Methods for Documenting a Space · a collection

Each method can be adjusted to the potential of the situation it is used in.

Walk n’ draw

Mapping out a house and its surroundings with methods of walking.

Initially thinking that we would let the pen follow our movements, setting off on our own paths one by one soon revealed how there are many decision makers within one´s own body. Who leads who; the drawer or the walker, the hands or the feet, the pen or the eyes, the paper or the landscape?

In this method there are many variations. Such a difference it makes if you hold the paper close to your body or further out, and if you hold the pen at the top or the bottom!
Try changing type of paper, types of drawing tools, colors, thickness and even with a playlist to measure duration.

Movemeasures

Your body as a tool

People do this all the time, when there’s no measurement tool we use our body to find an estimate. This method takes it to the next level. It can be repeating a movement from one end of the space to the other, or between certain points in space. Some places it is more relevant to use a body part rather than a movement.
This way you can bring the space with you and re-space it without any other tools than your body.
The movements and postures might lead to a dance.

Distant déjà vu

Can the same distance between two people make a space re-appear?

This person is intended to do together with another person. You stand at opposite ends of the space and look at each other from this distance. If you don’t have a person available, use an object you can relate with. Try to memorize the distance between you through how far away the person or object is. It can be helpful to register the angle of your head and gaze and even measure with steps, just for backup.

Find another space and try to find the distance and positions you had before.
Will the two spaces merge in your mind?

Trademarks

Transferring one space into another space through sound

In my bedroom in Copenhagen the radiator was ticking all night in the winters. Our front door had a sharp sound when it shut. These sounds are trademarks for those spaces, when I hear them again I am in that space immediately. Record the sound of what you feel is a trademark for the space you are in, if it has any.

Play the recording in another room, or listen to it when you go for a walk.
In which space are you?

Imprint

Use your body as a mold in contact with surfaces, corners or details of the space. Try standing, sitting, lying and being embraced by the architecture until you feel like it has made an imprint that you can bring with you in your bodily memory. Take a few steps away from the walls and re-visit the imprint without the presence of the surface.

( can be inspired by angles, sounds, size, usage of the space and more)

Write one of these imprints down with pen and paper so that another person can do it too, without them having seen the space or the movement.

Mirroring Architecture

Use the body as a mirror for the architecture

This has some similarities with Movemeasures, but it involves a bigger radius of personal space.

For me it is about finding corresponding body parts that can fit with parts of the space, but from a distance. It can be sitting or standing in one spot of the space, finding that the top of the window frame is exactly the length of your lower arm when you hold it up horizontally at the furthest distance from your gaze. 

Restless? Try while in movement through the space!

Try to memorize these movements and do them in a different (part of the) space. What do you see? Write the movements down to remember it and for another person to do them without them having seen the space or the movement.

Naming

Make a space appear through words 

This method came in a moment of brainstorming in Copenhagen with Elisa Vassena merging with a memory of We To Be by Mette Edvardsen.

Walk the periphery of a space in a chosen pace. Stick to the pace and start naming what is on your left or right for every step you take. It can be handy to use a sound recorder to remember the order and number of names later. Repeat the words or play the recording of it in another space. Will the documented space appear? 

It could end up like this:

Wall wall wall window window wall wall door door plant bookshelf bookshelf picture wall bed bed bed bed wall wall desk desk wall wall wall….

Space guide
Experience a place through someone else.

This method was born in Italy when walking through the outdoor Museum Arte Sella together with Masako. It is ment to be done by minimum two people or be passed on to someone else, however I think it can work alone as well by listening to your own recording a few days later.

Record yourself while guiding a fictional person through the space you find yourself in. The guide can address the movement through the space, prominent colors in that space or the relation to objects by giving the listener suggestions of questions or answers about something you encounter. The choices are many. Try to anchor the guide in at least three specific places on your journey so the listener can follow.

If you are together with someone, you can both record yourself individually on different paths, guiding your partner through the space you find yourself in. When both are done recording, swap the recording with your partner and start your journey. Describe something you see, and consider your level of abstraction when guiding

Phone call guide

This method is inspired by a moment I was calling from my home, guiding a friend through a flat in Copenhagen in order to find something I left there.
By guiding and being guided in dialogue over the phone, new areas of the space was revealed to both of us, through her sharing of observations and my memories merging in the moment.

To reveal more about a space you know already, guide someone who is there from one place to another within that space. The path can be guided by relating to amount of steps, choice of directions, relation to objects, their movements, prominent colors in that space as a few examples.

You can also try other methods in combination with the phone call guide such as Mirroring Architecture or Naming..

How many buns

Measuring distance by the time it takes to do something, such as how much of a cinnamon bun you eat from the bakery to your home.

Decide a distance you are curious about or one which might be useful to know. Then go off while you continuously do what you chose to do. If you try with food or drinks, slowly and steadily fill your mouth with what ever choice of food or drink, but take your time to enjoy the taste, it’s not a competition.

Try with other things that you know by heart, such as songs or poems, or bring a book and start reading from the same page every time. Soon you might know it by heart too, just watch out for the traffic!

Fiction Karaoke

Choose or be given a playlist to listen to with headphones while walking through a museum or gallery, or another space you are curious about. Rather than singing along to the song yourself, point to the people in the paintings, photograps or in the room, even to objects you find, and imagine it is their voice you hear in your headphones.

Memory lane

Could there be some memories you will remember only if you are in a certain place at a certain time?
Stories you haven’t even told your inner self. You might be surprised what appears.

Find a place to sit in your chosen space, even be adventurous and sit somewhere you never sat before. Bring your pen and paper and stay for a while. No pressure.
Let the pen tell the paper any memories or stories that appears. It can be words, sentences, a novel or a drawing according to what your pen desires.

Sometimes it will involve the space you find yourself in, but other spaces might also appear.
Tell all the stories that come to you, by writing them down or talking to a sound recorder.

First include memories and stories that appear. Next, focus on memories from that specific space. Feel free to invite fiction.

High Eye

Walk the parameters of a space holding the camera in a different hight than your eyes, but at the same height through out the whole take.

Make two or more rounds, with the camera in different height every round.
Keep a close enough distance to the wall to not reveal the whole space at any point, about half an arm is good.

Something will reveal itself

Spotlight

How well do you know the space you surround yourself with? Light and movements especially.

Choose a spot in the space that you want to get to know better. Place your video recording device to frame that spot and press play. If you have time-laps as an option on your device, it is helpful in spots with few visible movements.

Leave it there as long as you can imagine watching a recording.

Under construction:

Space dreams

Imagine the space you want to revisit and write all what you remember about it, from stories to details, or even draw it .

Collective stories

Ask people who has been in the chosen space to write their memories, it could be their most or least favorite things or stories, inspired from and including colors, words, sounds, smells, tastes, temperatures, light, people, movements, and much more.

Love affairs

Find your favorite parts of the space and write about them. If it is things such as doors, windows or floors then consider to also write about those less favorite.

Round and about

Walking the same round in the same space several times, each round giving attention to different details:
A choice of color, signs with words, furniture, architecture, cups and clothes, surface of the ground, materials, smell, taste, temperature, sounds, light, or people passing.
Try it in your home or on your daily journey to somewhere in the neighborhood.