The human body is a complex organism. Even the most common or everyday experiences – such as sitting down on a chair or taking a single step up a flight of stairs – describe an intricate choreography between a human body and an immediate constructed environment.
The limits of the human body are prescribed and inscribed in our constructed environment through social contract. If we want to make new designs, or challenge the existing order of things, we must first understand the limits of human body prior to challenging the notion of “inhabitation”.
In this project, we will inquire into the limits of the human body through a spatial study of movement. Historically, the human body itself has been used as a unit of measure for the construction of buildings, fabrication of goods, and trade of materials.
Movement studies – from Marey to Muybridge to Duchamp to Forsythe – have expanded historical understandings of the body, through the production of new recording and sensing instruments, methods of representation, and in forming connections between arts and sciences.
Students will be challenged to develop a model and drawing that describes the space of movement of the human body.
Download project brief for part 1 as .pdf file.
The objectives of this project are to study the space of movements of the human body through drawings and photographs, that will provide us with a scope and framework for the second part of the project.
In this project, students working in groups of two, are asked to study the space of movement of the human body using photography, drawing, and three dimensional model making techniques.
Students will be challenged to define an area of the body that includes at least three (3) joints, that will serve as the site of inquiry. Once an area of the body has been determined, the students will document the extents of that movement through photographs. Using these photographs, students will develop hybrid drawings and a model from the hybrid drawings that demonstrates the space of movement, proportional relationships, and limits of the space of bodily movement.
Inhabit:
To live in or occupy a place or environment
To exist or be situated within; dwell in
Origin ~ late Middle English inhabite, enhabite, from Old French enhabiter or Latin inhabitare, from in- ‘in’ + habitare ‘dwell’ (from habere ‘have’).
In this project, we will take what we have learned from our project on the study of the space of human movement to investigate the notion of inhabitation, in working with a given volume and constraints of a material. In this project the initial given volume is a 5cm x 10cm x 2.40 meter section of pinewood.
On the tangible level this project requires one to develop a system that informs the transformation of the given member of dimension lumber. The student will be required to use the entire piece of wood – meaning that no material can be thrown away or excluded. Also, students must carefully and critically consider the joints, seams, or connections in the fabrication of the construct.
On the conceptual level, we will investigate the definition of inhabitation. What does it mean to inhabit a volume, and what is the intimate relationship between the body and material that is developed in the act of inhabitation? What are the various ways in which one can define inhabitation?
Download project brief for part 2 as .pdf file.
This project seeks to extend our investigation into the relationship between body and space and to define inhabitation through a spatial and material exploration.