This work is a statement portraying my desire to work in the industry of landscape architecture, whilst not being confined to a world behind a computer. This aspiration for an alternative experience in the landscape is driven by an understanding of the haptic sensation’s I enjoy in my daily life, being touched by sun and the wind, seeing trees move, hearing birds calling. It seems the outside offers a much more interactive space then static environment of a building.
Acknowledging the fundamental reasons for why we work in these environments, I have decided to bring some of the sensory experiences associated with the outside, into a workspace. For this reason I propose to install vegetation into this conceptual workspace, creating a more tactile sensorial experience whilst behind a computer. This alternate experience of a computer work station with vegetation signifies our need as humans to be in contact with “nature” and not living a synthetic lifestyle. When installing the "natural" into the synthetic, the vegetation could be perceived as synthetic, as its existence in a computer is unreal. This work also comments on the limited use vegetation can play in our field of design. As Landscape architects we have the opportunity to use the most highly developed and diverse material on earth “vegetation”, but the use of this material is often overshadowed due to our design process through computers.
How will people respond
The majority of materials that I have used have come from hard waste. This annual affair in our suburbs will undoubted work in favor of my installation, as it is not uncommon to see random pieces of furniture placed out of context in our urban environment.
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| Someones response to hard waste" Monitors in Discussion". |
I predict that people will make a correlation between my installation and the objects that are currently waiting patently around the streets, much like I did a few years ago when I came across this display of monitors in discussion.
DESIGN IN PROCESS
Although the conceptual design of this installation was completed before undertaking construction, it was through the process of creation that the final design emerged. Like any design one must start somewhere. If I was go through this process again, the result would be different, but the approach and process would alternately be the same. This is due to the visual guidelines I undertake in applying the La Pok aesthetic.
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| Built in my backyard. |
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| Intervention installed on site. |
By placing this desk installation on a concrete box, rather then on the grass, the eye of the viewer is more likely to recognize the work station. According to the reading “Open Spaces”, “giving form reduces the amount of individual pieces of information to be absorbed, Thus have our mind clear for additional information”. Forming means reacting to connections and creating them. Now that the work station is easily distinguished from its surroundings, the user can then to make out the components of the installation and began to unpack what it is that they see. It is this process of recognition that has inspired me to paint the work. As if I had not, it would be much easier to comprehend, that this is a desk with a computer on top, filled with plants. If this was as easily recognized it would certainly create less interest by passes by.
I couple of months later I was searching to see if anyone had posted the memorial. I was pleasantly surprised to find an article in the Northcote leader. If you want to check it out click here.
