Metoder for å dokumentere rom · en samling

Hver metode kan justeres etter potensialet for situasjonen den skal brukes i.

Metoden som blir til mens du går

Kartlegge et rom og dets omgivelser med metoder for gåing.

I utgangspunktet var tanken at pennen følger bevegelsen, at linjen på arket blir til etterhvert som vi går og at kroppen bestemmer veien. Men så fort vi satte avsted på våre veier oppdaget vi at det er mange initiativtakere innenfor en og samme kropp, og ikke minst i omgivelsene. Hvem leder hvem, tegneren eller gåeren, hånden eller føttene, pennen eller øynene, arket eller landskapet?

Denne metoden består derfor rett og slett av mange valgmuligheter, og skaper nye for hver gang den prøves.
For en enorm forskjell det gjør dersom du holder papiret tett på eller lang unna kroppen, eller holder høyt oppe på pennen eller nærmere spissen!
Prøv med ulike typer papir, tegneverktøy, farger, tykkelser og så videre.

Kroppsmål

Kroppen som verktøy

Når vi ikke har et målebånd for hånden, blir hånden en målenhet istedet.
Noen ganger er det mer passende å bruke en kroppsdel eller en bevegelse.
Er rommet fire spagater bredt, døra to hoftebredder, pipa ett hopp og brannslukkeren like høy som et lår?

Med denne metoden kan vi ta med oss rommet til et annet sted kun ved bruk av kroppen.

Distant déjà vu

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

This method 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. Register the angle of your head and gaze and even measure with steps, for backup.

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

Recording distances

Felipe and I were talking about whether it is possible to hear distance when listening to sound. Can we hear how far away that car was? Or how big your home is?

Choose a sound to play from a speaker. The volum depends on the size of the space but it must stay at the same level during the whole experiment. Place the sound device in one room; let’s call it the source space, and a recorder in another room. First press record and then go to press play on the sound device. Continue that procedure for every room adjacent to the one with the sound device, one by one. This can also extend to outdoor spaces if any.

An analogue version is to ask someone to read out loud while you go from room to room writing what you manage to hear from what the person is reading.

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?

Dance the space

Let the space choreograph your movements

I think Sodja Lotker gave me that phrase in one of our conversations.
Is a space influencing you to move a certain way? Dance the space, just by doing the spontaneous movements that happen when you enter it, which can be intuitively inspired by angles, sounds, memories, size, usage and so on. In my opinion any movement can be a dance.

Memorize the dance and perform it for someone, will it reveal the space you danced?

Mirroring Architecture

Documenting the space through movements

This was a title Oda gave me in the MA for BA workshop. We then went off separately, doing what ever that title inspired us to do. It has some similarities with Embracing Architecture, 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 furtherest distance from your gaze. 

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 forth in a moment of brainstorming in Copenhagen with Elisa merging a mix of ideas and 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 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.

Phone call guide

Merging memory with reality in the experience of a space

This method is inspired by a moment I was calling from my home in Fredrikstad guiding Naja through the flat in Copenhagen in order to find something for a friend.
By guiding and being guided in dialogue with someone over the phone, new areas of the space was revealed to both of us through sharing her 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 Recording Distances, Mirroring Architecture, Naming to name a few.

Under construction:

Space dreams

Being in another space, ideally far away, imagine the space you want to revisit and write anything you remember about it.

Collective stories

Ask people who has been in the chosen space to write their memories, favorite things, stories, colours, words.

Round and about

Walk the same round several times, each round you give attention to different details:
A choice of color, signs with words, surroundings such as houses, bikes, cups and clothes, number of people or ghosts, road or floor, memories