Category: Investigation

Subliminal Messages in A Liminal Space

MAGCD / 20036676

[PDF]

In this essay I tried to find relation between my chosen site and George Perec’s Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (Perec, 1974) Perec’s interest of investigating random simple places evoked me to do the similar things. In his book, Perec stated that there is something frightening in the very idea of the town; we get the impression we can fasten only on to tragic or despairing images of it (Perec, 1974, p. 62) We might see the block in the neighbourhood as an uninteresting place, we tend to pass thirty houses to get to the tube station in a rush to get to our destination without noticing that the row of houses is radiating the message of everything who lived there for years. The curiosity about the messages motivates me to choose Hermitage Road as my method of investigation brief. Through admiring places that people do not spend much time in, I am trying to find meanings in imperfect ordinary insignificant things which people usually ignore.  

In the first three weeks I investigate the liminal space: place between their home and their destination. Liminal space originated from the Latin word ‘limen’ meaning on a threshold or at a boundary and evokes a period of time/space ‘in-between’[…] (Turner, 1974 1982; Van Gennep, 1960 [1909]) I watched people walk from south to north everyday but their mind is not being present in the moment, I noticed that by seeing a few of samples: the fresh apple that being there for almost three weeks,  plenty of big dog’s stool being stepped and spread along the road, some died snails on the road stepped meanwhile on another wall they were crawling slowly living in the moment, it contrasts with the background noises: sound of people walking, speeding bicycles, fast vehicles, and ambulance siren. Every house has small garden some of them have lichen, moss, and wild plants growing through their wall. If we think about it further, we will learn a lot that the small plants are trying to deliver a message that they will reclaim their place in the nature. It also represents the threshold between decaying and growing and how time and nature eventually visualize them in a better vision without human noticing because we are too busy to try to get to our destination. It connects to the liminal space of people on the Hermitage road: going from a place to another place. 

As an evaluation, from Perec’s work, I can see the red thread that pulled from the beginning of my project until this week what relation between my fragment of thoughts. I also imitated his ways of thinking towards ordinary things in life, it helped me to get more point of views in only an ordinary space with no monumental object to see. 

_Reference:

21/OCT/2021

On The Fourth Week:

Trying to Focus on One Thing >.<

What I was afraid of came true: Mr. Houman asked me why is my presentation jumped fragment into fragment. That was also my mistake that I did not recap what I did in the last three weeks, but presented my series of experiments that I did. I am still not deciding what my focus is, I am also struggling to keep my eyes at only one object. Too many things to explore. Too much possibility. I feel so stupid in the same time.

I know what my intention is, I know what I want to say, but I am still not sure HOW to deliver the message through my project yet.

I am still not finding something that connects the people who walk fast in the liminal space and decaying objects such as apple. The only thing that crossed my mind is only what grows from decaying spaces: lichen, moss, wild plants. But I am not sure how to interpret the message and translated them into visual project. In the class, we took notes and feedbacks and I thought about trying to push the ‘What Happened in The Liminal Space’ video on second week further.

What’s Working

• Overlapping videos in different times
• the snail and apple video is interesting and effective
• the metaphore between apple and myself – apple is growing roots in the neighbourhood – look for deeper meaning

What’s Not Working

• Following people, why don’t you talk to them?
• moving images (I do not know, no comment about this one 🙁 )
• asking people online to send the picture of lichen they found — how does it relate to my project?

The Feedbacks

(note written by Charlotte, thanks!)

• Why the following people? 
• Lots of different ideas together – is it clear what you are looking at? The path of your thinking through these experiments is not totally clear always. 
• Trying to find meaning in small things, gradually noticing everything through different experiments.
• The aspect of using time is really interesting, the snail, the apple and the time-lapse video. Video is very effective at showing different moments throughout day, could you push this further? Could do separate morning and evening videos to overlap and see the differences. Could do every hour and layer videos to see differences. 
• Your key messages are time, why are people rushing, paying attention to small details. Need to be more explicit in showing these as the key themes, at the moment the website process seems a bit random with experiments skipping to the next without communicating your process clearly enough. 
• Really like the parallel between the apple and yourself – apple is growing roots in the neighbourhood too – seeing deeper meaning in this.
• Moss/lichen is another interesting experiment as it shows the history of the neighbourhood, and the passing of time. Interesting seeing the different lichen around the world but how does it relate to your street and your project?
• Comparing one day, or time to another might be a helpful experiment. Gather information at a certain time and comparing with later that day or the next day. Asking people where they are going and making up a picture. 

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Today, 24/OCT/2021

I tried to crop the image of the rotten apple in the final week, and also cropped the lichen image and paste them into the apple. It represents the threshold between decaying and growing. It connects to the liminal space of people on the Hermitage road: going from a place to another place.

I also got some ideas, mostly I want to get involved with the neighbourhood, interact with them, but still afraid but here are few ideas:

• making photographs of people on the pavement, cropped them individually, and make them printed on tracing paper to make the shade effect like the video on the second week but in another medium to preserve its ‘still’ness.
• making a series of digital imaging photo: mixing the lichen and decaying objects: apple, bread, drinks, etc. I think this would be interesting.
• sit on the pavement and give a simple drawing of people who wants to slow down and having a chat with me, will upload the picture on my blog so they can download them and also view other people’s portrait and diverse stories about where are they going (very challenging but I am really curious to try)
• making a parody of slippery sign that written “Caution! ….’ continued with some funny texts, might be a message to make people smile, or a message to make people slow down, and put them along the pavements (I can not stop my self off of taking everything in a comical way)

I reworked the video into better resolution and concept.

14/OCT/2021

On The Third Week:

In A Different Matrix of Time

On my third weeks of investigating objects on Hermitage road, I found the apple is one of interesting objects that constantly changing because it was also a bit unusual to see something that does not belong there. I discovered the spider’s web and a gooey snails trail around the bottom of the apple that makes it like it is rooting into the terrace wall. On the rainy days, there are some snails crawling slowly on the wall, it contrasts with the surrounding background sounds: footsteps of people who walked on the pavement, ambulance siren, speeding cars, and sound of the wind caused by the bicycles of people who deliver the food. 

This is interesting to me because I feel so relate with the apple, the similar metaphor of my moving abroad experience, started with feeling like a misfit in this big city and gradually adapting to the surrounding like the apple slowly took a place to settle by decaying and merge with the wild plants and lichen that growing through the wall. 

I supposed to use the snail to visualize the difference matrix of time between two objects, but it was always a sunny afternoon everyday these past few days and our little friends are not showing, then I tried to improvise by focusing on the apple to create a similar visualization. I juxtaposed two scene from different time: on the left is three minutes timelapsed scene, on the right is animation of photographs I took in three weeks. Three minutes feel longer than the three weeks, it might be caused by the people in the background who walk rapidly through the liminal space, making movement, while the apple stays there, taking its time. 

We had cross-year class, three students from the first year swapped tutor who previously Mr. Houman, to Mr. Andrew. I was afraid that it will make my next presentation unclear because I presented this week reports to Mr. Andrew, not Mr. Houman.

The Feedbacks:

• try sort out things: what is working and what is not working?
• decide what could be removed
• go into deeper and communicate what you learned
• references from Mr. Andrew: Alfred Hitchcock, Watching Neighbours
• find connection between people who walks fast and the wild plants
• does not have to be finished > sustain investigation > absorbing > the process become enjoyable

07/OCT/2021

On The Second Week:

The Neglected Apple

On the last day of September, I found a fresh apple on a terrace wall of somebody’s house in the corner that seems contradictive with the withered sunflowers in its small garden. The apple is still being there after some rough weeks which is interesting to me to realize that nobody cares about it: no one moves or touches or even sees it, they passed it. I tried to capture the situation by making a timelapse video of people walking with the apple on the center of the scene. There was a bearded man noticed my activity and laughed. The rest are not seem bothered of what I did. Or maybe simply doesn’t want to know. I also made a video of people walking on the pavement in different times: afternoon and evening. Then I layered the scene so it looks like they are floating between being and mentally non existence.

I also tried to find out why people walking so fast? Where are their destinations? What makes them in rush? I did this by following three subjects but I think this is not working.

I tried to mapping of empty houses in the neighbourhood to see if this has any relation to the amount of wild plants, lichen, or any unusual object in the site. But apparently not.

The Feedbacks

• The apple and the snails are interesting
• try to make something that visualizes about time in a different matrix
• try look from big scale into focused scale

30/SEPT/2021

On The First Week:

[…] There are few events which don’t leave a written trace at least. At one time or another, almost everything passes through a sheet of paper, the page of a notebook, or of a diary, […]

Species of Spaces and Other Places, Georges Perec

At the first time of the class, I choose the Quarantine Hotel as my site, because I already took pictures of everything that interesting for me:

• View from the windows

Because it is the only entertainment I got among repetitive TV shows and chaotic news in the television, I admired few different working classes of people: at 6 am, middle-class workers already standing on the bus stop in their best uniforms and suits while people who do not do the 9 to 5 work or might be an upper class persons, still having time to do morning exercise such as jogging and cycling.

• View from the key hole

That exciting moment when I waited for my food, and to see what happened in the alleyway, how is my next door guest looked like, who was walking in front of my door. And it was interesting to think about how two point of views connected by the quarantine room and me in the middle.

• The quarantine food

Repetitive menu that made me can count how many days I have spent on the room by counting how many croissant left on the desk, it was like a prisoner counting days using tally mark scratched on the wall, but instead, it was croissants.

Choosen Space: Hermitage Road

But after did some discussions with Mr. Houman and the class, I think I have to change the chosen space into site that I have an easy access into. Then I choose the road outside my house: Hermitage road.

What I found was nothing interesting in the beginning, but when we tried to walk slowly in the neighbourhood and looking the row of houses, and then looking at every house individually, we might noticed that there are so many ways of people to try to make a visual communication in a symbol which represents their character that they put on their home. There is a house that has a Chinese decoration on its glassdoor, the country flag that decorates the second floor windows and another house has a rainbow handcraft made of felt displayed on the windows, those are enough to communicate how diverse the neighbourhood is. Those things made every house which looks similar, feels different and the people who made the ‘house’ into ‘home’ are the most important of all. We, human, turned a building, a tangible object shaped by concretes, bricks, woods, stones, and glass into a home, intangible conceptual space that somehow make us feel close and alive. This makes me think that there would be another intangible shape of the pavement on the Hermitage road.

We protect ourselves, we barricade ourselves in. Doors stop and separate.

Species of Spaces and Other Places, Georges Perec

On the Hermitage road, at the window from a second floor of a house owned by a Greek couple who already married for 50 years and have been lived the house for almost three decades, I watch people walking in rush from their home to tap their oyster cards at the station, catching the door for a place to gaze other people’s shoes or the beautiful tube’s blue-grey terrazzo pattern that no one cares lying everyday underneath their docmart, vans, nike, adidas. At the same window, where their heads moving from south to north, almost running to the nearest bus stop, they might be secretly hoping the priority seats are empty in between the songs they play on their phones to avoid the weird feelings they might get on their way to do the routines: Waking on the pavement by passing thirty houses that look slightly similar everyday to go where they need to, they want to, they have to. 

The pavement became the liminal space where people walk from their home into their next destination. Liminal, according to Merriam webster means being an intermediate state, phase, or condition. Liminal space originated from the Latin word ‘limen’ meaning on a threshold or at a boundary and evokes a period of time/space ‘in-between’[…] (Turner, 1974 1982; VanGennep, 1960 [1909]). Arnold van Gennep (1960) stated that experiences of liminality are not temporary, but rather triggered anxiety as they move from (or between) the known to the unknown. In other hand, Turner also stated that liminal spaces are also sites of hope and opportunities. In this project, I tried to investigate what happened in the liminal space by systematically mapping the objects outside my house: Do you know the colour of the door of the three houses next to you? Do you know how long the empty house in the corner of the street have been? Or at least, do you know what kind of wild plants or lichen on your outdoor walls?

I also tried to capture some lichen and wild plants in the neighbourhood.

What I Learned

The Feedbacks

• Try documenting sounds, recording audio of people talk
• try taking videos
• mention time: morning? afternoon? evening?
• macro photographs of bricks? walls? any changing things?