Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Homes in time and space
In a recent lecture entitled 'The gift of truth', AUT's head of spatial design Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul discusses the Pacific cultural concept of not being alone in your body...Moreover the body functions as an environment melding both time and space where you ancestors also dwell; a kind of multi-habitation, essentially allowing them to making their time-space home in you! I kind of like this idea of my own body as a home base for my ancestors...! I can already think of a few who might be there/ here..Schwarzpaul goes on to describe the design processes as a cultural construct in itself (xf. Schwarzpaul), where meaning is created through the necessary and unconcious drivers of interactions with others. And I'm thinking also of the influences those 'many' persons who live and within us may have..This seems to me also part and parcel of the way we recreate 'homes' in a new environment- the relocated cultural construction which bears influences of past and present lives...
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6 comments:
hi,
had to find out your blogspot after our discussion today - and here it is. looks good and brand new!
just feel like i need to correct an attribution: the notion of the body as a home for the ancestors was not mine: i was quoting albert refiti (who is head of spatial design - i'm head of postgraduate studies, aut school of art and design).
talk soon : )
Thanks for the correction Tina.
I am also interested in your exhortion to designers to see a sense of wonder as being at the heart of good designs.
How the impossible becomes possible with a little bit of waiting and listening and dislocating oneself from safety... is a truism I can relate to myself as I explore suitable research pathways.
I feel as wonder-filled as the small child I once taught who watched my buzzy-bee earrings so closely,hardly breathing, waiting and hoping to catch one flying away...
Each new person I speak to, each book or article I read these days parts the research jungle a little further before me. Previously hidden paths twist and turn revealing so many things I didn't know I didn't know (to quote Ann Kerwin, AUT's Philosopher-in-residence.
So thanks for your insights and ideas.
hi frangipani,
you must me around where i move if you know ann kerwin ...
"I didn't know I didn't know (to quote Ann Kerwin, AUT's Philosopher-in-residence."
well, i thank our for being interested in the notion of seeing a sense of wonder at the heart of good designs. and, again, that wasn't my idea. it was given to me in a heated discussion about this very lecture - a close friend, ross jenner, reminded me that scepticism alone doesn't cut it. reminded me of the many times where the sense of wonder had fired me up to think longer, harder - act, and think again.
really. it just makes it plain that none of us is a self-contained entity ... yes? no?
now ... i'm really struggling to remember my username and password - maybe i can never send this out into the world? let me think and work it out.
good to hear you, frangipani!
ciao for now
tina
ha! now i realise who frangipani is ... : )!!! god i'm slow sometimes.
and - goodness - do i hope that i can remember user name and pw again to post this. how are you?
HI again Tina, just re-read your comment and realised it was from Nov 07...what a slacker I've been on my site since.. I'd can only partially blame this on a too busy semester the result of which has been to move aside my own interests and confidence.. little time to focus on post-grad planning. I'm now feeling ready to sign up to something (anything!) and am putting aside a day next week to do so. Final decision needed between soc sci and art/design.. though a combination would be ideal. Will ph you to talk again.
Deborah
and now, many months later, what are you doing? how are you? i'm back from germany and not adverse to having coffee somewhere sunny!
t
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