The Duality of Architecture.

So for my Architecture piece, I wanted to show how architecture is made to be one thing, but can be used for other things. Hence the whole duality headline. I've just started, really, but I've got some pictures I really like. These are just of skateboarding, but I have ones of people using architecture for other things as well, like a power plant being used as a playground (for grown people, not for children, that would just be scary) and weird things like that.





Here are the other pictures. I'll bring the written part to class.

Tentative Final Schedule

297 Project Final Schedule

Final Projects

Remaining Dates

Architecture / History / Documentary

4/8: Read Roland Barthes Empire of Signs,

1) Write several paragraph response to discuss in class

2) Pursuit of an Architectural Investigation (on campus / off campus) (Get inside the logic of the architecture) Bring a Piece of it to Share in Class

4/15: Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (HWSG) to page: 237

1) Write response considering Eggers in relation to Agee or any other writer we’ve discussed. (Note especially Eggers’ self-consciousness.)

2) Bring in / Complete Something More w/ Architecture – specifics TBA

3) Bring ideas for other Documentary work – a list of 5

4/22: Finish HWSG,

1) Write a short response

2) New Documentary work (ideas generated by class)

4/29: Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet

1) Write a short response

2) New Documentary work (ideas generated by class)

5/6: Share Final Portfolios, upload to web prior to this date

* 5/13 Celebration of Writing – you are invited and encouraged to display your work at the Celebration*

Final Portfolio: a polished compilation, on the website and in hard copy, of your documentary work to date, including a 2 page (or so) write-up of considerations/motivations/inspirations of your work.

Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project

Documenting Architecture

The Arcades Project is Benjamin's effort to represent and to critique the bourgeois experience of nineteenth-century history, and, in so doing, to liberate the suppressed "true history" that underlay the ideological mask. In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by "progress," Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.

One Big Self

This is a New Orleans' Times-Picayune article and video on Deborah Luster and her photographs of Louisiana Prisoners.

Here is a link to Luster's photographs.

297 Project Website in Construction

Some, but not all of you, may know that I'm working on a website that will eventually contain all of our documentation from this semester. Don't worry - I'm not crazy, I'm getting credit for the website in another class.

Anyway, here is the link to what I've put up so far. It's far far far from done, and I would appreciate it if you guys would look at it every once in a while (because I will be working on it and updating the link), and give me suggestions/feedback as it is meant to be OUR website and also a sort of collaboration.

Thanks so much you guys!

http://people.umass.edu/gsegalla/297 Project/index.html

(let me know if you have any problems with the link)

Veterinary Farm

I walked past Amethyst farm and up the hill of North East street that coasts along the back edges of town and towards North Amherst. On my right up ahead was another farm, a red one that tucked away behind the road, and was accessible through a dirt driveway that fell from the paved road. Things looked pretty busy in the driveway, a man stepping out of a U.P.S. truck with a box in hand. There are many trucks angled across its light brown dirt, parked. I walked up to the first people I saw, hoping that my presence wouldn't be too much of an imposition on their workload. There was a wiry woman standing in the doorway of a little white building that has a door with credit card stickers on its windows: VISA, Mastercard, and other accepted credit forms. The woman's s hair was red, she was short, and wore wide framed glasses that closed in tightly around her alert eyes. Her energy was bright past her years and she looked curiously at me as I stood at the stoop with my camera in hand. A postman was at my side, delivering boxes in and out of the door.

I asked the woman if it was okay if I take pictures. She asked what they were for and I said that I was compiling photographs for class. She said that it was fine as long as it was for school. I told her I went to Umass and laughing, she said that her name was Sarah and that her daughter was a freshman at Umass now.

"She's part of the writing department. The shortest and smallest little one...that's my daughter."
"Maybe you can take my picture too," joked the U.P.S. man as he stepped back outside, framing his face between his hands.
"So...is the man who owns this farm around?" I asked the old woman with the bright red hair.
"Shame. You just missed him. He's out on the road now. He'll be out on the road all day."
"Is the purpose of this farm for developing eggs or creating beef?" I asked somewhat dumbly.
"Oh no. This is a veterinary farm."

I glanced outside and at the wall above an entrance to the main indoor area where animals were kept and saw a painting of a cow grazing on a green field, and the title of the farm said "Holstein Farm" in big blue letters. The woman was scurrying around the office, picking up papers for the packages that had been delivered and putting them away in filing cabinets. She was a secretary of sorts, a bundle of laid back authority.

"His name is Dr. Hess," she said.
"Who's that?"
"He's the veterinarian that works here."

A man walked in from outside with a shovel in his hand, wearing a Carhartt jacket. His boots were caked in mud and he looked to be in his mid thirties. He introduced himself as Larry and commented on the weather and how it wasn't too bad, considering he had to be outside all day. WIth excitement he asked Sarah if the calf had been born yet. Sarah answered no, unfortunately not. These people's lives revolve around the cycles of animals and each animal is treated with such close attention that they are like nephews, visited every so often but generally left to their own devices.

Thanking her for allowing me to take photos I walked under the pass and into the main barn. It was dimly lit, golden around the edges and filled with the fine dust of dirt that pixelated the area of light that shone in from the windows. The rows of windows that lay across the right wall splashed sunshine across the brown floor. The ceiling was old, split apart in places, and filled at parts with hay, jammed between the crevices between beams and ceiling, jagged ends of nature protruding, tentacles from the room's head. Straight ahead was a sad calf in his own little metal cage, standing in the center still young, mainly black with white on its heels and in a splotch on its forehead. Behind him was a larger trapping of wooden banisters that contained two cows who stood next to one another with tags on their ears, and leaning their heads over the top of the fence as I walked by. These animals aren't the sick ones, I had been told, they were Dr. Hess's animals, raised as replacements for when cows at other farms became too old and stopped producing as high quality milk.

In a clumsy effort the male cow kept on trying to mount the female, rearing up and hoisting its heavy front legs onto the female. The female brushed him away and spun around. The male tried again. For a second, I thought that the male was trying to boost himself out of the cage so that he could escape the confines of his area and come after me; for some reason I have a sneaking suspicion of animals revolting against me, the man with the camera who does not appear familiar to them. The twitter and cackle of black birds filled the inside of the barn as they swooped from the ceiling and replanted themselves in different spots. The atmosphere of the room was that of aged composure, remarkable for its the ability to remain standing even against the weather of nature and time, the unpainted walls white and stained with water in places, the floors coated in hay, and various containers for the upkeep of the place standing next to the cages. Working my way towards the back I saw the pregnant cow, a massive brown creature whose sides near its utters appeared to be worn away by dirt, the raw looking flesh scabbed over with brown fleshy areas that combed over the otherwise austere black coat of its fur. Its stomach hung low towards the floor and you could tell that it would be giving birth very soon.
These animals have limited language, composed of grunts, the rounding sounds of mooing, and yet their eyes carry a world of integrity, a steadfast determination to remain simple, a dying sense of anger or attitude as if to express a dislike for being looked at.
Leaving the barn, the sun struck across the land, and showed the shadowy divots of the earthen driveway where trucks had worn their way through. And back beyond that barn were other red buildings, rooster red, and outside them was a tractor, its detached spindly arms. Big black tubes lay across the ground awaiting use. Further down the road, smoke was rising from a large mountain of what looked like wood chips and dirt and big metal plows were hauling their weight back and forth across the mess like determined ants of a newer age.

-Ezra Prior-

The Amherst Forgotten, Lost, and Found

While I was exploring the alleyways and back-doors of the center of Amherst, looking for graffiti to snap my camera at, I found a lot of neglected objects. Take this little red chair for example, which seems to only ever be occupied by icicles:

That little red chair has grown on me. In fact, I have seriously considered going back and taking it home, so that I can sit on it everyday.

Besides motivating me to contemplate stealing, thinking about that forgotten little chair has made me ponder forgotten things in general, which has led me to begin a careful study of the Lost & Found. I find lost and forgotten things to be intriguing. For example, the things you find lost in one place will always be very different than the things you find lost in another place. It goes without saying that you will always find lost baseballs around the outskirts of a baseball field, and lonely mittens in melting snowbanks, and mascara tubes on the sinks of public bathrooms. You are more likely to find lost Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses under a table in an upscale Cafe than you are to find those dollar store reading glasses that snap like fingers beneath the same table.

So, I have decided to embark on an Amherst-wide search of Lost & Found things. I plan to visit as many places as I can looking for lost and found objects. Here is the first place I've gone:

The Amherst Coffee Lost & Found

Amherst Coffee – bringing Coffee, Tea, Wine, and Spirits to the Amherst elites – is to Rao's Coffee as Amherst Books is to Raven Books. The caffeine-fueled lively jostle of Rao's seems like a party in a box of animal crackers in comparison to the calm atmosphere in Amherst Coffee. Don't let the promise of calm fool you though – your satisfaction depends on the type of calm you're looking for. Amherst Coffee's straight-black-trimmed interior and exterior architecture is neat enough to give those of us with even the worse case of OCD a degree of mental peace. On any given day, you can find intellectuals equipped with MacBooks, a taste for coffee shop jazz, and the money to spend on double mocha lattes with espresso to fuel their furious typing.

I've gone to Amherst Coffee on Thursday nights to watch jazz bands play. It's always packed; it's a place to be. But on any given early Tuesday afternoon, you might find some middle-aged men with MacBooks, a few pairs of college age girls gossiping about a philosophy class, and the usual lone customers sitting at the windows – their MacBooks perched beneath their punching fingers, their steaming drinks in dangerously close range.

After taking all of this in, I walked up to the counter, and said,“Hi, do you guys have a lost and found?”

“What'd you lose?”

“Nothing, I just want to write down whatever's in it”

(Puzzled look)

“For a project.”

“Oh, follow me.”

They keep their lost and found in a locker in the back. I hunkered down on an upturned milk-crate and dug in. Here is what I found:

One magnivision glasses case (strong +2.50)

One pair of Targee prescription glasses

One pair of Black old person solar shield glasses

One Black Kangol hat (size medium)

One set of keys with a gym membership attached to the ring

One traffic-stopping-orange “State of Nine” baseball cap

One pair of black leather gloves

One long homemade olive and muave checked scarf

One dirty white t-shirt with the name “Bob” scribbled across the front with black permanent marker (size small)

One worn and dirty-blue t-shirt

One charcoal lambswool gap scarf complete with a moth hole

One black lambswool Nautica scarf with tassels

One nameless brown alpaca scarf with tassels (very nice)

One gray bucket hat by “The Hats Company by Filippo Catarzi” made in Italy

One ugly light blue white striped ski cap with the name “mauri” scrawled on the tag

One children's book written in Hebrew and printed in Israel, with the picture of a woman painting hip flower designs on a tractor

One pair of Cruella Devil-esque red kid gloves with black fuzzy fringe

One pair of black fleece EMS convertible gloves complete with flip-open thumb

One pair each of navy blue Nike, and of black kid's gloves

One left-hand brown leather sherpa kids mitten

One left-hand long light green glove

One large right-hand Mountain Hardwear fleece glove

One right-hand black leather glove, fleece lined, very nice

One tiny right-hand Old Navy navy blue toddler mitten, with a pair of penned paper eyes taped on to the top of them (scary)

One very large thick navy blue thinsulate glove, right-hand.

What do these lost items tell me about Amherst Coffee?

More customers consider their right hands to be more important than their left hands.

The Amherst Coffee children enjoy eccentric clothing, as well as books in other languages.

A dirty man named Bob likes to go to Amherst Coffee.

Customers who go to Amherst coffee like fancy scarfs, but not enough to remember them on the way out.

Customers in Amherst Coffee who lose their glasses are generally relatively old, and need those glasses that block out all traces of sunlight.

Amherst Technology Park

Sometimes, walking through an office building can be an adventure. You never know what you may find. As I crept through the Amherst Technology Park, I got a chance to spy on offices, record my thoughts, and to know what it felt like to wander through such a place. Video below:

The American Highway Project

           I found this site particularly interesting. This American photographer Edgar C. Praus has a project called The American Highway Project. He dedicates his work towards documenting the quaint roadside attractions of small towns. The motive that drives him is that he finds them fascinating cultural assets which are quickly being subsumed by more commercial malls and regular stores. The old facade of America remains in many places while in bigger cities architecture turns towards a more modern fashion.  

          I liked his work in particular because it choses to focus on what might be considered a neglected aspect of our history and shed light on America's less-known towns and sights. 

        -Ezra Prior-

Amethyst Farm

So there's this farm down the road from me which I have always thought has a particularly beautiful layout. It's called Amethyst Farm and is a Private grounds for people to bring their horses to. I took some photos of the barns and of the horses there which are posted here. There was something particularly interesting about this part of the farm whose foremost purpose is for people to hold their horses in. The way that the horses are wrapped in blankets to be kept warm is something I had not seen before either. I want to learn more about this but was told that I shouldn't be taking pictures and that the owner was not in. 

                                                                                                                    Ezra Prior

                

Michael Lesy on making of Wisconsin Death Trip

Author of Wisconsin Death Trip talks with Robert Birnbaum

documenting amherst

Documenting Subways, Comedy, & The Financial Meltdown

Design Classics was a 1980s documentary series looking at revolutionary pieces of design. The London Underground Map is about the subway map, created in 1933 by Underground employee Henry Beck, that has become an icon of both London and British design.

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100 Years Of Comedy is a documentary about the history of comedy during the 20th century. Written by Phillip Dye, the documentary features narration over archival footage of Jim Carrey, Eddie Murphy, Charlie Chaplin, and many other great examples of comedy in history.

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Frontline is probably the best broadcast documentary series with some of the best investigative journalism of its kind with a whopping 26 awards and 25 nominations. The series focuses on exploring and illuminating the critical issues of our time.

On Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008, the astonished leadership of the U.S. Congress was told in a private session by the chairman of the Federal Reserve that the American economy was in grave danger of a complete meltdown within a matter of days. "There was literally a pause in that room where the oxygen left," says Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

Inside The Meltdown takes a close look at the current economic recession and the causes behind it. If you don't know why our economy got so bad so quickly, then this documentary may shock you to the bone.

Center for Land Use Interpretation

I saw the director of this organization (Michael Coolidge) speak at a lecture in Philadelphia a few weeks ago on its current projects and mission. Everything was purposefully left vague. He explained that CLUI's field of study was in "anthropogeomorphology," or the study of people interacting with and changing landscapes. (Landscape, in this context, referring to anything from a bombing range to a parking lot to a basin.) We were told that much of the research ends up as photo exhibits in museums - unintended as anything but a document of a certain place at a certain time. Several of the audience members were apparently uncomfortable by this fact and asked Coolidge during the Q&A after the lecture if he thought it unethical for CLUI to simply "document." His answer was an unequivocal "No."

Guy P.

To Amherst Via Train

It is the exact same price to go from Boston to Amherst by train as it is by bus. But instead of a view that mostly consists of highways, the train offers a very scenic look of Amherst and really shows its true beauty.

Upon arrival in Amherst from the Vermonter train, you find yourself at the Amherst rail station, which looks very eclectic and old fashioned.

Directly outside the station, you can sit on a convenient bench dedicated to Edward Spear and Bessie Spear, long-time residents of Dickinson street.

For those cold days, there is a lounge inside that offers a place for you to wait inside. You will find a few benches, a clock, a map, a local phone, and a time-table for when the trains depart.

The Vermonter is a very relaxing train, with comfortable seats, a cafe, electrical outlets at your seat, and plenty of leg room. The train leaves Amherst toward Washington D.C. at 1:19 pm daily and leaves toward Burlington, VT at 4:20 pm daily. This form of travel may be far more appreciated than bus travel.

-Jonathon Cohen

Amara Hark-Weber Blog / Photos

Gabrielle's graffiti photos made me think of the work my friend Amara Hark-Weber has done. This blog shows some of her pictures from Elefsina, Greece.

Jack

Amherst Graffiti

Hello All,

I took some pictures of Graffiti as planned.
It was really cold out, so I only covered the side of the street from Amherst Books to Rao's Coffee.

here's the link:

http://people.umass.edu/gsegalla/photo_album/index.htm

I hope it works. please let me know if it doesn't.
click on the thumbnails to see bigger pictures.

(I hope you like them).

-gabrielle

The Stone Reader

Hi. I recently watched this documentary after having read the book "Stones of Summer." The film is about an avid reader's pursuit of Dow Mossman, who after having his book published dropped into obscurity and never wrote another. The film is a little long but it explores the nature of the publishing industry and Dow's possible situation as the documentarian tries to find him. It's fascinating. Here is a link for the trailer to the film, The Stone Reader.

-Ezra Prior-

Abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans

http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/abandoned-six-flags-orleans


This site shows pictures of a Six Flags amusement park that remains abandoned today since Hurricane Katrina. I chose this "documentary piece" because 1) I think the photos are sad 2) I found it interesting that someone chose to document something like this at all. There are links to more documentary-like pages that chronicle other forgotten architectures on the website.

M.D.

We Can Print It For You Wholesale

The book business is constantly evolving.

The Gutenberg printing press has evolved into a wholesale printing press.

Large bookstores have become massive, corporate, chain-bookstores.

Corporate bookstores have become online bookstores.

Hardcover books are now available as digital books.



The digital book has been pirated or made free.

So how will an independent, store-front, hardcover-selling bookstore compete?

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The Food For Thought Books Collective is a workers' collective small bookstore in downtown Amherst, MA that has survived for more than thirty years. This bookstore, and many independent bookstores like it, have been able to stay competitive by joining together in the American Booksellers Association, a trade association that helps independent bookstores sell books online, network with publishers and authors, get advertisements, and attract future readers through a service called Indiebound.

There is another independent bookstore just down the street, but Food For Thought does not consider them competition. Food For Thought has found a specific niche of books to sell that they have special expertise in. These books may not be sold in other bookstores since they require the attention of a local reader with similar interests.

One of their specific niches is surrounding textbooks for students in the college town. Professors or instructors prefer Food For Thought because they are much easier to deal with than the more corporate sellers like eFollet. They also may suggest students look at other books in the bookstore that would be more likely pair up with a course.

Food For Thought offers a few special events, a comfortable feel, and gives back to the community. For example, they allowed local artists from Hampshire College to paint a mural outside their store.

People will want that tactile feel of holding a book, being able to talk directly to an expert about recommendations and their opinions on what the reader might like, find books that may not be available elsewhere, or being able to buy from a store that gives back to the community and be apart of their daily lives. Independent bookstores are here to stay.

I interviewed Mitch Gaslin (pictured above), who has worked at Food For Thought for 23 years, to learn more about the local bookstore.

-Jonathon Cohen

Jonathon Cohen's Documentary Links

Michael Moore might just be the most popular documentary film-maker of our time. He is also the man that has made it nearly impossible for any journalist to walk up to anyone and say, "Hi, I'm writing a documentary. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He shows a very specific point of view in his films that critics have objected to for being biased. But with the highest grossing documentary of all time, you have to admit that he has a major effect on shaping the way we make documentaries. I highly recommend watching all of his documentaries and Canadian Bacon. To get a taste of his style, I have provided the full documentary of Bowling For Columbine.

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The League of Noble Peers created a documentary series called Steal This Film that documents the movement against intellectual property.

To promote their cause, they distribute their films for free via the BitTorrent p2p protocol. If you do not understand how they distribute films, then this is why their documentary style is so important.

There have been a few documentaries by 'old media' crews who don't understand the net and see peer-to-peer organisation as a threat to their livelihoods. They have no reason to represent the filesharing movement positively, and no capacity to represent it lucidly. We wanted to make a film that would explore this huge popular movement in a way that excited us, engaged us, and most importantly, focussed on what we know to be the positive and optimistic vision many filesharers and artists (they are often one) have for the future of creativity.^[1]

The League have come out with another film, to help educate the public about the landmark trial against The Pirate Bay, a torrent tracking website, for promoting other people's infringements of copyright laws. The results of this case could change the course of intellectual property for years to come. The full feature can be seen below.

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Sean Penn recently won an Oscar for his performance in Milk, a docudrama about the life of Harvey Milk. While Milk may be more entertaining, another film of similar name also won an Academy Award for a film about Harvey Milk.

The Times of Harvey Milk uses archival footage and narration to show the political career and impact of Harvey Milk and was an inspiration for the 2008 film. Hulu is offering the documentary free for viewing with a few short advertisements.




I hope you enjoyed my documentary links and please feel free to comment below! :)