Profanity

People value things and places differently according to their society. For me profanity is quite a new thing. Profanity is to play with things that people don’t use to play with such as sacred, but its not just playing with those thing, its how the look things into different perceptions that people don’t use to.

In Thailand, the temple is a highly sacred place for all Buddhism, because most of Thai people are Buddhist. The form and design of a temple was adapted to a resort now days. The Dhara Dhevi resort is a good example of profanity. The resort was design to look similar to a temple in the northern part of Thailand. It is very beautiful, but in some perceptions people disagree in a way they use the temple design to build a resort for guests, because in their perception a temple is a highly sacred place.

The concept of profanity is to adapt and look at things that are sacred in a new way. In our time because technology and science some group of people have less believe in sacred and religious. What have been sacred in the past are less sacred now.

Empty

Empty Space – Empty Form

 Empty space and empty form are different. Empty form is quite interesting because it goes completely the opposite way of “form follow function”. The form itself no longer serves its function, but the space can still serve varieties of function. The function changes to another function through time. The building we’ve seen in class was once used to be a factory in the past. The space was used as minimum space and maximum people. But now that factory has already changes into a luxurious residential apartment in the middle of Manhattan Island. Unlike an empty space is a dead space, which can not be use as anything else but the function it has been built for.

An empty space gives the freedom to the designer to choose what ever will be assembled in that space. The space could return into its first purpose and can also transform into new things.

Hyperreality and Simulation

Simulation and hyperreality was a very interesting and excited topic. The idea was to make people believe in what is not true.

We have seen “Borat” in class and it was very inspiring and straight forward to simulation and hyperreal. The movie turned “Borat” a guy from Kazakhstan traveling to America. We didn’t know how Kazakhstan people live or do but the film shapes our understanding of Kazakhstan, so we believe what he says. Borat in this film represents how Kazakhstan people are that is why the real Kazakhstan people really hat the movie.

The film was very funny, but some actions may not be acceptable for some people, mostly girls. Most actions are weird and strange because the character “Borat” doesn’t understand the western culture, which actually he does. So the actor knows where to approach the western people and turn that againts the people in the movie which is in the hyperreal mode and make them believe that it is really happening.

This movie was made for entertaining only. And it we can see the simulation and hyperreality very clearly from this film. This is a very good example for that.

DE-SIGN

DE-SIGN

What is design? My meaning of design is creating an new creation, new thing through process developing from the start till the ending final product to fulfill the purpose and function we want. Or taking an existing thing and develop it or combine it to another thing and create a new product which has the function of both.

Sign comes in varieties of form such as symbols, icons, and index. These things relate back to our interpretation. Some signs are easy to understand, when we see it we might understand it right away. Like a sign of a handicap parking, its just a silhouette picture of a wheelchair without details. Grown ups with normal understanding will understand that sign, but children wont be able to understand it if they have not been taught before.

The picture of a pentagon we’ve seen in class was immediately interpreted as a house even though it was just a pentagon and a house doesn’t need to look like that.

De-signing is a way to translate an object we already understand to another level. For example the “Rubin House” the architect moved the door underneath the house and extruded the pentagon, so the architect was translating the sign to not a sign.  

Experience, Context and Environment

My first impression of the Bangkok Sclupture Center was great. The big sculpture “ Stop” and the “Lion” were very attractive. The design of the building was quite interesting as well. While moving through the building the sculptures keep showing up continuously during the way to the main exhibition hall reminding us that this is a sculpture center. After walking around the exhibition hall the members in my group decided to choose their own sculpture individually without fixing the concept of each other, so it was mainly self-preference.

First I looked into the context of each sculpture also the material and size as well.

My pavilion focused on natural light and positioning the sculptures on the particular sides. The sunlight will shine through the channel in a specific time to the sculpture. The shadows on the sculpture will create the atmosphere inside the pavilion. The shadows will give the sense of holiness and emphasis the sculptures themselves. The pavilion was built by weaving bamboo panels to give the feeling of traditional Thai culture which comes from the main sculptures “ The Garuda” and “Stop”. The guest can see the exhibition only when the sun hits the right position and the right time.

Meaning and Interpretation

Meaning and inspiration relates to each one another. “Nothing but your interpretation” is quite true I believe. Our interpretation creates the frame of our understanding and creates the meaning of everything.  Every person has his or her own meaning of something and the people mostly have similar thinking if they are in the same level of society and knowledge, but somehow different from each other and sometimes totally different from us. The society also plays an important role how we understand things. The society frames our thinking by education as well. We learn things while we grow up and we upload the data and knowledge, so if we are not educated as we are today we might see things differently from today.

Relating to Weizman’s article “ Lethal Theory” that walls are not obstacles, they don’t create boundary, which actually the interpretation of most people walls create boundary, walls divides space. We can’t travel through walls. But in the article they said that traveling through wall is a thing can be done.

Interpretation frames the meaning. Every person has different interpretation for each thing. It depends on the society that person grew from, that person’s education and knowledge.