Melting Of The Site - Experimentation

The overlapping of different parts of the site are an indication that I am dreaming. When in a state of dreaming, time stops or rather does not exist in the way we normally perceive it, sequences are lost or erratic, there is no clear beginning or end. So, the linear way in which we understand things no longer exists, but we view them in a different sequence or way. Perception becomes very subjective and images can often be confused or viewed as overlapping. So, here I am superimposing them, one by one, altering their transparencies and physical properties, blurring the edges and coming to the conclusion that depending on how strong an image is and how clear, so much closer it feels to reality. This jumbled up, opaque version of my site, belongs to a non-physical world.

Final Version

deconstruction of the site Final from evelyn on Vimeo.


Imagination is connected with the subconscious and the dream world. Looking at the dream sequences of Spellbound, thinking of ways of dissolving matter, breaking down the site visually and incorporating time as an abstract concept, I put everything together and followed two approaches: one involves the site being cut up and re-assembled in various forms that do not necessarily represent the way it looked originally. The second involves the site being overlaid with materials-each representing one of the four elements- and being depicted in limbo between a dream state (where time does not matter or even exist in a linear way) and a physical/impermanent stage.

Video experimentations

Video Experimentation from evelyn on Vimeo.


IMG 0035 from evelyn on Vimeo.


Experimentation from evelyn on Vimeo.

Alternative Ending to video

2nd Story Board

The ending I envisioned for the site was it being completely cut up and its pieces falling into an hourglass. The connection of the dream state and the de-struction of the site is integrally linked with time. The whole idea of the black holes and dreams is based on the notion that time does not exist in one way. Time is not a straight line, it is not read in a linear manner, it may not even exist in the way the Western world perceives it. The hourglass, symbolizes the constant change and shift from one state to the other, never ending and always contained in some form. The site may shift, become small parts, pieces that are re-assembled and cut up, but remain part of a larger whole, ready to be "put back in place". What that "place" will look like or belong to, does not matter, as long as there is some sort of "storage" for its individual parts. The idea here is that the site dissolves into particles/sand, the most intangible of visual forms-another idea is to have it dissolving into air- and is shifted through an hour-glass/black hole tunnel, so as to become a place in a different/parallel universe. Is it a dream or part of the astrological site that is called universe? The answer is as ambiguous as the dream itself is.

Re-Assembling Space

Collage stop motion 2 from evelyn on Vimeo.

This is the final attempt to re-structure the site to its formal elements and discover what makes it recognizable. The parts are re-asembled constantly, changing the viewpoints and the perspective, overlapping with one another, but remaining the fundamental elements of the site, even when they no longer resemble it. 

Anish Kapoor

The Dissolving Site

Story Board

Pictures From the Model-Process

Cutting up the site is one of the many ideas I had for the concept of dissolving and de-constructing it. When you destroy something or you de-construct it to its main elements, where do you start? From the materials that it is actually made of? Should I dissolve the stone and the mortar? From the formal elements? Should I deconstruct its perspective? Should I destroy the whole thing, adding elements and "vanishing" it? I wanted to do everything, but here, I made a model of the site and chose to represent its de-construction in a dream like way, choosing Hitchcock's stark representation of dreams, in Spellbound, selecting a realistic light source and adding elements that gradually "distort" the site and destroy it. Sand was used as a symbol of dust, which is what I want the site ultimately to become, dissolved into particles, the material it is actually made of. Sand falls on top of it, first colourless, then similar hues to the existing ones found on site, only bolder, enhancing its natural qualities and alluding to a dream taking place. The shapes and colours are influenced by Anish Kapoor's pigmented sculptures. Water falls, again transition sing from colourless fluid to blue, which relates to the concept of floods, a terrifying natural phenomenon that usually indicates turmoil and destruction. Change and movement are represented with the falling of the sand and water, which finally becomes static with the addition of wax. All four elements are represented: earth/water/wind and finally fire. Part of the site is burnt down, leaving almost immaterial ashes that are blown away. Part of it seizes to exist in its prior form and part of it remains buried under the weight of the additional materials. It is in limbo, between being sucked up in a  black hole and completely de-materialized and stuck in a dream sequence that alters its form in a nightmarish and semi-permanent way. The idea is to capture the dream=immaterial state with the destruction of the physical= real state.

Parallel Universes

Mind Map

"All the black holes found so far in our universe from the microscopic to the supermassive may be doorways into alternate realities.

According to a mind-bending new theory, a black hole is actually a tunnel between universes, a type of wormhole. The matter the black hole attracts doesn't collapse into a single point, as has been predicted, but rather gushes out a "white hole" at the other end of the black one, the theory goes.

According to the new equations, the matter black holes absorb and seemingly destroy is actually expelled and becomes the building blocks for galaxies, stars, and planets in another reality."

If, a black hole absorbs all the energy and matter there is around it and instead of destroying it completely, it transforms it in primal matter that forms a new space, a new universe, what happens to existing spaces if they go through a black hole? Do they loose all recognizable structure and forms, but retain their original context? Are they broken down into parts that become building blocks for a new space? What happens where no space or time exists? The scientific, philosophical and spatial aspect of this theory is mind-boggling and completely abstract, yet fascinating. I take the assumption that my site goes through a black hole and becomes destroyed, deconstructed but remains intact in some form. The principles of the site are not the recognizable space any more, it is not about the perspective of the street, the bricks or stones of the walls, but it is about the individual parts that can be cut up, re-assembled and re-structured, thus making a new space, a new site, based on the elements of the previous one. Even though the concept of absolute nothingness is intriguing and challenging spatially, I aim to de-construct my site as much as I can, without it losing all of its formal qualities. The process and "tunneling" between one reality to its hyper-reality status, will have to be a destructive one, a dream like process, which can be repeated endlessly and in numerous ways.

Re-Assembling the Space First Attempt

Collage First Attempt from evelyn on Vimeo.

 First attempt to make a photo collage using stop motion technique. Having worked extensively with Cinema 4D, I went back to very basic film making methods, looking at the concept of de-constructing the space and re-structuring it. The idea is to present a different viewpoint of the space, going back to my original investigations of it, where I made architectural collages of many parts of Portobello and then took photos using a kaleidoscopic device. Here, I am literally "tearing" it down and re-assembling it. The aim is to find the fundamental aspects of the space, the ones, without whom the space is unrecognizable. Although in principle the idea works both visually and conceptually, in execution I will re-do it, as the frames are not clear enough, the shooting is more loop sided than I want it to be and the parts are not cut small enough. I want the final version to be cut into shreds, almost nothingness.

Deconstructionism

Mind Map

Baptiste Debombourg

Turbo 

Aerial

Frank Gehry

A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings

In art and literature, a tendency to subvert or pull apart and examine existing conventions having to do with meaning and individualism. Whether using language, images, or building elements, deconstructionists raise questions about meaning, materials, forms and other aspects of artistic expression.

Deconstructing

Analyze (a text or a linguistic or conceptual system) by deconstruction, typically in order to expose its hidden internal assumptions and contradictions and subvert its apparent significance or unity

( To break down into components; dismantle.

: to take apart or examine in order to reveal the basis or composition of often with the intention of exposing biases, flaws, or inconsistencies <deconstruct the myths of both the left and the right — Wayne Karlin>

: to adapt or separate the elements of for use in an ironic or radically new way <uses his masterly tailoring skills to deconstruct the classics — Vogue>

Deconstructivist Architecture

an architectural movement or style influenced by deconstruction that encourages radical freedom of form and the open manifestation of complexity in a building rather than strict attention to functional concerns and conventional design elements (as right angles or grids)

Deconstructivist Architecture focuses on seven international architects whose recent work marks the emergence of a new sensibility in architecture. The architects recognize the imperfectibility of the modern world and seek to address, in Johnson's words, the "pleasures of unease." Obsessed with diagonals, arcs, and warped planes, they intentionally violate the cubes and right angles of modernism. Their projects continue the experimentation with structure initiated by the Russian Constructivists, but the goal of perfection of the 1920s 1s

subverted. The traditional virtues of harmony, unity, and clarity are displaced by disharmony, fracturing, and mystery.

Dissolving

1. To cause to pass into solution: dissolve salt in water.

2. To reduce (solid matter) to liquid form; melt.

3. To cause to disappear or vanish; dispel.

4. To break into component parts; disintegrate.

5. To bring to an end by or as if by breaking up; terminate.

•    To become fluid; to be melted; to be liquefied.

•    To fade away; to fall to nothing; to lose power.

•   To convert into a liquid by means of heat, moisture, etc.,; to melt; to liquefy; to soften.

•    To break the continuity of; to disconnect; to disunite; to sunder; to loosen; to undo; to separate.

• To solve; to clear up; to resolve.

•  To separate into competent parts; to disorganize; to break up; hence, to bring to an end by separating the parts, sundering a relation, etc.; to terminate; to destroy; to deprive of force; as, to dissolve a partnership; to dissolve Parliament.

•    To waste away; to be dissipated; to be decomposed or broken up.

   To relax by pleasure; to make powerless.

•   In chemistry, it is the act of solvation, when a solid is mixed into a liquid, creating a solution. Mixing salt into water is an example. Upon evaporation, the dissolved parts usually come out of solution and reform the solid.

   In film and video editing, it is one way of changing the view. For example, a scene        fades (changes slowly) from a bright day to all black.

What dissolves paper?

Dissolving paper is more difficult than one might think. While certain bio-degradable paper can be easily dissolved in water, most commercially used paper is significantly more durable; its near-neutral pH requires strong acids to dissolve it completely. Hydrochloric acid, also known and marketed commercially as muriatic acid, is sufficiently strong to dissolve paper. Strict safety precautions must be followed to avoid accidents caused by its acidity, toxicity and volatility, and the acid must be neutralized before disposed it.

What dissolves rocks?

Strong acids like: 
-muriatic acid 
-alkalines 
-hydrofluoric acid

Disintegration

The process of coming to pieces

•  the disintegration of infected cells

decomposition: in a decomposed state

1. The act or process of disintegrating.

2. The state of being disintegrated.

3. Physics & Chemistry The natural or induced transformation of an atomic nucleus from                a more massive to a less massive configuration by the emission of particles or radiation.

: to break or decompose into constituent elements, parts, or small particles

: to destroy the unity or integrity of intransitive verb

: to break or separate into constituent elements or parts

: to lose unity or integrity by or as if by breaking into parts

: to undergo a change in composition <an atomic nucleus that disintegrates because of   radioactivity>