vector.city.studio

Dispersion: Family, Identity, and the Delocalized Home

2007-01-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

Where’s home? Usually an innocuous question, to some it is cause for consternation. To ease confusion, the question can be rephrased. Where do you live? Universally less ambiguous, this question can be answered with little hesitation. But why should there be a distinction between the two inquiries?

Home connotes a single geographical space. City, region, and country are often called upon to describe the condition of Home. Associations tied to place are privileged and often dominate meanings of Home. Furthermore, the idea of Home is coupled with the idea of family. Home is the territory where family is defined.

The geographic fragmentation of family is a common contemporary condition. The dispersed family often requires a reinterpretation of Home. Thus, my thesis proposes to investigate the meaning of Home as the territory in which the shared identity of the geographically dispersed family is constructed.

In this investigation, I will draw upon personal ideas of Home and family. Although personally relevant, conditions of fragmentation, asynchronicity, plurality, and dispersion are also representative of a general postmodern reality. In assessing an alternate nature of Home, I will consider globalizing trends including increased personal mobility and electronic communication, multiple sites of habitation, and wider social and infrastructural networks. As local spatial conditions dissolve or become blurred, temporal coordinates are elevated to emphasize and anchor the meaning of Home.

In trying to reformulate the idea of Home, I will be examining my own family and the ways we negotiate family identity despite geographic separation. I will characterize how we communicate, forms of interaction, and our routines. As an alternative to place-centered definitions of Home, I have begun to envision Home as a kind of geographically dispersed infrastructure facilitating familial interactions, traditions, and rituals usually carried out in a typical home. In doing so, I will be exploring Home not through the redesign of a house, but through multiple (probably small-scale) architectural interventions that will involve existing infrastructure, institutions, and networks.

In envisioning Home as an infrastructure for the negotiation of family identity, I will begin by considering the synthesis of the supermarket and the automobile. Providing, respectively, for the modern necessities of sustenance and commuting, they represent a link to domesticity. As a context for daily life, these institutions are ubiquitous locally, nationally, and internationally. By considering these institutions as a departure point, I emphasize the prosaic aspects of domesticity in the construction and negotiation of family identity.

peter testa

2005-04-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/science/12text.html

aerial photos

2005-03-30T18:25:00.000-08:00

here's a site for aerial photos. haven't tried it out yet cause i couldn't get it to install, but looks cool:

www.keyhole.com

ADRIANA, LAURA S, and KELLEY....

2005-03-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

Will be staying at the Hotel du Commerce, right in the heart of the Latin Quarter!

14 rue de la montagne
sainte genevieve, 75005

Phone: 33 (0) 1 43 54 89 69

I also have a European cell phone (Spain)...the number is: 600 686 747

Let's start with cocktails.....

2005-03-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

Sunday Night
10 PM
Corcorans (at marc's suggestion)
110 Bvld de Clichy
metro: blanche or place de cliche (on the 2)

http://www.multimap.com/map/places.cgi?client=public&lang=&advanced=&db=FR&cname=Great+Britain&overviewmap=&addr2=110+Bd+de+Clichy&addr3=paris&pc=

also, a friend suggested www.multimap.com - seems to work well for paris and london - actually, very well - lots of little streets are on the map

paris/london reader

2005-03-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

just a reminder to make sure that you copy the reader from the library before you take off. there's a wealth of information concerning mapping/derives/etc...
good chance to familiarize yourself with the material on the plane.
see you in paris.
andrew

paris track and field

2005-03-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

bring your running shoes if you're up for some early morning runs
in paris. luke and i and anthony (perhaps?) hope to get in some
am dèrives at +/- 6 miles/hour, and welcome any interested
properly-equipped parties.

probably will be starting off around 6:30-7:00 every morning and
will arrange rendezvous as necessary....

LauraA in London

2005-03-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

Harvey and I are staying with:

Deirdre/Grant McGlashan
34 Arlington Ave
London
N1 7AY
Subway: Angel

home: 020 7359 3519 (from w/in UK)

Vector Drawing Layers

2005-03-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

Here's the same illustrator file again but it has two new layers of a paris map in vector format. Enjoy.

http://128.32.93.100:16080/~139x/sp05_139x/sp05_139x_archive/Sproul_Plaza/Website/ParisLondon_Map_Layers01_New.ai

Yuki/Kate/Terrence/LauraA's apt in Paris

2005-03-10T18:03:00.000-08:00

43 rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine
75011 Paris
Tel: 01 43 42 18 70
Metro: Bastille

///Forrest+Dan+Ted.[PARIS]Lodgings///

2005-03-10T17:36:00.001-08:00

Hotel Camelia International
3 Rue Darcet, 75017

///Forrest+Dan+Ted.[PARIS]Lodgings///

2005-03-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

Hotel Camelia International
3 Rue Darcet, 75017

Paris and London Base Maps

2005-03-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

Here is the base illustrator file for paris and london. Have fun!

http://128.32.93.100:16080/~139x/sp05_139x/sp05_139x_archive/Sproul_Plaza/Website/ParisLondon_Map_Layers.ai

San Jose Stalking

2005-03-08T20:29:00.000-08:00

Here is some of the info from the ISEA Wiki FYI.

Allow 90 minutes to get there and park etc. As we are expecting to mix with other schools etc, please dont be late.
Also remember to bring digital camera, sketch book, and any other means of recording your environment that you can think of
voice recorders (interviews), disposable camera, digital video camera, etc

_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Meeting time and Place
San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA)
Meet on the front steps. (Inside the lobby if its raining)
110 S. Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113 Map
Wednesday 9th March at 2:30

This is a place to put all of the info for our San Jose Trip.

So far, we have students from SFAI, UC Berkeley and San Jose State planning to collaborate on this adventure. We've talked about mixing the students together and forming small groups (about 7-10?) and giving each group a specific charge. We will offer some structure (perhaps a phrase) and then let them run with it creatively.

Students will use a variety of media: GPS, cameras, video cameras, etc.
Here are a few possibilities:
Nonplaces - non-destinational public spaces (alleys, underpasses, empty lots, etc)
Social Spaces - where people converge, outdoor and indoor
Wheels - the experience of traversing San Jose by car, bicycle, etc.
Getting Lost - secrets of San Jose
Outer/selves - identity, fashion, personal adornment, vehicles, style
Shopping - malls, grocery stores, restaurants, minimarts, etc.
Club Scene - San Jose PM
Subcities - does San Jose have districts, buroughs, or other delineations with the city? Even if they are unmarked or unsanctioned by city planners?

I like the idea of framing our process as if to present San Jose to people who have never been there - Anthony gave the example of a person in Paris preparing a propsal for ISEA.

the next vector

2005-03-07T21:17:00.000-08:00

Here is the reading list for the trip. Zoe and I compiled it to include Jill's De Certeau reading. There are copies of everything on reserve, but the links here will save you some $$ for the PDFs. Also you'll want to check out the links to the sites we'll be talking about in class. Hard copy tomorrow.

Vector.City.Studio V2.0
Bibliography for the trip

Psychogeography, the Situationists and other histories of the alternative city

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984). Especially Chapters “A General Introduction” p xi, and Part 3 “Spatial Practices” p91-131

Simon Sadler, "Making Sense of Psychogeography" in The Situationist City (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998).p. 76-81.

Tom McDonough, Guy Debord and the Situationist International; Texts and Documents, An October Book, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002), Constant, “A different city for a Different Life” in p95-101, and Guy Debord “Editorial Notes: Critique of Urbanism” p103-114

Francesco Cerari, “Anti-walk” in Walkscapes (Barcelona: Gustavo Gili, 2002) p68-118

Guy Debord, The Theory of the Derive, 1958 (accessed from http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/314 on 7th March, 2005)

David Harvey, Paris Capital of Modernity, (New York, Routledge, 2003) Chapter 4 “The organization of space relations” p 107-116

New Technologies, New Territories

Usman Hacque, “Invisible Topographies” (Receiver #09, 2004) http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/09/articles/index02.html (also see PDF incl)

Anne Galloway, “Mobility as World Building/ technologies at play” (receiver #10, 2004) http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/10/articles/index04.html (also see PDF Incl)

Eric Paulos, “Our emergent Urban Computing landscape: Familiar strangers” (receiver #10, 2004)

Malcolm McCullough, Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive computing and Environmental Knowing, (Cambridge; MIT Press, 2004) Chapter 8 Grounding Places p171-193

William Mitchell, “Electronic Memotechnics” in Me++ (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003) p.113-129

Anthony Townsend, “Envisioning the Ubiquitous City” in TCM Locative New Media Reader, http://www.locative.net/tcmreader/

Jonah Bruker-Cohen, “WiFi-Hog: From Reaction to Realization” in TCM Locative New Media Reader, http://www.locative.net/tcmreader/

Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, (London, Verso Press, 1995).

Anthony Vidler, Warped Space: Art, Architecture and Anxiety in Modern Culture (Cambridge: MIT press, 2000) “Spaces of passage: the architecture of estrangement: Simmel, Kracauer, Benjamin” p 65-80, “Metropolitan Montage: The city as Film in Kracauer, Benjamin, and Eisenstein” p110-122

Steen Eiler Rasmussen, London: The unique City” (Cambridge: MIT press, 1934) Chapter 7 “Intercommunication in London” p123-141

Mapping and drawing

James Corner, “The agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Intervention” in Denis Cosgrove (ed) Mappings, (London, Reaktion books, 1999) Chapter 10, p213-252

Michael Boyce, “Mapping” in TCM Locative New Media Reader, http://www.locative.net/tcmreader/

Ali Sant, “Redefining the Base map” in TCM Locative New Media Reader, http://www.locative.net/tcmreader/

Essential links

http://www.34n118w.net/
http://realtime.waag.org/
http://www.panix.com/~andrea/annotate/
http://www.billboardliberation.com/
http://www.biomapping.net/
http://www3.sympatico.ca/drokeby/home.html
http://www.dodgeball.com/social/
http://www.confectious.net/fiasco/index.html
http://machen.mrl.nott.ac.uk/index.html
http://www.flaneur.org/
http://glowlab.blogs.com/
http://www.grafedia.com/about.php?
http://www.headmap.org/
http://culturebase.org/home/struppek/HomepageEnglisch/Anfang.htm
http://locative.net/
http://locative.x-i.net/
http://www.mobilebristol.com/cititag.html
http://www.nycwireless.net/
http://www.oneblockradius.org/obr.html
http://urbantapestries.net/research.html
http://socialfiction.org/ProgCities.html
http://glowlab.blogs.com/psygeocon/
http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html
http://www.soundwalk.com/
http://library.nothingness.org/articles/si/
http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100501
http://uo.space.frot.org/?LondonFreeMap
http://www.yellowarrow.org/index.php
http://courses.interaction-ivrea.it/zoom/TrainDoors/mission.html

infrastructure beautiful

2005-03-02T00:21:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/arts/design/27bern.html

this one's for you, stet.

"Tanks at the Greenpoint, Brooklyn, wastewater plant resemble giant eggs."

about the previous post...

2005-03-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

"New Honda commercial in the UK. Very important that you understand: There are no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again.

The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. The film cost six million dollars and took three months to complete including a full engineering of the sequence.

In addition, it's two minutes long so every time Honda airs the film on British television, they're shelling out enough dough to keep any one of us in clover for a lifetime. Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free" viewings (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!).

When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation — including the costs.

There are six and only six hand-made Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.

Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord) are parts from those two cars.

When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten. They fell off their chairs when they found out it was for real."

So everytime we think our project gets tedious, just think about these poor guys who couldnt use computers to do their dirty work.

Honda Accord

2005-03-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.steelcitysfinest.com/HondaAccordAd.htm

last one for tonight ..... promise

2005-02-25T02:39:00.000-08:00

so, there's this 'center for advanced spatial analysis' that operates out of london. their website is chock-full of info -- i found them because i was researching mathematical and conceptual ideas of spatial interaction. lo and behold, they have also spearheaded a 'virtual london' project, which may soon be very applicable to us all....
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/news/index.htm
enjoy...
y

polar inertia....

2005-02-25T02:25:00.000-08:00

= "journal of nomadic and popular culture" @
http://www.polarinertia.com/

cellular los angeles

2005-02-25T01:19:00.000-08:00

a different way to understand networks in the city of l.a.:

http://www.sppsr.ucla.edu/critplan/past/documents/vol6/03%20Kane.pdf

y

inhabiting the car

2005-02-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

anyone doing their project on the space of the automobile, and the experience of time within that capsule, should check out this theoretical/sociological paper; dense and academic but stimulating
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/urry-inhabiting-the-car.pdf

personal webpage

2005-02-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

Just for reference, anyone can create their own personal webpage with the space allocated on your G drive. To do this, you go into the F:Apps drive where there is a file "www.BAT." By double clicking this "www.BAT" file, a folder is created on your G drive entitled "public.www". By creating this folder, a web directory is created under "http://cougar.ced.berkeley.edu/~[your novel login]" i.e. my web directory would be found under http://cougar.ced.berkeley.edu/~ffrazier. All web files (html, jpgs, swf, pdf) placed in this "public.www" folder are then available on the web at "http://cougar.ced.berkeley.edu/~[your novel login]/[filename]." For example, if I had a main webpage "index.html," I would place it in the folder "public.www" on my G drive. It would then be accessible on the web at "http://cougar.ced.berkeley.edu/~ffrazier/index.html."

I am sorry if this is confusing; it sounds more complicated than it really is. If anyone wants to do this and needs help, just see me. It is really nice since you have 100 megs available, which is much more than you will find at any other free web host--all ad free.

rest stops

2005-02-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

this is from a website talking about driver fatigue and this is an excerpt on how the government is trying preventing the building of more rest stops even though they are needed.

this is from www.smartmotorist.com/sle/sle.htm

Recently, a new factor has arisen to exacerbate the driver-fatigue problem. In many parts of the country, local and county officials have rejected requests by truckstop owners and developers to open additional rest-stop facilities where long-distance truckers can sleep, eat, shower, shop, make phone calls, and have their vehicles serviced. Lack of safe, comfortable and reasonably priced rest stops makes truck driving unnecessarily difficult and increases the likelihood that a driver will push himself past the fatigue point in an effort to find a place to pull off the road and sleep. The reason for the rejection of building-permit applications for new or expanded truck stops seems to be the NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") movement, which increasingly tries to banish commercial and industrial activities from any location near residential property. In some cases, local residents have claimed that truckers, and perhaps truck-stop personnel as well, represent a "bad element" that will lower property values. In others, residents claim that property values will be diminished by truck noise and exhaust and by the 24-hour operation that is essential in the truck-stop industry. Although some of the objections to truck-stop construction have merit, others are erroneous. In both cases, however, failure to expand truck-stop capacity is a threat to driver well-being and hence to safety on the highway.

AutoCad blocks

2005-02-11T15:50:00.000-08:00

For those interested in inserting cars/trucks/people (ie scale) to your drawings go to: www.cben.net. Please note that these blocks should be used for scale and specificity-they should NOT read as objects within your drawings. When you squint at your drawings you should see your design proposal, not autocad blocks...
enjoy
andrew

cadillac ranch

2005-02-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

car graveyard, sculptural gesture, social commentary....

http://www.libertysoftware.be/cml/cadillacranch/crmain.htm

quirky engineers...

2005-02-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

...at the university of houston have put together a series of whimsical, anecdotal, and often-ironic thought-pieces "about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. "

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi975.htm

Ain't That America ...

2005-02-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

Link

Lecture at SFAI - Shirley Shor

2005-02-05T21:08:00.000-08:00

i'm not familiar with her work but sounds relevant/interesting. sfai has a great lecture series in general - there is a calendar on their website - www.sfai.edu

ART, DESIGN + TECHNOLOGY SERIES | SHIRLEY SHOR
2/8/05, 7:30 pm
SFAI Lecture Hall, San Francisco

Shor is part of an emerging generation of new-media artists who are redefining how computers can be utilized as vehicles for artistic production. Her work can be described as liquid architecture for an ever-changing environment generated by computer code. The images projected onto pre-existing or fabricated architectural surfaces challenge the preconceived notion of architecture as a fixed and stable medium. Shor's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent shows include Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, SF Camera Work gallery, SFAC gallery, Ars Electronica, Linz, and Herzliya Museum of Art, Israel. Her work was included in the 2004 California Biennial in the Orange County Museum of Art, and the 2004 Annual GenArt Shows, NewFangle and Emerge. She received the 2003 Bay Area Murphy Award in fine arts. Shor received her BA in Art History and Philosophy from the Tel-Aviv University, and MFA in Conceptual Information Art from San Francisco State University.

Free to the public.

sex, drugs and cocoa puffs

2005-02-03T19:22:00.000-08:00

A book very much worth a look...especially if you have a guilty love of pop culture.

Mies' Gas Station?!?

2005-02-02T18:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.artfifa.com/photo-an/167.asp

Ummm, is there anyway we can get our hands on this film???

from website:
After the Westmount Square in Montreal, the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, the Neue National Gallery in Berlin, the Seagram Building in New York and the Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago, the fabled architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) designed a gas station on Montreal’s Nun’s Island in 1967. Following the success of Expo 67, promoters wanted to make the island “the most marvellous residential area in North America.” An object of fascination for architectural specialists and students worldwide, this simple and utilitarian service station reflects the divergent views held by experts and laymen regarding “everyday” structures, which most of us tend to ignore. In addition to exploring the interplay of form and function in the works of Mies van der Rohe, this film gauges our awareness of architectural language and the role of the architect in society. Observations from the superstars of the world of architecture are interlaced with anecdotes from regular people who come into daily contact with the eminent architect’s work.

article

2005-02-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

a strenuous article about diagramming and the digital…

http://www.reiser-umemoto.com/periodicals/kb/kb.htm

Federal Highway Administration Statistics 2003

2005-02-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs03/index.htm

Section V on roadway extent is perhaps the most relevant. It contains information on total length of highways broken down into numerous categories.

intra-city digital web capsule art project thingy

2005-02-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

it's digital, it's interactive, it's a capsule..... hum, this is sounding familiar

http://www.franklinfurnace.org/tfotp02/gompertz.html

Capsule 2002 is a two city internet work that will link a Capsule Hotel site in Tokyo and a reflective installation environment in NYC. A temporary population of 'inhabitants' assembled in each location will create an overlapping system of packets and compartments. Web-specific goals include enabling multi-user video conference behavior within the browser interface.

Traffic Simulation Website

2005-02-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

http://vwisb7.vkw.tu-dresden.de/~treiber/MicroApplet/

Interestingly increasing the speed limit can make jams worse and cars leaving jams cluster into smaller groups.

quality oil co.

2005-02-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

i don't know what it is about this site - it seems to capture the essence of the service station in all its glory.

http://www.qualityoilnc.com/index.html

service station info

2005-01-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

For an amusing perspective on service station planning, check out Chevron's 411:

"There's More Than Meets the Eye at Today's High-Tech, Customer Friendly Chevron Stations"
http://www.chevron.com/learning_center/station/

"Using sophisticated drafting software [Maya?], Chevron station designers manipulate images on a computer screen to determine the most effective placement or entrances and exits, pumps, restrooms, and behind-the-scenes control panels and circuitry."

I also enjoy how they go on to say gas stations are uberhigh tech but of course still totally focused on face to face customer service.

and
"Some of Chevron's older stations have been razed, redesigned and rebuilt as many as three times - all in an effort to stay up to date'

Fear and Loathing on the Freeway

2005-01-31T14:47:00.000-08:00

About five miles back I had a brush with the CHP. Not stopped or pulled over: nothing routine. I always drive properly. A bit fast, perhaps, but always with consummate skill and a natural feel for the road that even cops recognize. No cop was ever born who isn’t a sucker for a finely executed hi-speed Controlled Drift all the way around one of those cloverleaf freeway interchanges.

Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic-cop. Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side when he sees the big red light behind him . . . and then he will start apologizing, begging for mercy. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. The thing to do -- when you're running along at a hundred or so and you suddenly find a red flashing CHP-tracker on your trail -- what you want to do then is accelerate. Never pull over with the first siren howl. Mash it down and make the bastard chase you at speeds up to 120 all the way to the next exit. He will follow. But he won't know what to make of your blinker signal that says you are about to turn right.

This is to let him know you're looking for a proper place to pull off and talk... keep signaling and hope for an off-ramp, one of those uphill side-loops with a sign saying Max Speed 25 ... and the trick, at this point, is to suddenly leave the freeway and take him into the chute at no less than a hundred miles an hour...

He will lock his brakes about the same time you lock yours, but it will take him a moment to realize that he's about to make a 180 degree turn at this speed . . . but you will be ready for it, braced for the Gs and the fast heel-toe work, and with any luck at all you will have come to a complete stop off the road at the top of the turn and be standing beside your car by the time he catches up. He will not be reasonable at first. He will want the first word. Let him have it. His brain will be in turmoil: he may begin jabbering, or even pull his gun. Let him unwind. Keep smiling. The idea is to show him that you were always in total control of yourself and your vehicle - while he lost control of everything.

It helps to have a police/press badge in your wallet when he calms down enough to ask for your license. I had one of these-but I also had a can of Budweiser in my hand. Until that moment, I was unaware that I was holding it. I had felt totally on top of the situation… but when I looked down and saw that little red/silver evidence-bomb in my hand, I knew I was fucked….

--Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

One more gas station

2005-01-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

Prefab gas station at the Vitra design museum by Jean Prouvé.
http://kuverum.ch/gallery/Modulwoche-Kuverum-lll-Modul-1/Neuerwerbungen0069_1?full=1

America's First Roadtrip

2005-01-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

Horatio's Drive: America's First Roadtrip
on PBS

In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled "horseless carriage." At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today.

Traveling with his co-driver Sewall K. Crocker and a bulldog named Bud (who wore goggles, just like his master, to keep the dust from his eyes), Jackson had the adventure of his life. He encountered pioneers in wagon trains, cowboys who used their lariats to tow him out of sand drifts, ranch wives who traded homecooked meals for a brief ride on the "Go-Like-Hell Machine," and people who deliberately sent him miles out of his way just so their relatives could get their first glimpse of an automobile.

This was America's first transcontinental road trip, and like all road trips that would follow it included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather — and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation's vast landscape.

http://www.pbs.org/horatio/car/

Twisted intersections.

2005-01-30T01:09:00.000-08:00

Late night humor or reality check? Check out these intersections....

http://www.weathergraphics.com/tim/dumbroad/index.htm

Towards a New Diagram :)

2005-01-29T21:33:00.000-08:00

You may notice that we have posted the results of our site visit from this morning in the middle meeting area. Included in this amazing spreadsheet are average gas pumping rates in gallons/min, total visit times, qualitative assessments of each car arriving, and much much more. I know you're all excited now....so if you have any questions, ask me (stet), Kate, Yuki, Kelley, or Grant. We're all too familiar with the Shell station and Kelly, the cashier.

jugs of pee & cibersociedad

2005-01-29T19:06:00.000-08:00

http://teknokultura.rrp.upr.edu/Teknosphera/utomo/UTOMO%20RES.htm

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/rant/pee.html

comparing the two is an interesting clash on reality. the article on urban nomads is very informative, or errrr, romantique. but i don't know how i feel about the article's optimistic stance on urban 'progress', lack of responsibility as expressed in the other website.

phenomenology of velocity

2005-01-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.nike.com/nikelab/usa/episode_3/index.jhtml
Click on "launch art of speed movies"
I particularly recommend the movies by kdlab, tronic, and Saiman Chow + Han Lee

Convienence store Stats

2005-01-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

Hey, check it out.....top sales in convienence stores....etc from the national association of convienence stores:

http://www.nacsonline.com/NACS/Resource/PRToolkit/FactSheets/prtk_fact_ecoimpact.htm

:)

Japanese capsule hotel pictures

2005-01-29T10:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.links.net/vita/trip/japan/lodging/capsulehotel/

road cyborgs

2005-01-28T11:32:00.000-08:00

i found this video in pathfinder -- it's available for in-library viewing in the Media Resources Center in Moffit (phone 642 8197), call number DVD 3111. i haven't checked it out yet so can't attest to its pertinence, although it sounds promising.

"On an overcast morning in 1999, William Gibson stepped into a limousine in Los Angeles and set off on a road trip around North America. The limo was rigged with digital cameras, a computer, a TV, a stereo and a cellphone. The entire movie was generated by this four-wheeled media machine. Both an account of Gibson's life and work and a commentary on the world outside the car windows, the film reveals the landscape of Western culture on the edge of the new millennium, in the throes of convulsive, tech-driven change."

the right to taste

2005-01-27T20:23:00.000-08:00

for those who are looking for ways to slow down the highspeed networks, (anyone?) check out www.slowfood.com for information about the italian movement. its about as far from the mcdonalds drive-through mentality as you can get. their definition of "slow cities" is interesting too...

mappings/diagrams

2005-01-27T17:46:00.000-08:00

I have three Edward Tufte information design/mapping/analytical diagram books at my desk; best for our project is probably Envisioning Information.

Also more art projects that are techy/interactive/urban, maybe not directly vector-related (though all about arrows) but deal with space/non-space subjectivity: yellowarrow.org (as seen in metropolis this month)

2005-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

loop feedback loop

2005-01-27T13:54:00.000-08:00

some of you may find this pertinent: have a look at clui's online exhibition of "the big picture of traffic control in los angeles": http://www.clui.org/clui_4_1/ondisplay/loop/exhibit/index.html

basically it assembles data into a dynamic image of the collective traffic situtation. there might be some useful conceptual schema and graphic techniques to be learned/appropriated....

Cool Website

2005-01-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.otherthings.com/grafarc/

A website about graffiti in the Bay Area.

Nomadology

2005-01-26T18:23:00.000-08:00

A path is always between two points, but the in-between has taken on all the consistency, and enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The life of the nomad is the intermezzo. Even the elements of his dwelling are concieved in terms of the trajectory that is forever mobilizing them.(50)

Deleuze & Guattari. Nomadology: The War Machine. Semiotext(e), New York, 1986.

UK guidelines for stopping distances

2005-01-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

The UK Department of transport has a great site (very graphical) with easy to find information about highways. Most of the information is given in metric and the imperial system. Pages 97 - 105 has information on stopping distances for cars....
http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk

Books Books Books

2005-01-26T14:11:00.000-08:00

Just in from the engineering library!!!! ------>

Traffic Theory - 2002
Networks in Transport and Communications - 1997
Architecture and Infrastructure for a distributed design Environment - 1997
Highway Capacity Manual - 1985

I'm gonna start a little "check out" sheet at my desk for all the books i have......especially my undergrad textbooks...cause I really don't want to have them disappear.

Stet

Real-time traffic information

2005-01-26T13:05:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! maps can show real-time traffic information on its maps. I'm finding this information useful in analyzing my gas station visit.

Interesting link

2005-01-25T21:49:00.001-08:00

I saw this artist on a pbs show. He takes inanimate objects and makes them move with machines he creates. His work plays off the idea that when an object is put in motion we cant help but think that it is, to some extent, alive. We then start to interpreted the objects motion as a form of expression and project emotions onto it. It is fascinating to realize when you watch a chicken bone walk you are actually sympathizing with its struggle. I don't know if any of this is directly applicable to our project but check out the site. Vectors are, after all, about the motion of things/objects/people etc. I'm sure we've all looked at highways and thought of snakes or some other living organism. Anyway, here is the link: http://www.arthurganson.com/pages/Sculptures.html

Walkscapes

2005-01-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

"One also thinks of John Brinckerhoff Jackson, a great observer of landscape, who was extremely interested in the traces and organization of roads across american territory, showing how, far from just traversing landscapes and built up areas, they engender new forms of inhabitable space, Thus creating new forms of sociability. Roads no longer merely lead to places, he wrote, they are places."

Gilles A. Tiberghien, "Nomad City," in Francesco Careri, Walkscapes: Walking as an aesthetic practice, (GG, Barcelona, 2002
J.B.Jackson quote from
J.B.Jackson A sense of place a sense of time, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1994

Tech session PDF's

2005-01-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

hey all,
I put the tech session pdf's in our shared common 200a folder from last semester. I just created a folder '_200b' inside the 200a folder. I also have them and can email them to you if you don't have access to that folder. In order for them to be put on here, one needs to download a third party software, sorry.

Stet

--John has the thirdparty software....so he may put them on here....otherwise, they are still on the shared drive.----

Book Recommendations

2005-01-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

some relevant books:

"Transurbanism" by Joke Brouwer and Arjen Mulder. This book examines how technological advances are reshaping the city.

"ROAM: Reader on the Aesthetics of Mobility" by Anthony Hoete. I have this book at my desk if anyone wants to look at it. It's a collection of essays and images from a variety of disciplines looking at aspects of mobility in our culture.

Arnold's hydrogen fuel station

2005-01-22T13:05:00.000-08:00

http://hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/

For anyone interested...

2005-01-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

Adriana and I are road tripping it to our local in-the-middle-of-nowhere gas station Sunday morning. Where it is, we're not sure of yet, but that is something to determine later. If you're interested in coming along, send a blog or email and we'll discuss specifics...

Reyner Banham's Los Angeles

2005-01-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

I would like to recommend a great book I read over the break called Los Angeles, The Architecture of Four Ecologies by Reyner Banham. The book deals with the development of LA in terms of transportation (ie. trains -> freeways) and thus seems highly relevant to the class. It's also a fast read because Banham is lucid, witty and relatively concise. I have a copy at my desk if anyone wants to borrow it and there are several copies in the library as well.

Gas Station Brands

2005-01-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

my peeps,

here's a couple fun sites. the first has hundreds of gas brands/signs. the second gives a short history of the gas stations and shows examples of different gas station typology.

www.gassigns.org

www.agilitynut.com/gas2.html

i'm up for easy rider!
t

We should watch Easy Rider

2005-01-21T11:19:00.000-08:00

Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, JACK, hippies, rednecks, shitloads of riding down the highway on a motorcycle while intoxicated ....

2005-01-20T21:27:00.000-08:00

i was just glancing through "A Policy on Geometric Design of Rural Highways" written by the American Association of State Highway Officials (thanks Stet), and came across a possibly helpful rule of thumb for comfortable deceleration:

from speeds of 70mph ----- a deceleration of 6.2mph/sec is found to be comfortable threshold
from speeds of 30mph ----- a deceleration of 4mph/sec is comfortable

found from emperical data of road tests. so if you are thinking about change-of-speed lanes or ramp turn off lengths, this is a good rule-of-thumb to determine the distance to make them.

t

Caltrans Highway Design Manual

2005-01-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

Caltrans has a highway design manual online. It has information on the radii of ramps and turns for all sorts of different conditions: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/oppd/hdm/hdmtoc.htm Mostly under geometric design I think.

Also of interest may be "DriveBy Infofueling," a research project by DaimlerChrysler where cars download information while traveling at high speed:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,425913,00.asp

One more: http://www.ise.bc.ca/smart.html

more films and vintage gas stations

2005-01-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

The Cremaster Cycle - Matthew B hearts 60s cars.

Cremaster 2 has a sequence of 2 mid-60s Mustangs hooked togther at a gas station - and there is a demo derby in the lobby of the Chrysler bldg lobby in Cremaster 3 with a posse of driverless 68' imperials destroying their '38 predecessor.

Netflix doesn't have either of these...but maybe one of you folks do? Thinking screening of the film collection - maybe Monday night after the review.....

the website has some visuals
www.cremaster.net/

also, i checked out several books on historical images of gas stations if anyone is interested. per yuki's note, though, please let me know if you want to borrow so they don't get lost in what soon is to become the trash bin otherwise known as studio

American Highway Project site

2005-01-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

Hey, here's the url for the AHP, a photodocumentary of the changing landscape that is the american highway; looking at the disappearing stores, billboards, gas stations, etc.

http://www.highwayproject.org/

road side attractions / memorials / signage

2005-01-20T13:18:00.000-08:00

rt. 66 and beyond....

http://www.wlra.us/ the big pineapple, crosses, etc. images.

http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eburhansd/ this is zine site on road side restaurants and such. i don't have a paypal acount, otherwise, i'd spend the buck fiftty and get a mag.

http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/artsign.htm food signs...images

http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eburhansd/bobmap.html a map of big boy burgers located across the nation!!!!!!!

books and scary movies

2005-01-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

hi all,

i also checked out four relevant books:
highways: an architetcural approach
the gas station in america
freeways
organization space

please leave me a note if you borrow any (sorry to be particular, but last semester a book that i checked out disappeared).

also, a very unsettling, somewhat violent, gender-role bending highway movie is 'freeway,' with reese witherspoon. it's a redux-with-a-twist of 'little red riding hood,' and presents the road as a forbidding context in which big bad wolves are out to do nasty things to supposedly unassuming hitchhikers. (also worth watching is the first few minutes of david lynch's mulholland drive. ultimate road-as-eerie/violent site scene).

y

Highway Design Handbooks

2005-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

200b-ers,
I have three texts available at my desk, including the "green book" which actually has a different name, but anyway, here's the list:

"A Policy on Geometric Design of Rural Highways." --1965 (newest edition available in our library) - this is the "green book"--

"Handbook of Highway Engineering." --1975

"Scenic Highways and Byways" --1995

and here's a great link with more info than you care to read:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/flex/

films

2005-01-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

to start us off - two-lane blacktop - the ultimate driving film. featuring james taylor - yes, that james taylor. for better or worse, we actually own a copy of this film so i'll bring it in for viewing. it's a very "one with the road" experience - aka i can't recommend watching it sober.

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
The Driver and The Mechanic are two car freaks driving a 1955 Chevy throughout the southwestern U.S. looking for other cars to race. They are totally dedicated to The Car and converse with each other only when necessary. At a gas station, The Driver and The Mechanic, along with a girl who has ingratiated herself into their world, meet G.T.O., a middle-aged man who fabricates stories about his exploits. It is decided to have a race to Washington, D.C., where the winner will get the loser's car. Along the way, the race and the highway metaphorically depict the lives of these contestants as they struggle to their destination.

readings

2005-01-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

Here are some readings that Zoe and I want you to be familiar with before the start of semester. We'll discuss these in the first week, and hand out a much more extensive and complete list in week 1.

Feel free to comment about the readings here.

- Allen, Stan, "Infrastructural Urbanism" in Points and Lines (MIT Press, Cam, Mass) 1999
- Wigley, Mark, “Network Fever” in Grey Room, 04, Summer 2001, (MIT Press Cam. Mass.) 2001
- Blume, Torsten, "Urban Media Activism" in Blume, Torsten, and Langenbrink, Gregor (eds) Dot.City, (Edition Bauhaus Band 14, Dessau) 2004
- De Landa, Manuel, “Meshworks, Heirachies and Interfaces” in Beckman, John (ed), The Virtual Dimension: Architecture, Representation and Crash Culture, (Princeton Architectural Press, NY)1998 p274-285

2005-01-03T18:14:00.000-08:00

Kahn Traffic Study

2005-01-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

This is the blog space for our studio this semester. use it regularly to post ideas, sources, resources, commentaries, and images that you find that the studio should see.

A couple of URL's to get you going.

be sure to watch the wigley lecture and you might look at others
http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/conference/dfnp/
http://www.stopmotionstudies.net/
http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/dotcity/welcome.asp