"Jan's" proposal: "The Unite Shop"

"To break the sacred is to play..."

What will happens when the two opposite programs are in the same place?

And how can these programs connected to each other?

Because to have a historical-reserved facade would considered to be sacred, while the programs

can be adjusted which considered to be profane.

The program of TATTOOING  would one that can be considered that have BOTH

sacred and profane in the same program

Sacred tattoo is what we called in Thai 'Yantra' tattoo - is something that needs religious practice

Profane tattoo is the normal tattoo that the designs depends on the person who wants

Since the exterior cannot be changed, then the only solution is the play with the interior.

The interior were designed in pattern to connect the two programs together. The use of the pattern is to 

represents that tattoo can be connect to anywhere we wants which can unite all the patterns to flow in to each other.

Flow pattern that connect the programs together

Jan's Site Research: "Thanon Kao San"

DIAGRAM: Thanon Kao San Site AnalysisThe Erotic Field: Thanon Kao San

Khaosan Road or Khao Sarn Road (Thai: ถนนข้าวสาร) is a short street in central Bangkok, Thailand. It is located in the Banglamphu area of (Phra Nakorn district) about 1 km north of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. The site are combined with many generations of shophouse such as the historical reserved from the past, or the new shophouse that can be seen everywhere now a day. The aim of studying this site analysis was to use the relationship between the two opposite elements that found in the site which are 'sacred' or something dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration,in this case is the area of the temple  of Boroniwed, contrasting to 'profane' or the behaviour that not paying respectful of religious practice, which is the area of clubs and bars in the opposite direction. This relations between two elements will create the powerful erotic interaction between each other.

The diagram shows the location of the 'sacred' and 'profane' area where the blue is the profane area such as clubs and bars while the yellow represents the sacred area which is the temple. the green is the 'in between' between the sacred and profane which is the semi sacred where the facade of the shophouse is historical reserved but the programs is flexible due to the time which is profane. 

The diagram shows the frequency of population in the site during day time and night time where during the daytime people seems to gather around the area contrasting to night time where the only place that people gathered is the profane area.

 The diagram shows the programs that can be found within the site during the day and to see the relationship between them.

 The diagram shows the section of the shophouse and the program at the choosing building which is the 'Swensense' where it was in between the two opposite elements.

 This diagram shows sections of the different purposes of coming to the site between foreigners and local people where they go to the temple with different purpose but the same at night at Kao San Road.



The Program

The program that i use to do is the crossing between sacred and profane where in one building combines between two forbiddingly opposite programs in order to create the erotic feelings towards the buildings.

Jan's: shophouse research: Transformation

*This video is unfinished*

Jan's documentation and post-analysis on You can, Can you?

FIRST ANALYSIS : OBSERVATION

SURVEY

The survey was created to ask people how they actually feel towards the space and when they accidentally step on the letter. Most of the answer were said that it was okay if we did not tend to step on it.

EXPERIMENTATIONS

Does the place matter?

EXPERIMENT 1

The interviews asking how people  feel and the video recording their reactions towards the obvious Sor Tor - it seems that people tends to walk away according to their thought that it was a piece of art work that belongs to someone. That's why they are walking away as much as possible.

EXPERIMENT 2

The location was changed to in front of elevators to aim the people who come in and out of the elevator. the result was that most people keep avoiding it even they were forced to notice immediately that they are out form the elevators. There are lesser people who step on Sor Tor 

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THE PLACEMENT WAS MATTER

SECOND ANALYSIS : PRODUCTION

DOCUMENTATION : FIRST EXPRESSION

At first, I let people walk from the front gate in order to make it looks more sacred that the statue is looking to us, and let them investigate. Ajarn were the first people who actually step on the installation which made other students followed.

When they first saw the installation on top of the letter 'สธ', the first expression that i saw was just a 'stunning' expressions

DOCUMENTATION : CHANGE OF FEELINGS AND EXPRESSION

Not so long, people began to saw a soccer ball which make they realised that the whole installation is the soccer field. Audience actually knows that it was created for playing not for just looking - they started to play and changed their expressions

DOCUMENTATION : RESULT FROM THE AUDIENCE

Many people said that it was okay for them to step on the Sor Tor indirectly via the installation. A girl also said that it was quiet new to her because she never step on the letter and she never know the feeling when step on it as well. There was also a girl that step on it accidentally, but suddenly she turned and said that she felt guilty for some reason but when she saw that her feet was on the installation, the feeling was kind of relived. 

RESPONSE OF THE INSTALLATION

It was very successful to convey people's feelings and somehow I felt that people's just forgot that where were they right there because they tends to play and expressed their 'joyful' feelings. The audience actually kissing the installation and the installation actually kissing the architecture erotically.

Jan's installation drawing: You can, Can you?

Break the Rule: You can, Can you?

“Life is short, Break the Rules.

Forgive quickly, Kiss SLOWLY.

Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably

And never regret ANYTHING

That makes you smile.”

Mark Twain

Why people keep following the rule? What if you try to break it once? This is because we all have our own believes but mostly of them we did not experience by itself but overheard it as a second hand knowledge. 

As the same as the letter 'สธ' (SOR TOR) at the front gate at Faculty of Architecture which Architecture students believed that if we step on it we will not graduate. Does it really true? Have you know a person that step on it and not graduated? I am not disparaging or anything. However, I am telling you that most of us do not experience by ourself but overheard form seniors and its just gone in our head. Moreover, Thai people also believed that we should not step on any letters or words. As if as we know that we should not step on Sor Tor, when we see people step on it. Somehow, it creates a feeling of uncomfortable and unaware. Feeling emotionally towards it showing erotically that how people can be conveyed the feelings and express its emotional. 

AXONOMETRIC VIEW

SET UP

This Axonometric view shows how the field was set in the site. I placed it in front of the statue of Ajarn to create the atmosphere like he is looking to us

Axonometric view of a pattern

Section of installation on site

The pattern of the letters overlapping creates another pattern to the tile which it can be seen as an illusion because the more overlapping the letter, the harder to recognise

INTENDED EFFECT

The diagram shows the possible feelings to the letter. The further, the safer. The nearer, the more concern.

The site itself looks very spiritual and sacred to us, Architecture students. Since there was a believe in which if we step on the letter in front of the statue, we will not be able to graduate. I want to experience on how different people perceive differently and express with different emotional expressions and feelings. I want to investigate the first feeling that they are on what they respected but not a normal feeling that they have before. In other words, I want them to have fun to not graduated.

The site does matter because it was already sacred itself because it was the placement of the statue that we worship. My installation will use the believe to change the emotion to the opposite towards the letters that we tends to believed. Not in a forceful way but make them experience intensionally. Will u dare to do?

MATERIAL EFFECT

One thing to considered is the material used in the installation which is woollen fabric which give audience the texture just like soccer field.

SURVEY

95% choose to experience textured floor

5% choose the normal floor

Jan's installation development: You can, Can you?

DEVELOPMENT 1: IDEA CONCEPT

Kissing Architecture

Kissing architecture is when two things interact with each other and create another relationship. My ingredients would be the installation together with our believe of cannot step on Sor Tor

CONCEPT: DARE TO DO THE OPPOSITE

Site chosen

Artist inspiration

Andy Warhol

mass production

exaggerated scale

Do the opposite

Zhang Huan

Breaking the rule

DEVELOPMENT 2: IDEA CONCEPT

1st idea: playing with people's mind

changing the scale of the letters and make it another Thai letter 'ภ' because it looks similar which might effect people's mind so if they actually step on it they will not feel guilty after they recognise. 

Conceptual Diagram

How we see, and how we perceived. 

Method

           

         

  

Method was designed in three different way which the expectations of audiences' reaction in different way as well

Lettering

The possible of transforming the letter in different ways

DEVELOPMENT 3: SITE ANALYSIS

DEVELOPMENT 4: IDEA CONCEPT

2nd idea: making people step on Sor Tor intensionally

Sacred VS Profane

sacred |ˈsākrid|

adjective

connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to areligious purpose and so deserving veneration: sacredrites | the site at Eleusis is sacred to Demeter.• religious rather than secular: sacred music.• regarded with great respect and reverence by a particular religion, group, or individual

profane |prəˈfān, prō-|

adjective

1 relating or devoted to that which is not sacred or biblical; secular rather than religious: a talk that tackled topics both sacred and profane.

• (of a person) not initiated into religious rites or any esoteric knowledge: he was an agnostic, a profane man.

2 (of a person or their behavior) not respectful of orthodox religious practice; irreverent: desecration of the temple by profane adolescents.

• (of language) blasphemous or obscene.

Conceptual Diagram

The installation will remove the believe temporarily

Inspiration

 

Crossing Emotional

The installation will used the idea of crossing emotional to defined what is Erotic. 

The  idea of how different spaces creates different atmosphere and different feelings.

DEVELOPMENT 5: GATHERING IDEA

Designing

The final idea is to combine what people seems to have a 'fun' reaction and interacting to it which is the soccer field covered on what make people 'beware of' not to be near. In order to change people's perception from respect to having fun. 

To make it clear, the concept of the installation is to turn a beware reaction into a fun reaction but using the letter that we believed in and respected it to create a soccer pitch. Audience will not recognise if there are many letters overlapping. The hypothesis of this observation is that they will notice where is the real Sor Tor. However, the floor that they step on it actually the letter that they believed in as well.

The conclusion is that what matter to them is the LETTER not anything


What will be their reaction if the floor that they step on is Sor Tor?

Jan's research on Zhang Huan and Andy Warhol

Zhang Huan

Body = Material of arts

Zhang Huan was born in 1965 in Anyang, Henan Province, China, and currently lives and works in Shanghai and New York. He was active in Beijing in the 1990’s, where he was considered one of the foremost avant-garde artists in the country.

WINDOW

The space that Zhang Huan uses to perform his work is unclear whether it is public or private. It seems to be more public because the area is in the corner of a building with the red window next to him. While it can be seems that he is trying to create private space where his action is completely recognised as something to do privately.

The diagrams indicate the gradients of wall and the ground which shows the pressure to the performer that he has no escape

65 kg

The performance shows that he is the masochism artist. The performance demonstrates Zhang huan was roped and stressed to the ceiling and let the blood dripping down. It gives audience the feelings of uncomfortable, disgusting, tension and violent There is also some senses like smell of blood dripping and the sight of how he was tortured himself that building up more emotions to the audience. 

The room seemed to be compressed by atmosphere. The radius shows how the tension was create from the middle of the room where Zhang Huan let his blood dripping. The only opening is the big window which allows natural light to go through.

The diagram shows Audience's point of view to the performer contrasting to the blood that dripping down.

Andy Warhol

exaggerated colors and scale

Andy Warhol, born in Pittsburgh in 1928, was an American artist and filmmaker. He is the figure head of the pop art movement of the 1960s. Warhol brought focus to the banality of the commercial culture of the United States, creating and then pushing the artist envelope of his time. He became a worldwide celebrity, befriending and doing business with people in the highest social ranks.

Campbell’s Soup Can

Campbell's Soup Can is one of Andy Warhol's most famous art work. The technique that he used is the reproduction of mass products that is repetition of "everyday item" that turns into "high art". Since it is an unexpected piece of art that Andy Warhol brings into his name which upgraded its quality. As well as the gallery that he exhibits his work together with many other famous works, bringing up painting's popularity and price.

"things you use every day and never think about...." Andy Warhol

the diagram shows how the painting was created and put it into the gallery which upgraded his art's quality.

Marilyn Monroe

It is a reproduction of a portrait of a person who already famous. The work sold under his name den his works do not need to have meanings behinds which emphasised the recontextualizes within framework. 

His arts were created using exaggerated colours and scales that make the painting look unrealistic.