Well, the house is proving a persistent but not at all unwelcome distraction from blogging stuff, but that’s okay. Managing to set up even a M*A*S*H*-like *Man Lodge was mitigated by, like..unpacking scores of boxes containing mostly books, old disk drives or bits and bobs from the old Laboratory workbench. But, alas — the embryonic Laboratory / Man Lodge is clear enough to hold a desk, stereo and bicycle with room to pace contemplatively whilst sipping a tincture of Port in a purloined *Oriental Brewery beer glass ((evening) or mug of coffee ((morning)).
Enough.
Last week felt the blitz from weaving my brain back and forth between meeting builders and minding some quite engaging and provocative studio projects. Lots of fun in the studio these days. Maybe the second time in the *two years ((the anniversary for being a proper, full-time Nokian passed on Friday)) that I felt that a big project really was a big project. ((Not to say the others were not — rather that the calibre of engagement, requirements, expectation and leadership might suggest that this is not a drill.))
So — there’s been lots of work getting into the material, defining the shape and contours of it. This is the work of describing to ourselves what it is and what it means — moving from intuition and the vague vernacular of the *top-level, into the material itself. You run across the dips and bumps and questions that can only come from digging deep into the material in a very materialistic way. How do you translate intuition and instinct into something that is communicable beyond a vague — “it’s kinda like”? Clearly it takes time and a willingness to get beyond the unease of not knowing how to talk about something, or even those moments when you think — you know what? This is the stupidest thing in the world — no one will like this. We’ll be ridiculed.
In the midst of doing this it becomes clear that design cannot be done without the designing. You can’t just write or PowerPoint it. If you don’t break a sweat or nick a finger — if *you don’t — you’re not doing the design work. The things you find out from materializing an idea rather than just screenizing it — if you don’t get into the material itself, make the thing and keep making it over and over — you won’t find the depth of it.
And — you can’t just specify requirements, or get all high-falutin about the implications, or assume because you’ve stated your point but haven’t been able to enroll others in your mission that you’ve done the work. Cause, like..you haven’t. So..that’s that.
That current flowed through the week itself.
Then there was this crazy crit session at the USC Architecture School. Wow — Neil had his hands full. The architects he brought in were, like..I don’t even know. Rarely even handed with the students — maybe that was just apparent to me. I don’t really believe in critiquing by pummeling. Anyway — I said all I need to say in an earlier post. But — that was something I did last week.
The Drift Deck work continues apace, although we missed our call last week because of various and sundry commitments to other things.
There was a bit of play getting back into *Max/MSP for some prototyping ((never ceases to amaze me how Baroque that thing is — what a wrestling match)) and *Logic which is exploding heads in the Laboratory.
That’s it.