The doppelganger and the dreaming city BCNYCTWN.net studio critic: Ed Keller assistant critic / DA: Dean DiSimone Design Studio VI
"The doppelganger is defined as a second self, or alter ego, which appears as a distinct and separate being, apprehensible by the physical senses. The other self must appear in a dependent relation to the original. This dependence refers to the dominance and control that the double usually has on the subject. However, the raison d'être of the double is always held in relation to the original. Divided, split, or schizophrenic characters are not, in themselves, examples of doppelgangers, but they may become appropriate if and when their division gives rise to a second personality, even if this is only acknowledged by the subject...The concept of twinning is closely related to the doppelganger, and works with the idea that no one can physically tell the two characters apart and that only their actions will depict their differences." This semester, we will breed a machinic doppelganger, a monster city that lives somewhere in international time-space between NYC, BCN, and TWN. A constellation of connected dreams. A city comprised of 100 million dreamers, or one dreaming city computing 100 million stories. We will begin with the thesis that dreaming-memory is a memory type that invents a hybrid and affiliative state of perception and being. Such an idea, developed from our own experiences of being in dreaming, parallels a robust theoretical framework emerging from thinkers as diverse as Spinoza, Bergson, Maya Deren, Borges, Deleuze, Lewis Carroll, Marguerite Duras, and Carlos Castaneda. Our program will depend on the intentional amnesia that is crucial to the performance of not only dreaming memory, but also to the emergence of higher forms of intelligence as identified by AI theorists such as Ben Goertzel. The application of this model of memory and forgetting to an urban agenda will look for radical scale shifts to implement and achieve what we might call an "architectural Time-Image". These scale shifts will range from the most intimate deployments in architecture- at the scale of the hand, the skin, the ear, the mouth - to the larger economic, social and time space concerns that a major development project with a 50+ year scope would have to contend with in a major city. Across these extremes, the problems of memory and intentional amnesia remain operative. The idea that a double can emerge through psychological trauma- or through the intentional manipulation of perception through dreaming, and other rituals- will inform our approach to the construction of this doppelganger of the city. We propose that the city will be able to invent new ways of dreaming itself- on a cultural scale, on an economic line, on a passionate and political line- that will partake in the analysis of complex cinematic dream times that we pursue in the first four weeks of the semester. Our studio will be run coeval with the ŒDigital Zones of Practice¹ seminar (taught by Ed with Doug Diaz) that theorizes and rigorously unpacks temporal forms from the architectural, cinematic, and narrative shells they have been lodged within. The invention of new concepts of time in architecture, narrative, film, sound, and space will be the goal of this analytical seminar. A series of computer based exercises paralleling our studio work will provide the environment for this in the seminar. Our studio in NYC will also be paralleled by two other remote studios : a second in BARCELONA, run by Juan Azulay and Roger Blanch, of Studio AiB, at the ETSAB, and a third in TAIWAN conducted by Leslie Shih, at Chiao Tung University. There are two axes that our NYC studio will operate along. The BCN/NYC axis will centripetally focus on physical site and the infrastructural, economic, passionate and virtual exigencies that establish horizons for the understanding of urban sites. The NYC/TWN axis will centrifugally orbit around a theme of virtuality, which will establish a technology oriented trajectory, exploring themes such as the impact of P2P networking on urban design and the construction of instant communities that can dream new worlds overnight. Portions of this technology axis will also be shared by Kunio Kudo's ASIA experiment studio here at the GSAP. In NYC, our main theme will be an interrogation of the concept of the doppelganger as it is born from a dreaming memory that can occupy multiple territories and is infinitely scalable. Between BCN (which has provided us with three sites to choose from in the city itself) and NYC, we will construct an included third site, a "para-site"- which will be a doppelganger between and of BCN/NYC.
BCNYCTWN.net :: OPEN SOURCE All three studios will share selected documents during the design process, using the net as a collaborative substrate. The tenet of Œopen source documents¹ will be pursued by using password protected FTP directories, to which each studio will upload work once a week, according to a fixed schedule (see below). Documents will be chosen by each team and by individual students. This "open source" material will include: | 2D images | DV | site mappings in various forms | text analysis | 3D models and maps | audio documentation | business plans, etc. The final yields of this process will be fairly complex. We will have several final reviews at the end of the semester. These will consist of a conventional academic review, followed by an academic Œperformance¹ and then several outside performances of the work, at locations such as VOID and the Anchorage. We also anticipate the potential for bringing the work to festivals like SIGGRAPH, ISEA or Prix Ars Electronica, and other technology oriented arts and research venues.
PROCESS and Site: As a one week handshake project to begin the semester, each student will choose one memory/dream of a place that they would consider rich enough to take into eternity with them. They will make a short animation/film/presentation/scenario depicting this memory/dream. This exercise will serve to fully engage both the theoretical concerns of the studio, and the practical necessities of design. This exercise is based on the premise of the film Afterlife, by Kore-eda. Following this handshake, each student will analyse 3-4 films that develop the model of dreaming memory, drawn from a list of over 50 films. This analysis will take place in Maya and 3DS Max. Diagrams resulting from this work will provide an abstract model and a program engine for the design aspect of the project. Scenarios responding to the site conditions will be developed in this phase, and will provide direction for an urban and architectural strategy. The studio will make a journey to Barcelona, in mid-February, where we will spend ~5 days encountering and documenting the city. Studio AiB (J.Azulay and R. Blanch) will facilitate this visit and provide various flux-tours of our sites and the city at large. From week 4 onward, the work will focus on designing urban and architectural interventions that are informed by the "TIMEFORMS" that the film and site encounters yield. Technological implementation across the NDL, Renderware and/or MUSE software will result in realtime interaction with individual and group designs.
Collaborative structure: BCNYCTWN.net is built around three main axes: remoteness, liquidity, and cross-referentiality. • Remoteness: To incorporate distance as an aspect generative of new ways of working instead of trying to sort it as an obstruction. • Liquidity: To maximize transactions from the point of view of cultural framework, methodology and thematics. • Cross-Referentiality: To collapse results so that cross-references are established. The core of this work will take place in Maya and 3DS Max. Musecorp, NDL and Renderware softwares, employed along an internet axis, will then facilitate the work later in the semester, providing realtime 3D gaming technology as well as 3D internet integration. (NB: Kunio Kudo¹s studio will share some of these technologies.) o The NYC program will be an investigation of the phenomenon of the 'doppelganger': A constellation of connected, doubled dreams. This will be handled between NYC and BCN at the scale of the "REAL" city, and via the TWN collaboration, by designing a VIRTUAL city that functions as a doppelganger between NYC, TWN and BCN. | The BCN program will be an investigation of New Centralities , a term which refers both to the centres of urban areas and the relative centrality of cities as such. Hence the very question of urbanity, and its historical, political and cultural preeminence is being posed. We would like to think in terms of how does the city as material agglomeration tend to change when confronted with a novel stage in the mode of production and transmission of reality. The general questions of the fundamental unbalance between the so-called first world and the rest; that of the fourth world or structural poverty and marginalisation within rich societies; that of globalization and the expulsion of production from rich countries; and that of the shift in the progress-and-growth oriented paradigm that has shaped the world since the Industrial Revolution will have to be part of our discussion. (AiB :: Azulay + Blanch statement) | The TWN program will be an investigation of the Recovery / Discovery of Lost or Uncharted Dimensions in Existing Cities (NYC and Barcelona). However, the expression of our design focus will be keenly focused on the virtual by utilizing the tools and the limitless possibilities that are make possible by the advancement in digital technologies. What does it mean to be the map makers of the digital realms? Can we not inhabit these maps? (Leslie Shih statement)
BCNYCTWN.net Technical Collaboration: • Level ZERO: a website will be established that summarizes the collaborative framework, provides links to each school's local work and files, and provides an online realtime collaborative network that allows several levels of communication to take place: o Links off the main page which provide INTERTEAM connectivity and 24/7 access to crucial "OPEN SOURCE" files and information, including: o 3D datasets of sites in NYC, TWN, BCN o 2D images and video of sites and relevant material o audio files o 3D translation filters, utilities, etc o common datasets, eg the 3D datasets shared by BCNYCTWN.net for the creation of its VIRTUAL doppelganger o It is also the teams' goal to transform Level 0 into a 3 Dimensional Experience which will facilitate the collaborative platform as we progress, using MUSE or SCOL technology o Level ONE: Using THE PACK: a web based bulletin board. All three teams will participate once a week to be updated on what other teams are doing. There will be a requirement for regular and timely participation at this level. o Level TWO: using a web based listserve, springing off of a topic(s) subset within the PACK. Each team will participate intensively and locally. This discussion will be open to the other two teams but is primarily geared toward an intensification of the INTRA TEAM collaborative process. o Level THREE: Student websites, and proposed final presentation using either MUSE, NDL NetImmerse, and/or CSL Renderware. MUSE is a 3D rendering engine that seamlessly integrates html, xml, and web media as well as P2P interaction, chat, and streaming media. NetImmerse and Renderware are cutting edge gaming engines used to author cross platform games to PC, PS2, XBOX, Mac, and Dreamcast. All engines import 3DSMax and Maya files.
The work will be presented in several ways. o Each student will have a website with documentation of work, and 3D+multimedia files for download or interaction thru MUSE/NDL/Renderware o Final Academic reviews with invited jurors (individual :: website and 3D realtime) o Final Academic reviews as a 'video mix/performance' with invited jurors o Remote reviews with BCNYCTWN.net et. al. via an Online Forum o Club performances: VOID in NYC, clubs T.B.D. in BCN and TWN o art gallery/performance space installation: eg Anchorage in NYC, Contemporary Arts Center in BCN, Contemporary Arts and Performance Center in TWN o possible submission to SIGGRAPH, Prix Ars Electronica, and other competitive venues o Continual online presence documenting work for general public viewing o Print Publications T.B.D. o Registered user level online presence for individuals/companies providing licensed technology. To be determined /negotiated with above listed sponsors.
SCHEDULE: Week 1: handshake project. Review of handshake on Jan 26th or 29th. Week 2-3 : Film analyses. Remote site analyses. Review in week 3. Week 4: To Barcelona Week 5-7: Scenario writing, analysis crunching, site maps unpacked, design underway internal review end of week 5 ~Week 7: Midreview. 3D work online in MUSE/NDL/Renderware Week 8- 12: Design work. 3D file translation and posting. Review week 12. Week 12-end: final design work. Technical preparations. Week 13: first review internally Week 14: GSAP Final reviews, April 23-27th. Week 15: Club dates, performances
Oneiric Landscapes & City Dreams; & the doppelganger in cinema and Text: Dark City Alphaville Amarcord Himmel Uber Berlin Playtime Modern Times Underground Welcome to Sarajevo Lisbon Story Fallen Angels Chungking Express Irma Vep Hiroshima Mon Amour Bros Quay: Street of Crocodiles Delicatessen City of Lost Children Breakfast at Tiffany's Mama Roma The Nasty Girl Caro Diario Taxi Driver Repo Man Night on Earth The Conformist Passenger Solaris Metropolis COMPLEX MEMORY | Afterlife Catch-22 Sans Soleil 8 1/2 Rashomon DOPPELGANGERS | Vertigo Fight Club Element of Crime Zentropa Lost Highway La Jetee Meshes of the Afternoon At Land Red Double Life of Veronique Mirror Videodrome Dead Ringers Le Confessional Le Polygraph All about my Mother Last Year at Marienbad The Tenant Blow-Up Drowning by Numbers Persona Gattaca Jacob¹s Ladder Being John Malkovich TEXTS | Borges: from Labyrinths: Circular Ruins, Funes the Memorious, Borges and I, etc. A S Byatt, Possession Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor Carroll Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass Castaneda: various excerpts Neil Gaiman et al, Sandman Robbe Grillet, In the Labyrinth Lem (Tarkovsky): Solaris Donner: Being in Dreaming Leiris: Night as Day, Day as Night Greenaway, P . Fear of Drowning by Numbers Maya Deren, Anagram... Calvino, Cosmicomics, If on a Winter¹s Night a Traveller Bataille, Literature and Evil, chs. on Bronte and Blake Benjamin, ŒThe Image of Proust¹ Plus online pages, as bookmarked
SITE-PROLIFERATION-MACHINE : BCNYCTWN, 41.35o N NB| These comments on the sites come to us via BCN from Studio AiB: J. Azulay and R. Blanch The concept of site could be potentially activated from three standpoints: 1-The LATITUDINAL SITE we are currently densifying (ie 41,35degN): the site itself lies in the collapse of approaches, cultural frameworks, working methods and sensibilities that constitute BCNYCTWN. 2-The REAL SITE in Barcelona, a choice between three given sites. Each student will choose his-her own, after a BCN fieldtrip. (cf. below) 3-The VIRTUAL SITE , that could be the gaming engine-software platform that links NYC to TWN.
Barcelona's Sites Our proposal is to give the entries the choice of working in three actual Barcelona sites. The first idea is that each entry will choose a single site, but that should not necessarily be the case. The sites chosen are: -Zona Franca (ZF) -Santa Caterina (SC) -Zoo infill (ZI)
ZF: Barcelona's industrial port (a tax-free zone), including container terminals, ZAL (Logistics Area), Mercabarna (BCN's central food market), oil and flammable products basin, etc. It occupies a very large expanse of land (partially infilled) just south of Montjuoc. While being one of the most important strategical assets of BCN at an international scale, it remains quite separate from the city's everyday life, and it hardly has a place in the collective image of the city.
SC: An area in the Old Town, between the neighbourhoods of Sant Pere and La Ribera. SC bears the name of the market around which the neighbourhood once thrived. SC was originally an extramuros settlement between two of the main eastern roads going through the Roman city of BCN. By the VIII th century it was already settled. The area is currently under a very polemic development that has entailed the destruction of most of its urban fabric. Since the beginning of the XX th century there have been a number of projects proposing a haussmanian sventramento of which the current works are heirs. Enric Miralles was currently rebuilding SC's market, and he proposed an overall scheme for the neighbourhood that is not currently being followed.
ZI: Between the BesÚs River and 1992's Olympic Village, BCN's coastline has undergone massive transformation. The last segment to develop lies just south of BesÚs, where the Diagonal Avenue meets the sea, in an area that once was heavily polluted and socially very marginalised (La Mina Project, illegal housing in Camp de la BÛta, etc). The area is currently being developed, and it will be housing, in 2004, the Culture's Forum, a Cultural Olympiad of sorts. Amongst many other programmes (including experimental housing, a new sports harbour, and large cultural facilities, BCN Zoo will be landing there. The Zoological Gardens will move to a massive infill, still under construction, between BCN's main circular highway and the sea.
There are several vantage points from where the sites have been chosen, insisting on a multi-scale reading of the site and its role within an architectural proposal: -From the point of view of the different kinds of centralities these sites activate: ZF- massively contributing to strategical and commercial centrality while not having any representational role. SC- where image displays its nature of condensed capital. Representational role as the historic city's main wealth-generating asset (for the city as a whole). ZI- creation from scratch of a new centre. What defines centrality and how to activate it become main questions. -From the point of view of the relationship between tourism and production: ZF- geared strictly towards efficient production. SC- geared mainly toward traditional tourism. ZI- invention of new possible relationships between tourism and production. -From the point of view of ground qualities: ZF- expansive horizontality (a very present ground level) SC- material accumulation of history (a multiplicity of ground levels) ZI- tabula rasa (a ground level built from scratch) -From the point of view of the irreducible roles of these sites within the city as a whole: ZF- production SC- materiality of history ZI- infrastructure