Staring into Pascal's Abyss

While reading Anthony Vidler's "Warped Spaces", I learned that Blaise Pascal suffered from an affliction where he always felt there was an endless void on his left side. This occurred after an accident which almost threw him into the Seine River. I used to have a similar experience while driving to my mother's house; I would envision something crashing into my passenger door as I drove past the fields leading to her house. I'm not sure what caused this "vision" or how it faded away, but it began a long process of dealing with the notion of mortality & how we deal with the passage of time.

To say this year has been a whirlwind would be a massive understatement. Moving to Brooklyn, attending Pratt, making new friends & leaving some behind, dealing with the deaths of my cousin & a newly made acquaintance... All of these have made this year what it is. I have also felt the shift in generational power: my brother will soon become a father, my grandparents have shown signs of aging (Pop held my arm as we traversed some snow & ice, triggering more thoughts on mortality), & spending Christmas with my cousins, most of whom are married with children. This idea of time within our world has never seemed so urgent as I live in "my own little world" in Brooklyn. That sense of detachment allows me to live as selfishly as I want to live.

As much as I like to escape for a few days from Brooklyn, I am instantly reminded of what I escaped from: suburban dystopia. I am beyond the point of "no offense, but suburban living bores me to tears" & feel no need to apologize for it. I have fallen into the "I don't own a television" crowd; it seemed like an extremely snobbish thing to say, but I felt no need to defend myself to my family as i plead ignorance of what was happening in the world of television & 'entertainment'.

I have begun another cycle of stripping away the things I don't feel are necessary or hinder moving beyond what I look at with utter disdain. Of course this usually begins with trying to minimize hints or symbols that may cue how people perceive me. This whole process is completely vain & often does not actually remove me from The Spectacle. These are minor steps of re-invention that allow us to grow while we sit idle between periods of production. All of this free time & nowhere to go. This begins the desire to be able to produce on my own terms- outside the realm of school- and see what develops.

Sometimes this process begins with the stripping of labels, associations to schools of thought, re-establishing history, or the cliche notion of resolutions. These precedents often hinder our vision & make us vote down the party line: "Oh, you live in Williamsburg? You must be a hipster." I have felt the need to dissociate myself from concrete ideas or passing trends, yet I often end up with some mediated opinion pouring out of my mouth without much filtering. This leads to defending past ideals in order to realign how we plan on living from this day forward. If we hope to push the evolution of society into something a bit more engaging, perhaps starting with ourselves is the best course of action. This may involve a lot of open mindedness & not trusting our first reaction to a particular topic; living on instinct has rarely been effective.

All of this to say I'm passed transitioning. I am ready to consume each day, project, & friendship with the fervor & attention they deserve. Less dreaming, more doing.

"Either dead or alive or in a million pieces."

As we begin to wrap up our first semester-- the time has flown by- we begin to see the correlation between our effort & work. We're progressing towards new ideas still developing into the greater scope of what we hope to achieve. All those hours sketching, sanding, tediously drawing construction lines, & fighting exhaustion will one day pay off. We're inspired daily by something-- or someone- and have to properly direct the inspiration into tangible mediums. During an informal desk crit today, our professor told us the story of a seeing eye dog that kind of put things into perspective:

Have you ever been to the Port Authority bus station? It's fucking CRAZY! I have a full field of vision & I could barely find my terminal. But, I watched this seeing eye dog walk his owner to the correct spot despite the amped up level of activity. You guys should be like the seeing eye dog; as the work increases its need to 'sweat', force that activity upon the model. As the level of work increases, you need to increase the amount of precision & work you put in.

This advice felt like another turning point in what I have personally dubbed a "transition period" in my college career. Much like when I moved here, the need to shed that "newness" skin has arrived. I feel that we must constantly push ourselves-- no matter what we're striving towards/for- to fully realize the notion of Beauty in our temporal, often esoteric worlds. We must constantly mine, filter, & push the limits of what we find inspiring. Wasted potential has plagued our generation as a whole for quite some time now; I'm tired of being wrapped up in "the Spectacle" & truly want to return to "the Oneness" (Thank you, Mr. Zak Loyd).

"Your hands do not look like they're your's."

We build to express ideas set forth by a practical art form debated upon for years. All of this intellectual discussion has to transform from a weightless idea into a tangible 3D form. We're taught how to look at things with a prejudiced eye; to create a dichotomy between the 'representational' form & the robust embodiment of what we're trying to convey. We're constantly grasping at a process that is two steps ahead & laughing all the while. The ideas expressed often move at a slower pace than we build. We construct, deconstruct, & reconstruct without ever truly completing our thoughts. We tear away the pieces to reveal a skeletal notion of process; a bare bones approach to a complex & intricate problem. We sketch away the vigor of the project in order to do something-- anything!- that leads to production. Those walks around the block are often lies to ourselves. We try to force ideas that may never fully gestate much like people who pray to God to fix a problem immediately. There's never one singular solution-- we must create a laundry list & go with what will allow the project to spill over the sides. I'm not sure if I can swipe at my process, but it's in view. The pressure of a deadline is often the starter pistol that sets us up to produce. Ten days out & counting.

"I'm Never as Tired as When I'm Waking Up."

The past week was lost to sleep & indecision. All those songs we played this summer were filed away & left us to find new inspiration. Can inspiration transfer between mediums without being too heavy handed & literal? The reference to "frozen music" doesn't mean much to our generation due to the intangible medium of mp3's. We're removing tangibility from art & creating files. I woke up late all week & tried to re-align time against centuries of science. It's safe to say I'm not completely burnt out, but the edges are smoldering & I need to get back to form. The lull of activity was self-induced-- more like self-inflicted- & needs to be extinguished immediately & permanently. I walked down Grand St. last night & looked at the skyline with the hope of someday adding some new form to its iconic image. The scale of our work pales in comparison at this point, but we're working on "going big". Any effect on another person would mean we've reached a level of success.

Whenever I take for granted my position in life-- living in Brooklyn, going to Pratt, being on the forefront of some digital revolution that may push our field to limits once thought impossible- I turn to this song: It feels like summer all over despite the falling temperatures & changing leaves. If we never stop striving, we'll live in those lights forever.

"How long will you ramble?"

Fighting exhaustion with visions of being behind the glass wall & all of the excitement that comes with the hope of turning that corner. All these evenings that bleed into morning spent meticulously extracting every minute detail will pay off eventually. We strive to manage time, produce a brilliance that can be appreciated outside of these walls, & constantly move forward; there's a constant motion that occurs, aping the outside world around us. Our dream is to have that alacrity within our designed work-- to divert someone's path to "check out" our built environment. We tell ourselves all of this production-- and constant reproduction- will lead to that someday. We're shaping the world around us one hand drawn line at a time.

Addendum to "Tired & wired, we ruin too easy"

"And I must say, it's better to get ruined on your own pace of time than to get ruined by the natural process of aging; it makes you feel empowered of the time you've been given." -Indiana Morales, via SMS text message

"Tired & wired, we ruin too easy."

The slightest nod of approval catapults your work-- whether in design, writing, etc.- forward at an alarming speed. The all-nighters spent doubting your ideas & project's purpose get a pat on the back & lead to the creation of a new energy to produce at levels you never thought possible. My former design professor once told us "If you understand 40% of what I'm saying, you're on the right track". This seems foolish after a formal review in which your work gets lauded for its clarity & creativity; you grow braver in these instances.

We must learn to convert these energies into something useful & maintain our levels of production-- both in quantity & quality. We churn out these designs from our hearts & minds, all the while trying to create that muscular soul Nietzsche wrote about; the need to satisfy our being is dire in this process.

Transcending mediocrity has been a constant goal in my life. This academic setting is perfect for us to "go big" with our visions. Let's surround ourselves with the wild ones who don't care about sleep as long as we're getting out our best work. The fervor we contain will kick down new doors.

"Am I Worshipping or Am I Tributing?"

Immersed within the esoteric nature of Pratt Institute's design studios, we have to constantly step back to get the 'big picture' of what we're truly moving towards. Our days last from project to project while the world around us is constantly moving forward. We realize the small difference when walking home at 4AM-- the spaces lose their intensity & breath when you're the only one on the pavement. We filter down to the depths of digital information in order to create tactile forms that remove the static notions of the built environment. The glow from Steven Holl's Higgins Hall pales in comparison to what we really see when we enter these doors. Production of fictional futures pour from our desks in order to push us further down the line.
The future is where all of our projects takes place; each one has been built before, but we view it through new eyes with different pasts & imminent tense. We're sacrificing our youth-- in a First World sense- in order to design a better future. In essence, we're "killing ourselves to live" for the opportunity to have someone walk through our work & feel ineffably moved to transcendence.

"Architecture should speak of its time & place, but yearn for timelessness." - Frank Gehry

We're fated to pretend

The disconnect is slowly coming together these days. A year ago, I prayed for this May to get here as soon as possible. I wanted nothing more to get back to where I belonged. We used to joke that 2008 was going to eat us alive; all we said was “stay positive” without fully believing it. This will be a year of major transitions: both nationally and personally for many of the people I see almost everyday. We’re all in this together, even when we’re battling for the same thing. All this time spent in deep introspection will pay off soon enough. There’s something—or someone- waiting for us all to step up & take hold.