The re-purposefulness of lending libraries make for a wonderful treasure trove of shared information and literacy for any public space. You can refer to an old post on Libros Schmibros I had written months ago to attest to the positive qualities of lending libraries. I found this hidden gem while walking around the Mission Hills neighborhood in San Diego over a week ago. The charming craftsman bird house style on a tall post was a homey aesthetic choice from the person who designed and built this particular library. Just a moment before approaching and taking a photo of this petite lending library, I noticed a young kid walking up to open and browse the selection of texts. His mom stashed a paperback in an open slot and the two walked off together. I found myself thankful for alternative libraries and those that had shared what was old for them but new for someone else. I also enjoyed the idea that you don't have to have a large room to rent to create a lending library, but that you can allocate a small space on the sidewalk to the public.
With the surge of ebook (or digital book) sales over the past couple of years I've wondered about the future of tangible texts and their literal shelf life. My memories and fondness of public libraries and mom and pop bookstores also tag the unspoken value of literacy. Physically turning a page of a book is like holding your breath in anticipation of the next part of a novel, or letting your mind reach a stopping point to quickly ponder and review new information read in a nonfiction catalog. This doesn't compare to the finger swipe on the screen of a mobile device. Plus, I don't bear as many headaches while reading through a book than say staring at a glaring computer screen with popup advertisements.
The re-purposefulness of lending libraries make for a wonderful treasure trove of shared information and literacy for any public space. You can refer to an old post on Libros Schmibros I had written months ago to attest to the positive qualities of lending libraries. I found this hidden gem while walking around the Mission Hills neighborhood in San Diego over a week ago. The charming craftsman bird house style on a tall post was a homey aesthetic choice from the person who designed and built this particular library. Just a moment before approaching and taking a photo of this petite lending library, I noticed a young kid walking up to open and browse the selection of texts. His mom stashed a paperback in an open slot and the two walked off together. I found myself thankful for alternative libraries and those that had shared what was old for them but new for someone else. I also enjoyed the idea that you don't have to have a large room to rent to create a lending library, but that you can allocate a small space on the sidewalk to the public.
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I just remembered that this weekend was the big Halloween weekend celebration in Isla Vista. Now being well over 230 miles away, I thought about San Diego in contrast to IV. Sure, the sexy costumes and walking wanderlusts (wanderlush?) are not different, but the large concentration of young 20 somethings parading, partying, observing, binge drinking,... there is no place like IV. This past summer has been a major transition for me, and one that is still enduring. Displacement and estrangement feels like a never-ending theme, and I think about my past project in IV that explored affiliation through relocation. I figure it might be good to attach another write-up about IV. Below is a belated post from a draft I had written well over two months ago. ****************************************************** In late August I attended the official opening of "the LOOP" in IV. The LOOP boasts a new and affordable living space for Isla Vista students. It is also LEED certified, which means this building sucks up less energy and is able to sustain itself. Not bad, eh? I received a second-hand invitation to attend the VIP reception that was located on the rooftop. The food was yummy (baguette sandwiches!!!) and I enjoyed looking at the metro modern & cheeky aesthetic of the building. IV rooftop parties cannot compete with this one. The view is breath- taking. My affiliation with the LOOP primarily deals with the red ceramic party cup fundraiser campaign, "Party for the Arts," a small initiative that funds emerging UCSB artists' projects from the collected proceeds from the purchase of a red cup. The architect of the LOOP utilized a few of our red cups and hired a designer to incorporate them as part of his wall installation inside the lobby of the new building. I like the idea of commissioned pieces that specifies characteristics of its site, and in this particular case, the caricature of an American party classic that resonates in such social college towns as IV. Also note the bike frame lighting sculpture that is also rigged in the same lobby. If you haven't seen the bike culture around Isla Vista, you must make one of your tourist stops on Pardall Road to understand this reference.
There is a refreshing, vibrant, & energetic feel from the LOOP that I am curious about how it is doing today as housing for students. I hope that the LOOP will help bring out more arts & culture in IV, whether through possible programming for art projects or that it will provide more opportunities for commissioned pieces in/out/around the building. The name itself references the shape of the downtown part of IV which curves in a loop. Like the trajectory of a loop, how can this new and promising building bridge art to the community, the community to its stake holders, the stake holders back to the building and its occupants? Neil Denari, former head honcho of SCI-ARC in Los Angeles and current faculty in the Department of Art and Architecture at UCLA came out to the UCSB campus on Friday, Feb. 25th, to talk about his book Gyroscopic Horizons.
A few points of interest came to mind with respects to Denari's talk. First, Gyroscopic Horizons was written 10 years ago. What did Neil have to say about his ideas of the Los Angeles landscape now in comparison to when he first came out with his book? Second, he made reference to John Boorman's film Point Blank (1967) ; what was his relationship to this film? And to throw in a third inquiry, how does he see his role as an architect in spite of his wily sense as a media and cultural theorist? Denari viewed media as an eidetic form of representation, as a world of illusion. "Most of our lives are played out in 2-D," he said, and that our spatial perception changes through media techniques. "Our experience becomes a 2-D image," with abstract signs ... more like the language of a graphic designer. The issue of identity is fluid and fluctual, as that could be said for LA and the 10 years that Denari has lived there. He imagines himself as the character Walker, which Lee Marvin portrays in Point Blank. And just like Walker, Denari is "looking for something that he wants" as he navigates through the streets of LA. He presented the idea of "inhabiting where you are as you are on your own," and related back to Walker reconfiguring his past and present in which he invokes LA, cities, the desert, concrete buildings... and ultimately providing an everywhere-ness. One of the "weird taboos" that Denari admitted during his talk is that "architecture doesn't communicate enough" and found weakness in discourse unless architecture is a spectacle. He wants both sides of the coin, where architecture can behave like media, but doesn't want to give up the structure of architecture. He wants to expose the problems in architecture and its role in media. After his talk, I asked Neil how he saw himself between a media theorist, the "horrible film snob" that he calls himself, and as an architect. He usually identifies himself formally as an architect, but hasn't necessarily thought about his role as an agent. Rather, he is simply an architect with specific interests. From his talk I still ask myself how this applies to the world of art and public/social practice: as artists, what things must we consider in engaging our viewers to experience their everyday eidetically? |
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Van (rhymes with "fun") C. Tran Archives
September 2018
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