, the set consisted of a field of performance, which was split in two parts by a thick white dotted line on the ground surface, creating front and rear spaces, relative to the audience. The apparatus consisted of a tall rectangular steel pipe frame, which provided the structure for its two essential parts, the concealing panel (an opaque plane of rubber) and the revealing panel (a mirror). The concealing panel functions on a swivel with its axis of rotation on the left column of the apparatus frame. Able to rotate at 180 degrees, the concealing plane would move from the outside of the frame to the performance space between the two columns of the apparatus, acting as a barrier between the front and the back spaces, a separation between the male and the female. The revealing plane, the mirror, was hung from the top of the apparatus frame at a 45 degree angle, so as to provide a projection of what the concealing plane was hiding. The mirror acts in a very interesting way, projecting an upright, elevation view of what actually exists as a plan. The abstraction that the mirror provides brings an incredible animation to the performance.

Moving forward we are extremely appreciative and inspired by the abstraction that Diller + Socifidio’s apparatus provides. The movement inherent to the apparatus exists as a very unique and critical part of the performance, an attribute we are pursuing for our space. The relation that exists between the apparatus and the narrative is also something that we are working to acquire. Our initial idea, “the space is nothing without the play, and the play is nothing without the space,” is a constant focus of our development and research.

Pina

One of the sources that our advisor recommended we chase down was the work of a German dancer / choreographer Pina Bausch.  Her work is incredible and really should speak for its self.  I highly recommend the film “Pina” a compilation of her works and interviews with her dancers.  Although completed after her death it is still an incredible film.  This is one of the only films I have ever enjoyed with the directors commentary on (for the second watch through) and yes it is defiantly    worth a second watch through.  So find a friend and your dance pants and enjoy this film.

Now as to what exactly this has to do with us that is a little less clear.  Well it is clear in some ways that are hard to describe in words.  I found that after the film I was talking with my hands a lot when trying to explain to Sebastian or Sam what I wanted, as if some wild gestures on my part partnered with a sentence fragment would articulate anything.  The amazing thing is they seemed to understand what I was going on about.  I think what I got from watching “Pina” was the incredible sense of the exponential power for dance/movement / choreography to tell a story conveys narrative, evoke meaning.

I have always loved dance, and have been frustrated by my inability to translate ideas of dance into architecture.  I think though after watching “Pina” it has changed my understanding of how space can “dance.”  A well-designed space it seems could be a choreographer, who leads an audience thought a dance physically and experimentally.  I am still playing with how explicit, suggested this relationship should be/can be.  But I think it is worth considering in the context of this project further.  The thing I want to avoid is creating just a backdrop or stage.

The last thought about this is that architectural drawing may not be 100% the right way to document this project… I am thinking that there is too much going on in time and 3D space for plans and sections to really capture it all.  I have started looking at dance notation and think there may be some sort of architectural dance notation that is either out there our could be adapted by merging musical/dance notation which caries through time but not space, with architectural notation which caries through space but not time… if any one has any ideas about this let me know thanks.

How It All Started: Sam’s Memories

For a long period in college I was an Urban Studies major and I tried to live and breathe it. I devoured urban theory like The Life and Death of Great American Cities, The Arcades Project, and The Image of the City, hoping the more I read that more I’d feel its vocational calling, but always with the creeping fear that I would relapse into drama and find myself free-basing some stilted Ibsen with the rest of the drama kids. And when that happened, I wasn’t really surprised because no matter how hard I had tried, I found theater insinuating itself into my Urban Studies talk; I kept using the word “performativity,” I analogized Jane Jacobs’ Lower East Side to “a ballet of the city,” and I fully intended on writing a thesis about theater organizations’ roll in attempts to revitalize hollow downtowns. In the end, I dropped Urban Studies for Theater and thought that would be the end of it, until I noticed how Urban Studies was inflecting my theater-talk; I kept imagining site-specific work, I continued to use the word “performativity,” and I wrote a whole play about the ethno-sociology of theme parks.

It was at this unresolved point that I graduated, and returned home to DC to an internship at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, a DC theatre that led the revitalization of Downtown DC’s Chinatown/Penn Quarter neighborhood. Owen was also home, working a co-op job at a large, corporate architecture firm and feeling like his work was missing a creative, radical, experimental outlet. Over the course of the spring/summer we realized how neatly our interests overlapped – a nice little Venn diagram of theater and architecture with spatial intervention, site-specific performance, and non-traditional approaches at the center. That’s when we envisioned a collaboration – designing a special space for a performance, and a special performance for a space. We spent a bunch of late nights working together. We talked, we drew, we listened to music, we drank coffee, we wrote and we recorded it all, even the stupid half-ideas we argued about at 2 AM. We focused on the idea of thresholds and intimacy. We wanted it to be low tech. My writing exercises focused on the idea of loss; of moving into a new place of passing on/over/through, actually and metaphorically; on place-making and ritual.

Then, Owen had to go back to Cincinnati for his last year of college and I got pulled deeper into my internship and grad school applications. We let the project sit, ferment. And now we’re picking it back up, with a new collaborator, Sebastian, some structure, a blog, and an actual performance/build date. Here we go.

How it all started: Owen's Memories

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Like all good ideas, it started over a beer. Maybe 2.  I think Sam and I had been talking about the lines between theater and architecture for years.  But, the first clear recollection I have of the 4:2 project’s start was at the Capitol Lounge drinking beer and eating pizza…probably the fall of 2011.  I was home working in D.C. on co-op and Sam was home visiting from school.  Not much came out of that chat other than some napkin scribbles that would be probably left on the table, and the conviction that at some point we would work together on something….

Fast forward to late Spring, early Summer of 2012. I am working on co-op again, Sam has gradated and is back in D.C. working for a local theater company.  He has come over to my apartment for a party or something, and for whatever reason we decide to leave the hustle of the party and take a walk in the pleasant night air. D.C. really is best in the Spring at night.  We are talking about confession, intimacy, friendship, love and death.  You know, the usual cheerful things folks in their early twenties like to think about after a few beers on a Saturday night. What becomes really clear very quickly is that both of us have been thinking about these ideas a lot.  That is when we decide that this is the time to start the project we have been mulling over for a few months now.  I, with interest in small structures, Sam with his interest in non-traditional theatrical forms, will dive into something together. A play for two people in a space for two people, a space made for a play, a play made for a space, an Ouroboros of ideas.

It took us a week or so to settle on a time that we could both work on it again.  If I remember correctly it was a Thursday or Wednesday night. There were several pots of coffee, tea, popcorn and Tai food. We stayed up most of the night talking, arguing, discussing, drawing, writing, and looking at inspirational images. At the end we had a set of guiding rules, a lot of questions, and a similar understanding of what we wanted out of the project. 

We would explore ideas of threshold and intimacy.

The play would happen in a larger space somewhere.

The object/space of the play would some how relate to, or interact with the space it was in.

The whole thing would require less than 5 people to run, and if we could do it with less that would be better.

We would not rely on technological gimmicks, projectors, sound effects, ect.

We recorded all of these initial exchanges. They will be up soon.