Blind

Being an architect currently working as a planner on a project with a timeframe of two years - and that's just to make a fucking strategy - I've always envied the a- & possibility of musicians to be present in the now. The immediacy of their artform. Goes right from mind & body and out into the world. Now. Here.
Along this line one must also say that what is produced is extremly ephemeral. It also only exists now. And then it dissapears again. Off course aboriginal songlines are probably 40.000 years old, but for now let's concentrate on what the individual produces and experiences. As such, music is apparently the complete opposite of architecture.

However Juhanni Pallasmaa writes (architectureanimation, p. 58): "Music has historically been regarded as the art form closest to architecture. The metaphor of architecture as 'frozen music' is an expression of this relatedness. ... the over 2000 years of Pythagorean tradition concretely connects the principles of musical and architectural harmonies."

Pallasmaa goes on to talk about film being even closer to arch than music. But then continues - referring to Walter Benjamin and his book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - he writes: "In Benjamins view, architecture and film are communicated primarily through the tactile realm in opposition to the pure visuality of the painting. ... Works of music ... as well as architecture, are experienced fundamentally through a bodily identification rather than as mere external objects".

And so we return to the blind Stevie Wonder. Standing on the stage obviously identifying with the music through his body - as well as his ears. Experiencing the space through his body - not his eyes. Thus, even thoug both music and architectuere are abstract artforms, it becomes a tactile experience. And the music, the space and the body becomes one.

Which is one of the basic priciples of songlines. We're closing in on that subject.

And also perhaps answering the question of why this blog, sort of claiming to be concerned with architecture, has such a focus on things relating to the body.

Urban Nomad

A while back I promised a loong in-depth series about the aborigine mapping-koncept of songlines. And I admit it's been so so with the updates on that. But you must understand we're talking serious stuff here. Serious thinking.

So - introduced to the subject by the gentlemen Hank Williams and in particular Tony Bennett - let's continue warming up on the subject and take a detour around urban nomads.

Many people living in cities today doens't let themselves be defined by a limited geographical locality. Rather our identity is created through the daily or weekly routes we move along through the city. From home, to work, to favorite bar, etc... and when we get a new job our route shifts and we see a new city. But we don't plot these routes according to practical consideration alone. They also follow our immediate desires and mood. Through these choices we define ourself and the city. And as the city changes atmosphere throughout the day, year or more - we change our routes. It is not the place that matters but the velocity (uuh - veloCITY) we choose to move with.


Naked City

The Parisian bohème around 1900, the flaneur, drifted strolling through the city. A tempo where the senses are kept open to even the most ephemeral impressions - the scent of a woman, the mood around montmatre at dawn.
The 50'ies International Situationists with Guy Debord and Asger Jorn made it into an artistic strategy - the Dérive. Their Psychogeographic maps are assembled of urban fragments. Areas and places with particular atmospheres, connected by taxi-rides.

Space changes over time. Not just when you build up or tear down. But because the subject that percieves the space always will be moving. Always interpreting. And thus an urban space is is not stable, but vibrating with the people who occupies it. Taking shape of their actions and the memories of other places they bring with them. Actions and memories again shaped by the space where they take place.

Extra bonus - found this along way:
Psychogeographic Guides to Paris and New Orleans

Extra extra bonus - Oh Tony, style and charm and those moves, my new hero... here's three more videos with him:
Interview and duet wit K.D. Lang - such an odd couple making that particular song even more beautiful.
Starring in the Comedy show Saturday Night Live - this really made me crack up.
And finally the young Tony again on the Dean Martin Show - those funky underplayed moves

Songlines part I

Ayers Rock a.k.a. Uluru a.k.a. Beethovens 5th + Ulysses

OK... I have to write something about songlines now. It's a term, a concept, I've been circling the past year and a half. Since I was led on to read the aptly named book "the Songlines", written by Bruce Chatwin. Compulsory reading for all architects and planners - when I become president.

Songlines is a virtual map of Australia used by the Aborigenes. That is one way to describe it and my main angle of interest. Imagine a nomadic people. With stoneage technology. Walking the desert for 50.000 years (go home Jesus and your 40 days). They have no practical way to carry around maps of routes they only use once every 50 years. They have to keep all in their minds. They use song for this. Stories, narratives, with a melody.

"In the beginning the earth was an infinite and murky plain, separated from the sky and from the grey salt sea and smothered in a shadowy twilight."

The beginning describes a world, an earth, where all things is allready there. As lumps of matter hidden in the ground. The Ancients. All this potential is released when the sun first feel the urge to be born. It's not an outside force who pulls it up. It's all there allready. All in right time. The Ancients, the Ancestors, awaken and rise in the sun.

"The mud fell from their thighs, like placenta from a baby. Then, like the baby's first cry, each Ancestor opened his mouth and called out, 'I AM!' "... each one "put out his left foot and called out a second name. He put out his right foot and called a third name ... calling all things into being and weaving their names into verse".

Thus the land was not there before it was named. It must exist in the mind first. Not far from a buddhist idea of the world as an illusion. The land is the stories told about it. And vice versa the stories can be read in the landscape - each rock and river and featureless plain of gravel playing their part. Noting the melody as one walk past.



This all points to a number of interesting ideas - which will be discussed in upcoming posts and filed under the brand new label "songlines" :

- The question of identity and belonging.

- Memory of a space through a narrative

- The landscape as a representation of itself.

- Space perceived as a network

... and more - so stay tuned...