Place

If there were a hundred unrelated people to ask to describe their home, none of them will say the same thing. One person might say that his home is a one-story house with gable roof and chimney inside has his mom and his dad live in. Another person might say a high rise apartment have the most comfortable bed living alone. For me, home is where I live with my mom and my siblings. It is where I sing in a shower. It is where I bake during weekend. And it is where I sleep almost everyday. ;) It is where four of us shared our happiness and depression. That is a home for me.

When people think of home, they think of a place they live. One house can never be a home or a place with no memories ties them up with our perception. It will be just a space. From the example of home, the locations of home for those people are different from one and another. But that is not a factor why they define home differently but because of the memory that tie to the space they live become a place for them call home. Place is where you have interaction with. It is a social construct. It is a connection of people, earth, sky and divine. Home is a type of dwelling and to dwell means to isolate, to interact and to interconnect.

In class we were shown the movie called “Powaqquatsi”. This movie has no dialog but background music. It is a movie show about how people live in Brazil. It shows a hard lifestyle that Brazilians have. What they have to care is not object, reputation or social status but something that could sustain their life day by day. This is a place called Brazil that shows in the movie. Our memory ties us to the name Brazil through the movie. The place has context, interconnection and interaction from people to earth to sky and the divine. That make that place a place.

Erotic

As you hear the word “eroticism”, you would probably think of something relates to sexuality. Many people might think of book or movie. Eroticism in architecture is different from eroticism in literature or movie. However, there is one thing in common about the erotic, which is the impact on us. Architecture concept means nothing. Interpretation means nothing to architecture. Though, what really matters is the experience that people would feel inside. Touching, seeing, hearing and smelling and tasting are the senses that people would perceive. To perceive those senses differently from what we could perceive in daily life creates eroticism.

From the movie Fight Club, the main character decided to join fight club just to feel something different from his daily life. Once he joined fight club he get to feel something new, something different and experiencing something unpredictable. As time passes, that newness become old comparable to watching a movie. The first time you watch it, it is a surprise. Because we know nothing of what is going to happen next. However, if we comeback and watch it again and again. You know what is going to happen next in the movie. The same cycle happens with Brad Pitt in the movie. When he first join fight club, everything is exciting. Later, things are the same and the fight club experience becomes routine like replaying movie over and over. So he decided to fight outside of the fight club to get something exciting and unpredictable.

The senses that we perceive could never be erotic if we can predict them. So there is the idea of synesthesia comes up. Synesthesia is when you perceive one sense that sense refers to another sense. You perception connects with your background, knowledge and experience.

For example this chair when you see it, you can feel that it is soft and unstable. The chair that you would probably think as, if you sit on it, it would collapse. In fact, this is a chair made out of concrete. You background leads you to perceive it that way.  

Eroticism is to feel something, to realize something. The whole thing about eroticism is the alarm clock that wakes us up from doing the same routine over and over again. Eroticism is not a judgment that we have towards art and architecture but it is the way we approach art and architecture via sensation.

Aesthetic

Who would have thought that aesthetic is political? Aesthetic in our conscience would have to deal with more or less with art or poetry. Because the meaning of aesthetic is concerned with beauty or the appreciation with beauty and of course that these two things are related to art. So we have a perception that aesthetic would be something artistic and this actually frame us to think that way. Aesthetic is a perception that partially comes from a person and the rest comes from the trend, which comes from the demand of the market. The demand of the market wouldn’t exist with out people, who have the ability to buy. In other term, it is a capital that creates the trends.

Aesthetic is a mark of historical changes. As time changes, people perception changes which makes the aesthetic or trend changes as well. Every single period of time in history has different style of how people live. It came back to the same idea that people live in different time and they have different experience, which causes their judgments to be different. So every events and experience in each period of time form how people perceive and judge thing. Once you have different judgments, your perception of beauty would be different. It is all because of people judge what they like or what they don’t. This is why perception of beauty changes over time, which creates historical mark.

Aesthetic is a will. It could never force anyone to do anything. People would do anything for Aesthetic. They want their life to look good in other people points of view as well. It is all because human are social animal. One of the examples that we were given in class was plastic surgery. No one would want to go through a painful process for anything but aesthetic that would gain their confidences, prides and a space in society. Because, this is postmodern society, people care about how they look.

Sacred and Profane

 “Sacredness” and “Profanity”, the two contradicting ideas, will be completely meaningless without any of our perception or interpretation. Sacred is the way people put an object or subject up to the highest esteem something that does not belong to human. God is the sacred subject which people who believe in God have a common belief that mentioning God has to be in a positive way with a sacred context or a belief that mentioning God in a profane context is blasphemy, for instance, giving the expression by saying “Oh my God!”. So sacred things are what we respect. On the other hand, profane is opposite to sacred. It is a topic for human, ordinary things in our daily life. Something belongs to human. Swearing, gossiping, drinking, smoking are profane. But what is a line between sacredness and profanity.

Object will be just an object, neither profane nor sacred. A chair sitting in a room will be just a chair, neither profane nor sacred. If that chair is decorated with gold, having a red carpet leading us there, sitting in the most powerful spot in a throne hall, we would know immediately that it is not just a chair. We see all ornamentation and its surrounding context. We perceive the importance of the chair through another perception that decoration with gold is extravagance and red carpet is importance. It is more important than just being a chair. It is not a chair for us but it is a throne for king. This reminded me of a scene from a movie King’s speech when King George VI and Lionel were left alone at the church. King George was shocked when Lionel took the action that normal people couldn’t do which was sitting on the throne. It is an important chair that no one could sit on but the king. King George was angry because he has a perception that the throne was sacred. This chair wouldn’t be sacred and important without anyone perceived it that way.  

To raise a chair to become sacred, you just make it different add ornamentation to it and put it in the sacred context. It is the same as the idea of museum. Museum brings something very profane and raises it to be sacred by putting the object on the pedestal with glass covered so no one could touch it and by giving the lighting on it and make it important. However, there is something different which is museum attempt is to stop the object from dying and raise its true value. That is a process of museumification- museum and mummification.

Museum and a throne are the example of how to raise the profane object to be sacred. To make sacred thing to be profane can also be done as well. The play is profane. It is something that we enjoy, an entertainment for us. Many of play run the story through something sacred for example Greek play. Talking about Greek gods and goddesses, which suppose to be sacred but the way we perceive it is through the profane method. Greek play, Oedipus, refers to the oracle which catalysts the entire play. Oracle, which is the message from god suppose to be sacred, is in a profane form. This is how sacred thing can be profane.

Object can never be sacred or profane with out us as a medium. Our perception, values and background are indicators of what is profane or sacred. It is standard of sacredness. As we have different values and backgrounds, we have different perceptions. Something that I think that it is sacred may be just a joke for you which may cause conflict in the society. The only thing that we can do is to respect others and open your heart up.