Reflective Essay

                                                    

                                                          

My second and also the last semester was different from the first one, we had a part of the book as a reading task for each session and most of that session was based on its content. most of them were written in academic language so reading and analysing them was not easy.

 Different topics were discussed in our sessions but some of them were more interesting for me, for instance, 'The Mangle in Practice,' by Andrew Pickering which talks about the concept of the "mangle" as a way to understand the complex interactions between humans and technology. Instead of viewing these relationships as predictable and linear, Pickering suggests that they are more like dynamic, evolving processes. He provides examples from scientific and technological practices to illustrate how both humans and machines shape and influence each other in unpredictable ways. My another favourite book was about Rhythmanalysis, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life by Henri Lefebvre which assessed the meaning of Rhythmanalysis first and then, discussed time and space rhythm. One of our passages was part of Spatial Practices: Modes of Action and Engagement with the City by Melanie Dodd, which talks about how the way we arrange and use places is linked to political choices and who holds power. It points out that politics, involving decisions made by those in charge, strongly influences our spaces. 

 The other intresting reading  for me was a part of Only Resist - a feminist approach to Critical Spatial Practice’ by Jane Rendell. In "Only Resist," Jane Rendell talks about how the spaces we live in—like cities or buildings—affect and are influenced by gender, with a focus on feminist ideas. She explores how women deal with and push back against societal expectations in these different spaces. This process has had various advantages for me but the most important of them was made me to learn how to read and analyze an academic passage and go through it. For each reading, we had a discussion in our class which provided the opportunity for us to share our point of view.

 From each of these passages, we took seven words per person, based on our taste and our understanding of the book and then we had to select only three of them and find a suitable verb for each word. According to our verbs, as a part of a group or sometimes individual, we made performances and designs. Choosing the verbs through the passages not only made me concentrate more on the reading but also forced me to be more creative while these words have a direct impact on my design and performance. 

 Site Drawing was one of our tasks which taught us how to attention to the details of our surroundings and how factors such as sounds and lights might affect our drawings. We did this task by first observing around for three or five minutes and then we closed our eyes and started to draw what we have in our mind as well as our feelings. All these site drawings were based on our chosen verbs and our ideas about the text. I believe that this practice assists us to improve our observation skills. Moreover, I believe that if we suppress one of our feelings, we can concentrate on the other ones. For instance, in this taste when we closed our eyes, then we could hear more sounds and noises which was an interesting experience for me. I wrote about my experience of site drawing in my blogs but one of them is more interesting for me: 'We started first to do the closed-eye drawing practice and we did it two times. For each one, we did a deep observation from our perspective of the studio and then drew our drawing. I drew all that I had in my mind at that moment like some memories from the past, noises from the street and the sound of breathing from my classmate! For the second painting, I added more details to it and tried to draw more and more which led to the below result. Unconsciously, I drew a face with eyes, nose and lips on my paper. 

 Designing a Performance was one of our tasks for some sessions. We did these performances individually or in groups. They were all designed based on our verbs. In each performance, we played our verbs and made connections between them. This task taught me how to engage with space and play a verb from paper in a space. I provided text is my two different experiences in this task from my blog: 'After that, we started to draw our 7 words which were chosen from two stories in two groups in each 4 person on paper. My words were influenced, accurate, senseless, intelligent, diminutive and just conservation. Then we rotated the paper 2 times and added more details to each other's drawings, which had an interesting result, as we had 4 different approaches in a group. After that, we tried to play our drawing ( which was designed based on words ) by our movement and then made a final combination of these movements. For this task, we had to create a movement According to our words from de Certeau's text, we chose a location wrote our words on a piece of paper and then, started planning the movements, my verbs were to restrict, to admire and to testify and I mostly focused on 'to restrict' and 'to admire' and tried to play them while making movements in the space. The provided drawing is based on our movements and verbs. This video was filmed from a different perspective and shows our final movements in which we changed the layout of the furniture and mentioned our interferences which were caused by connecting our verbs.' 

 My other favourite task that we have done was a combination of site drawing and performing! 'After talking about the text, we all had several selected words from the passage which were interesting to us and then we had to choose three of them, my words were experience, balance and interact and after that, I needed verbs which were related to my words and I took to encounter, to establish and to connect as my verbs. We divided into two separate groups and started our new task, we had to choose a place in the Eldon building and then start to analyze that place, my group chose left! We decided to stay in the lift and record everything, Linnea started to record the floor number, Naahz recorded the sounds around and also her feelings after staying for more than 45 minutes in the lift, Samia decided to record noises and I recorded the number of people who used the lift in that period. Then, it was time to merge our drawings and have one output as a group, we decided to turn the paintings into musical notes, Linnea turned her drawing into piano notes and danced with its sound in her new dress from EPC, and my drawing became a drums notes and Naahz and Samia's drawing turned into a special note for the instruments that they made in the EPC workshop. Then that was the time to play our instruments as a band and see the results!

 Another main task for us was to make a design. For this task bought a piece of furniture from a charity shop and turned it into a new object. Then I had to decide what kind of object I what to make out of this cupboard! I was looking for something practical and useful for people and also something which is related to nature due to the originality of the cupboard. The cupboard was made of wood, glass and metal screws, all these materials came from nature, so I decided to make something that can be used near the trees, nature. One of my challenges when I go picnic in the jungle or spend time in a local park on weekends, is to put my stuff (a cup of tea or my iPad) on a flat surface, so I thought that I could design a simple tray which can be fixed on the body of a tree and then I started to draw some sketches. The first thing that I needed, was a tray ( a flat surface ) and then, two bases that could put my tray on it and hold it horizontally. Then I needed a piece of rope that could fix my tray around a tree's body like a belt which had the following results. Thus, in my own story, the old wooden cupboard came from nature and after a while it turned into another useful object which can be used in nature and I named this story 'Back to Nature'! 

 During this semester, I had different experiences compared to the previous semester, but I learned from both how to engage with the space, find the connections between words and space, perform a meaning in a space to understand it and last but not least, how to think out of the box!