If it was my main job to en-capsule, preserve, record the memories which I had, I had in the place, I had already experienced,
Krien Clevis is exploring memories but somewhat different from mine.
Clevis (2013, para. 4) said, doctoral thesis by Clevis (2013) and exhibition (The Once and Future House (2013)) are about ‘not just à la recherche du temps perdu, but also à la recherche du lieu perdu’, which means, finding lost time, but also finding lost place.
As this suggests, I felt that she was working on the project in an increasingly tracking way, and I’ll discuss and contemplate about what she has developed.
She is said to have been attracted to the classic houses of Pompeii and the antique tomb of Rome and Cerveteri. They are different places but she found many connections there,
the most important and crucial part which she mainly focused was they represent life and death at the same time.
Rather than simply exploring the characteristics of space or its material quality in a superficial way she approaches it in multidimensional ways to analyse the meaning, symbols, and functions of space. What led her there? How did everything start?
After researching about her, ‘death’ and spirituality of the place seemed to mean a lot to her. Also, in any field, in any situation, even in the same nuance, analysing with a place, space, content, or object where there is some kind of confrontation seems to create a lot of interesting elements and questions in process itself. It is like comparing my work with Clevis’s project.
Her way of exploring space is very interesting. As part of her process, she’s investigating architecture and space, but there are parts where she didn’t rely on typical architectural knowledge. It is the part where she drew the floor plan of the house based on what she observed with her own eyes, or her intuition, or her own background knowledge.
She seemed to be creating something new in this void, which was both random and could feel anoxious in some way. By doing so, she was able to complete her subjective development. Later, she could obtain two knowledges by comparing and contrasting with expertise leading her to another realisation.
She also compared various perspectives that speak of the space in a space after investigation. It analyzed the opinions described simply architecturally, what they mean when they are expanded and interpreted from a humanities and sociological perspective, and how they are connected religiously. For example, she analyses a hotel in Pompeii, which separates public and private spaces by the swimming pool in the center, intends to manipulate the route of the people Similar to that, analyses the meaning of installing a statue between the water flowing in the yard in the traditional house of Pompeii.
In the beginning of Unit 2, I also explored space. I walked around, 3D scanned, observed the space. The process of 3D scanning came out from the concepts of shifting between 2D and 3D in my process, but in some ways, it also came out in terms of realising space and giving mobility to the space. So I thought it was relatable to use 3D scanning.
Now I look back, I think I only used information related to the physical appearances of the outputs that I could get from the scanning process.
From this, it occurred to me that wasn’t I partially focused on the material quality of the space?
In terms of work process, she used quite a number of methods.
Among them, there are the methods we both used, one of which is a photograph.
But we used photograph in a different nuance. I was using cyanotype in my work, in order to put importance on conservation, combined with the concept of time capsule.
I wanted to carry the aura, noise, and sense in it. But she saw that there was an element of isolation because the photograph excluded all the noise and people around the object.
Writing this, also a question raises. Is conservation and preservation a kind of isolation?
If so, are they rather a compatible concept?
In addition to the inclusion of photographs in the process, we share similar points in by finding parallel points between the content of the main concepts we used in the process and the properties of the form we intend to use and mixing those two.
Christian Norberg-Schulz’s concept of Genius loci which she was mainly focusing on through the project talks something that the elements were interconnected and continued to influence each other.
And the structure of the installation she was creating had the similar concept, the properties where it was actually installed had the flowing structure, and she designed in a way that continues to flow by connecting the entrance and the exit. Which is also connected to her one of main themes, life and death.
I focused on the particular ‘process’ among the many concepts and contents of the time capsule. And I experimented with cyanotype.
The process of fixing and setting memories and objects you want to remember in one place, and excavating them again after time has passed.
I thought it is similar to the process of creating a cyanotype, which is process of discovering a preserved image that is developed by setting objects in one place and rinsing(excavating) them in water after time passes after receiving sunlight.
This was not the only thing we shared and also the differences.
If I had created a scanned and reconstructed development diagram to move the space handy, she have actually recreated the space itself.
So in terms of other people experiencing the recreated and rebuilt space,
I let space to travel to people, she let people to take a journey to the space.
She kept investigating, rewriting and recording memories, spaces from which she did not have. It was recorded to reveal her subjectivity in her own way in the history as memory.
She is both excavating and preserving. If my work is one-way, she has many concepts that are somewhat connected.
With my own position and own articulation, I think somewhat we were doing a reverse process in each other’s peoject, making different orders, I was encapsulating time capsule, and she was in the position of opening time capsule.
If I have explored how to move and implement them to preserve and express places or memories that already exist, her way of working begins with a situation that has already been blanked out or not knowing.
Her work, gave me further development consideration points.
I feel like I was trying to make memory components even though I was trying to curate and present them. I should explore more suitable way and appropriate ways to ‘curate’ them, and make the curation memory by itself.
How about making the process completely opposite?
Tossing question to myself, ‘What method of curating archived memory content do I want to really develop? Or what kind of memory?
Clevis, K. (2012) ‘Crossing: Between the Italic Domus and the Artistic Environment’, Journal for Artistic Research, 2. Available at: https://doi.org/10.22501/jar.28644