The City Project

Its great to be back after the Christmas holidays, I have been really anxious to know what our next field module would be like.

The field module for this year is ‘The City’

How do we define a ‘city’? What differentiates a particular city from others, or from the surrounding ‘non city’ space? Are cities similar? Is there such a thing as ‘generic city’?

 Let’s all stop “looking at the city” and start “observing” every single detail in the city, think of the city’s past present and future each of us from our own point of view and discipline. How does the city or a particular part of it feel? A multisensory experience in the city..

 “The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.”

― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

 How else can we “read” a place? What about the people living, working, being there? Italo Calvino suggests that we can find out a lot about the city’s past by looking in the details. How can we find information about the present, the existing situation? And, what inspires us to imagine the future of the city.

Be provocative be realistic be honest be a dreamer, be an optimist or pessimist – Everyone is different; this is about you – about your response and your view. Think what the city is / can be; start this by doing an in-depth research.

 Your study should begin with both in-depth and broad-based research, both active and, if possible, interactive. It should be multi-sensory including, e.g. considering touch, smell, hearing and the wide range of visual approaches with which you are familiar.

Other possibilities include researching dimensions, physical properties, temperatures, contours, vibrations, human interactions, materials etc. You should also consider academic/ intellectual approaches: scientific, historical, social, technical, geographical, literary, material, statistical…

 You will subsequently review and edit the rich research data-base and produce thumbnail roughs and notes which clarify your focus and your intentions for the second phase of the brief.

This is a really open brief, I have so many ideas. I am really excited for this project.