Phase I: (defining the home as) a collective unconscious. Objects that we surround us with - even removed from their context and function - and their ability to generate a metaphorical or archetypical feeling of the home. (looking at) the past / the memory (as a starting point). The appeal to certain objects and gestures which create an interaction between its meaning and the personal experience, personal cues, “self-centered world”. Not fixed/dynamic. The ability to be projected in any space at any time, a construction (tear it down/build it up).“Umwelten”, as an archive of memories and gestures.
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home to you is...
home to you is turning on the nightlamp in the kitchen
home to you is the long shadow cast by the afternoon
home to you is peeling an orange however you please
home to you is an impasse in the hallway
home to you is the flannel bed sheet
home to you is the pattern on our dishes
home to you is the sound of water in downmotion
home to you is the smell of cold in the morning
home to you is the yellow tulip looking down
home to you is the bump in the carpet on the staircase
home to you is waiting by the crossroad
home to you is the spiraling sound of the microwave
home to you is a book read halfway
home to you is looking at our neighbours masonary
home to you is taking 16 steps
home to you is filling a glass of tap water
home to you is looking for keys
home to you is naming the birds in our garden
home to you is making the water boil
home to you is not being able to decide what to eat
home to you is a box of matches
home to you is that one festival t-shirt from 2011
home to you is replacing the toilet paper
home to you is a pair of socks that doesn’t match
home to you is rearranging the chairs
home to you is squizing the tooth paste
home to you is your feet on the table
home to you is unwinningly collecting receits
home to you is locking the door in the hallway
home to you is the line you say when you pick up the phone
home to you is being late
home to you is laying out your clothes for tomorrow
home to you is dancing in the living room
home to you is sitting too close to the screen
home to you is the code to open the gate
home to you is waking up before the alarm
home to you is the smell of a dying candle
home to you is that one Duffy album
home to you is looking for a good mirror
home to you is putting the heat on three
home to you is using the wrong light switch
home to you is taking a chair to reach the top cabinet
home to you is receiving personal mail
home to you is the self-made rule to stack plates
home to you is running out of milk
home to you is that one sharp knife
home to you is the sudoku at the back
home to you is refilling the bath tub
home to you is...
Phase II: The uprooted home
In phase I, I described the wicked home as a collection of routine-like gestures. Gestures of the home don’t ask for much thought. It’s a gesture where you put the key in the keyhole without thinking, where you reach for the light switch in the dark, skipping the squeaky step in your staircase, finding your toothbrush and towel without hesitation, the self-made rules to stack plates. They erase themselves while doing them, that’s why they leave space for more important thoughts and worries. The act of living is not an art, it’s a drag.
The true art of living is the act of moving around. When you move you can’t find anything back, you have to start all over again, like a child. To move is to alienate, to uproot. The key does not fit in the key lock right away, the light switch is now on the left instead of the right, the route from your bedroom to the bathroom can not be done in the dark anymore. Moving asks for attention, it is accompanied by disruption and confusion, but also with excitement and thrill, everything is again for the first time.
Starting from this framework and the personal experience of moving around, I created a video starring a series of scale models. I made an inventory of all the places that I called ‘home’ at a certain point in my life. Every model represents a fragment of that place, more precisely the route from my bedroom to my bathroom. It is a routine like-gesture that I remember very vividly. It is something that I can mentally reconstruct with just closing my eyes. I know them like the back of my hand; the positioning of rooms, the way the floor felt underneath my feet, the weight of the door when I close them, the sound it makes when I open them, its materiality,...
I reassembled these models into a continuous sequence, creating this new space that represents a construction of the memory, a mental maze. The decor-like scenography emphasizes the representation of the imaginary, the memory, a fine line between reality and fiction. It becomes something that is projected from the mind, something that is not fixed and simultaneously very fragile. It makes us question the value of these domestic places, what they could mean to us and how we look back at them. Space is no longer self-evident, no longer embodied, no longer inherent.
Phase III:
I name my response: DIE MOVING. The concept of moving in between these spaces while we are living. Then again we die moving. A selection of subtitled words that needed a definition within my research. I design a toolbox to ‘die moving’. By toolbox I mean: a set of design principle drawings or schemes that together form this route we call (spatial) life, within our wicked home(s).
A. Moving space, space that moves.
B. Alienated space, space that alienates.
C. Uprooted space, space that uproots.
D. Continuous space, space that continues.
E. Multiplied space, space that multiplies.
F. Disconnected space, space that disconnects.
G. United space, space that unites.
H. - left blank, needed time to think
I. Resembled space, space that resembles.
J. Eroded space, space that erodes.
K. Destroyed space, space that destroys.
L. Abandoned space, space that abandons.
M. Doubted space, space that doubts.
N. Delineated space, space that delineates.
O. - left blank, needs time to finish
1. DESIGNING the Wicked Home; I want to continue working around the notion of (domestic) space, and how we move through space during our life. “the route we call (spatial) life” 2. The output of this project is preferably a movie, where a series of models is being presented with a horizontal sliding motion. The video guides you through an imaginary architecture, through the rich store of spatial images that we all carry with us. I want to play with the leap of scale from the model to the presence of the “real”, whereas the back and the in-between of the models/spaces shows the reality of the construction, its scale, its materiality. I want to create new spaces by cutting and pasting from an archive of memories. An archetypical memory, something that we share, something that we can recog- nise without being able to place where we have seen it before. To walk in the past, to navigate in a frozen world, to live in your own memories. It becomes a zone of transition where dreams and reality blend. Playing with displaced elements and a paradoxical use of material, the trip through the models might end up underneath a chair in my room.
My aim is to question our (domestic) spaces, to look back at them in order to look forward, to feel mortal while moving, - time will erode my memories, time will erode my spaces, (I die while moving)
AN EXERCISE IN MOVING THROUGH SPACE
requirements: a match / mind + body / 4 walls + 1 floor + 1 ceiling
( 00 - PRELUDE ) ( Before we start, we want to trigger some of our senses, because we will need them for this exercise. The sense of smell, sound and sight; senses that color our memories. We do this by lighting a match, while we watch it burn, we pay close attention to the sound it makes and take in the smell that comes aftewards.)
(a, 1-2) Now that our senses are triggered we will begin the first part of this exercise. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. try to look deep within yourself, we will now spend some time in the past. I want you to recall a memory from the first place you called home. Try to step out of your body and spend 10 seconds in that memory. After you’ve done this, try it again with the next place you called home. Do this for each home untill you reach the present. Take as much time as you want in each memory. (2-3) We will now come back to the present, back to your body in your space. Open your eyes and start to observe the space that you are in. Try to observe your presence in this space. Make a small walk in your space, and pay close attention to things you might overlook. Touch the wall, touch the floor and try imagining touching the ceiling. For the next step I want you to think about the last person that entered this space. Think about a memory you had with that person in this room. (c, 3-4) We will now departure again from the present, and take a small trip to the future. Try to get comfortable again and close your eyes for the last time. We start this part of the exercise by imagining a space you’ve never encountered before, a space where no memories have been created, but can be constructed from the memory. Project your body within that space, and try to make it your home. Think about what you bring to your new home and what you leave behind, think about the people that are around you in that space. While you spend time in your new home, try to make a new memory. (b, 5-6) We now say goodbye to the future home and come back to the present, back to your body in your space. We finish this exercise with a final thought. Imagine it being your last day in this space and think about how that makes you feel. Now move forward...