spatial orientation

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Personal landscape


The view from my room, looking out north-east across the urban residential experiment known as the Valencia Gardens. The vintage glass globe that Greg gave me caught my eye reflected in the window as the moon rising over the city. My personal landscape is somewhat shallow, the furthest vista being no more than two miles away to Potrero Hill. Fast-moving traffic is the soundtrack to this view, and the occasional screech then horn from the confusing intersection below.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Vertical geography


On the first Thursday of every month, stacks of individuals turn out to climb through the ant's nest known as 49 Geary in south-east Union Square. body temperatures confined to such close quarters raises the humidity to a balmy 85%. yet it is still a cool place. the chill that runs between the bodies of peoples is ever-so-slightly melted, lubricating the glide of the art spectators to pass one another, unaffected. it is too confined for bristly san franciscans. we are used to navigating a lower altitude range - generally not more than about four stories max. Some of this must be fueled by our protective outer ware being brought inside a large box filled with chambers.

Drones march practically single-file, vacant zombie-eyes passing all the works before them. The first bee-line is for the wine table. the social lubricant easing the frigidity inside.

Out a rhomboid-shaped light well, i notice a scene from a science-fiction novel. Almost no one stopped to notice; yet I think the living well is more interesting than a good percentage of the art slung on the gallery walls.

The weather lures us out more, though protected by layers. If there was a deck out that light well, we'd wonder out and get to know each other. The 49 Geary District needs to be rebranded. Why not funnel some of the up-and-coming hipster disposable income into a new global art draw. Unite the San Francisco movement. How do we translate the S.F. culture into a universally understood language?

How we live has a direct impact on who we are. how we navigate our physical spaces teaches us to sort and order our thoughts and justifications in a similar fashion. One might say a San Franciscan is a little spread, and chilly. And we aren't entirely comfortable when squeezed in the constricted vertical geography of First Thursdays.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

learning is a frontward and backward process


we take from existing structures to create new. what is present reflects ideas from the past, we're left in the present to alter for the future. nothing comes from a void. improvement, progress, and even indifference stems from past processes.

Monday, May 01, 2006

landscape as representation of culture


what we put on the surface relects our ideals and norms at the time. these representation reinforces beliefs and notions, one creating and influencing the other, round and round. morals and acceptibility compounding one another.

what does this frontage say to you?