between layers

An experience of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial consists of the transition between physical, conceptual and psychological layers. In addition to the physical layers (wall, ground surface, etc.), a walk through the memorial results in a constant shift between different experiences of the wall and the war it memorializes. The individual names on the wall, their accumulated mass, other viewers and views into and from the site result in an experience that is constantly oscillating between these different conceptual layers. The animations study the potential layering of one's thoughts as they engage the wall.

Animate/Museum

The Holocaust Museum crafts a learning experience through a carefully composed progression and series of events/spaces. We are lead through by strategies of compression/expansion, light/dark, and regular/warped space. Altogether the permanent exhibit is a jarring, discontinuous motion of events that helps us to “bear witness.”

Connecting Boundaries

Menagerie_1.02

This is my first visit to the permanent
exhibition. So here are unedited videos
of my fragmented yet comprehensive
experience.

I've titled this series "Menagerie" to
imply that it is more than an exhibit
of objects.

The most important illustration of my
understanding of the "pivot place" can be
found in Menagerie_5.1.

Menageie_1.2

So this first video was abruptly curtailed. I
was asked to turn off my camera even before
I entered the building. I understand that the
entry of a building can have multiple thresholds,
in this case I thought the first threshold was
the curved outdoor space bulging onto the sidewalk.
Apparently I was wrong. It starts when a
security guard signals me (while still on the
public sidewalk) to turn off my camera.

Menagerie_2.01

Pivot Point: Binaries Realized

Public / Private, Personal/Political
- I am leaving the public sidewalk and into a
private realm.
- Is emptying my pockets and opening my backpack
an invasion of my privacy?
- Is taking off my jacket, taking off my shoes,
taking off my belt and invasion of my privacy?
- Is having a stranger frisk from underarm to
between my legs an invasion of my privacy?

Inside/Outside
Now that I passed the security check am I now
inside? Or did my entry start when those
three security guards were scrutinizing my
camera and one asked me to turn it off in
"Menagerie_1.2"

Secure/Insecure
If security checkpoints like this one are
for my security . . .then why do they make
me feel more insecure? Perhaps its because
I am treated like the security risk.

Menagerie_2.45

It is pretty dark. Displays are spot lit. Which
one should I read first? I am making my way
through the crowd who are all looking at
something. Which one should I read next?
There's a large group looking at something over
there. I'm going to try peak over their shoulders.

Ok its a bit clausterphobic in here. I see the exit
but I have to go around . . .there's a barricade
in the way.

Menagerie_3.51

Bombarded with videos and readings, the photos
and the displays, I found the Hall of remembrance
bright and quiet. . .almost too light and silent...if
that makes sense? The abrupt change did not
give me enough time for my eyes to adjust and
my body to adjust to all this space.

I head over to the main space now and can't
help but notice the shadows cast on the brick
wall. Not so light and airy as the Hall I just
came from, the heavy and twisted ceiling
allow me to connect to the sky but simultaneously
reminds me I am on this side of the metal,
grounded.

Menagerie_3.76

So I am back in the main room after walking through
the permanent exhibit walking in the main room
minding my own business. Was it paranoia or just my
imagination running. . . but I felt like I was
being watched. Yes, definitely from behind the counter,
and yes from even the coat check, oh wait, there's also
some people looking at me from the windows on the
second floor...and from the balcony? No, the guy in
the balcony wasn't watching me . . . I just imagined it.

Menagerie_4

So later, I found myself behind there and people
walking down and up the stairs looked at me like
I was part of an exhibit. So the switch from
spectator to spectacle happens and before you
know it you are a willing or unwilling participant!

Nobel Peace Center SURROUND

The work shown here is from the office of REX, a spin-off of the Koolhaas-OMA dissolvement. The images are of a new 485,000 SF library and museum for the City of Oslo. The site radiates across the urban block and engulfs the corner lot of the Nobel Peace Center.



Note: The REX website refers to this building as "Oslo Vestbane" in their project tab. The site also accompanies the images with some text briefs.

Nobel Peace Center

To further our discussion on experience from Thursday I would like to include an additional example of an anomalous place of learning. The Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway (2005) designed by David Adjaye, was a former train station that was adapted in to a place of learning advancing the specific pedagogy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The free standing entry is marked by rectangular sleeve of sandblasted aluminum, with a curved floor and ceiling, that remains open on two sides framing the Peace Center on one side and the Oslo City hall on the other. The perforations on the interior of the entry form a map of world-wide centers of conflict.



The entry is clearly operating in the realm of the Turner shock induced experience. Assuming that the entry comes with no written explanation of the perforation as areas of conflict, do you think that it is still able to result in a learning experience? Is it enough of a shock to create "an anxious need to find meaning in what has disconcerted us" (Turner 36)

The form of the entry is mimicked on the interior of the building by similar free standing black metal box. Its perforations represent major population centers that glow green or red depending on that site's level of conflict (peaceful to warring). Each puncture emits the sound of a voice speaking the respective city's language. This installation fits within Dewey's Experiential Continuum by building on the experience of the entry way and modifying the quality it. It illuminates the previous experience while providing incentive for future ones.


Do these two pieces foster experiences that erupt from shock while working withing a continuum of experience?

In a collaboration with artist and designer David Small, Adjaye created video displays that recount the life of Alfred Nobel and past Nobel prize winners. Here the content and the expected learning is clear.



Despite the difficulty of discussing what experiences would occur based sole on photographs, these examples as relative anomalies, will help illuminate ways in which learning experiences have been designed.

Limits of Liminality?

If learning takes place when one is a bit outside of one's comfort zone, is it our job as architects concerned with pedagogy to create just a teensy-weensy bit of un-comfort/surprise/wonder in the users of our buildings?

On the other hand, are there times when one would specifically avoid "un-comforting" with architecture to achieve a different sort of (pedagogical) goal?

Emergence From Transitional Space

Although I found the first portion of the Ellsworth reading verbose and repetitative, I found the last few pages much more provocative in response to the materiality of pedagogy. The idea of completely immersing one’s self into this transitional space and the prospects of it serving as a birthing ground for an emergent self, conceptually stands to be a strong paradigm for pedagogical experimentation. The idea of removing one from one’s self is a complicated yet necessary process for a non-biased means of teaching. The fact that one could facilitate and moderate learning concurrent with his/her own learning is necessary in order to break from conventional methods of learning regurgitation.

I was also intrigued by Dewey’s writings on Criteria of Experience, particularly in the concept of negative or positive continuity. It seemed to me that he has generated a conceptual agenda lacking distinct resolution. I understand the concept of perpetual learning but question the concept of value of experience. To say that learning a particular skill set enhances prescribed future learning but consequently prohibits other means of advancement seems counterintuitive in generating pedagogical theory.

“There is no paradox in the fact that the principle of the continuity of experience may operate so as to leave a person arrested on a low plane of development, in a way which limits later capacity for growth.” (p.37)

I feel that any skill set attained be it political corruption, thievery or any other moral deviance, does not and cannot deprive a pupil from further learning. I would even argue that the experience could enhance their understanding and act as a catalyst to the emergence of new methods.

Angelo, I’m sorry to hear about your Piano teacher abandoning you. The only advice I can give is “The most important attitude that can be formed is the desire to go on learning. If impetus in this direction is weakened instead of being intensified, something much more than mere lack of preperation takes place.” HA

"Fur Elise"

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
--Albert Einstein

In Experience and Education “The need of a theory or experience” and “Criteria of Experience”, Dewey touches on some noteworthy points about experience and education. Obviously with age comes experience, and with age and experience, wisdom. Or does it? Dewey investigates how experience can be educational as long as it promotes positive growth and perpetuates learning. Unfortunately some aspects of traditional education fragment and compartmentalize subject matters to the detriment of this continued desire to learn. The value to the individual is lost and with it engagement. Without engagement, learning ceases.

So how does one promote the “want” to learn? Dewey purports that “attentive care must be devoted to the conditions which give each present experience a worth while meaning.” This responsibility may fall on the teacher to illustrate the relevance of traditional knowledge into present situations and the application of current lessons assisting in future circumstances.

I am able to recall in my personal life, decisions conscious and otherwise, that arrest or promote positive growth and learning. For instance, when I was five I started piano lessons and have vivid memories of the intensity of the lessons. I remember the frustration of the “exercises” balanced by the patience of the teacher. I remember the hours of practice and the tangible improvement I could hear as the months went by coupled with the encouragement of my teacher. And I remember the joy of graduating from the exercises and short songs to full pieces such as the classic Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” I came to realize the pattern of the initial difficulties of acquainting myself with a new song, the tedious period of practice to be proficient at playing it, and the final enjoyment of effortless “play.”

After two years, my teacher, unfortunately (for me), was getting married and I was her “coin bearer” at the ceremony. The wedding was the last time I saw my teacher but I was left with the “want to learn” piano further. My lessons resumed three weeks later with a new teacher. She was quite different from my last teacher. Each lesson consisted of a metronome, exercises and a rigid curriculum. She seemed more concerned about the consistency of the beat versus the feeling of the piece. She obviously had a “pre” set agenda for all her students. The lessons, though they may have been more technical, lost something -- mainly my interest. I quit after two months and regretfully haven’t played since.

Places of Learning,”Introduction”

In the introduction, I disagreed with some, agreed with most, and have questions concerning a few of Ellsworth’s statements. Beginning on page one, the author’s bias toward the low worth of the continuity of established knowledge to be communicated and propagated is quickly and clearly established. But this “dead” knowledge should not be so easily discarded. It does at the very least serve as a starting/jumping point, a point of reference, a datum?

On page two, Ellsworth mentions in the second paragraph “…there is no self who preexists a learning experience.” I understand her perspective of the process of experiencing knowledge is experiencing ourselves in the making, but to deny the existence of any self prior is absurd. I agree with the model of the fluidity of the changing shape of the self as it travels through learning experience after learning experience. But the self does “preexist” as the fluid itself. The volume, color and shape of the self may change while “in the times and places of the learning self in the making” occur; however I disagree with the nonexistence of the self prior to this.

In the second paragraph on page three, Ellsworth mentions the need to let go of “strict binary discourses” and move toward new mindsets that do not address them as “separate and in relations of opposition but rather as a complex moving webs of interrelationalities.” I completely agree that this is an appropriate direction and reminds me of a quote from Einstein, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” I also find myself thinking not about “new mindsets” but actually old ones? When I was reading this page, the old iconic yin and yang symbol popped into my imagination. The yin/yang symbol consists of a reverse “S” dividing in half a circle into a light and dark side with a dark dot on the light side and a light dot on the dark side. At first glance it is a binary of opposing forces. Yet the swirling nature within a circle implies a dynamic interrelationship while the dots signify the essence of each opposing side residing within its counterpart. This interrelated duality is similar to Venturi’s both/and concept versus the either/or.

On the first half of page six, I greatly appreciate the metaphor of the solar system and orbits relative to the practice of schools. Ellsworth purpose for this book and for the perspective of pedagogy is most clear to me here. She is not trying to bring alternate views into the fold of existing educational practices, but rather study these anomalies to provide new courses/directions of thinking. We all know the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." I believe Ellsworth is taking the next step in education by not just teaching a student to fish but rather provide an environment for a student to teach him/herself? This road may proliferate a multitude of directions for pedagogy.

Finally, I could not fully wrap my head around what Ellsworth meant on page four at the end of paragraph three about the “material nature that involves biological and molecular events taking place in the boy of the viewer…” What molecular events is she talking about?

Pedagogy & Experience

The introduction and the following four subcategories to Places of Learning proved to be a thing “in the making” itself. The beginning of the introduction seemed to be a theoretical-- as opposed to scientific-- explanation of the psychological and physical aspects of learning experience. Ellsworth talks about pedagogy as the impetus behind the particular movements, sensations, and affects of bodies/mind/brains in the midst of learning, as an example. It seemed at this point that Ellsworth was leading up to a series of tested reactions and experiences to different environments. This idea expanded further when she begins to explain that discourse in the process of learning should not be restricted to narrowed down binary relationships of concepts that have a determined beginning and end, but that a relationship should cause an investigation of other relationships-- setting up a matrix or a complex web of interrelationalities.

This reminds me of an article that I have read recently called Precise Indeterminacy, an interview with Mark Goulthorpe on his work with dECOi atelier and his experience as a professor. He explains his use of new digital technology and generative geometry and parametric modeling as a way of determining and analyzing a series of different relationships that create series of results or emergences. Just as Ellsworth is saying contemporary social, cultural, and aesthetic theories are marked by the search for ways to rethink the terms of these binaries (the binary predetermined relationships mentioned earlier) that have been so strategic to social, political, and educational thought-- Goulthorpe is saying that new digital technologies are allowing variance to be modeled as such, thus shifting a determinate, linear, casual mode of production to an indeterminate exploration of the implicit variables within any given situaltion. The digital tool and the changes in social, cultural, and aesthetic theories, as Ellsworth has mentioned previously, implicitly suggests less determinate modes of open-ended experimentation and poses fundamental questions, not only of aptitude (whether the architect or the person forming the relationships-- the student, if you will-- is able to loosen his or her creative determinism) but also of education and pedagogy:

How do you instigate open-ended creative processing?

Ellsworth plans to provide ideas of material and space, refering to particular spaces or buildings as it relates to pedagogy and experience, in order to begin an exploration of interdisciplinary relationships, concepts and emergent pedagogical qualities and elements.

One set of diagrams for a building in particular came to mind instantly as I was reading this portion when Ellsworth talks about memory, recognition, or cognition, and the learning self of the experience of the learning self. The event-space-time sections diagram hierarchical relationships of program and space, the forms and physical spaces of the building, the procession and movement through the building, and all of the events within the space. It shows a visual relationship between physical form, location, and experience.