it’s difficult to summarize a “body” of work that feels so much like pebbles scattered on the beach… however, in a couple weeks [ and initially tomorrow as a dry run for just our studio ] i will have to do just that for the entire school. the second year students are asked to present work from their first year at cranbrook to the academy over a series of four or five days… we’ve decided as a studio that we’ll each show a maximum of 10 slides and have 3 minutes to do this. it’s not much… i don’t know if that’s good or bad.

ugh…
i am a terrible public speaker.
i don’t really want to do this…
i know i can come up with something to say.
but, i don’t know if i really believe it…
here are some thoughts so far…

last year, the consistent theme of my work was in figuring out different ways that i could make or manipulate what i think are the building blocks of what my work will become; the things that i thought i would or could integrate into a stimulating and sensual experience that can both keep my interest and speak to the larger communities of architecture and society. many of these projects were collaborations with various different people. i began with a group project that simply altered the entry sequence into the forum gallery with a change of elevation; changing the visitor’s perspective. in another project i tried my hand at making a ceramic building unit which would hang in addition to or instead of stacking. these were cast in cardboard molds that were modelled in rhino, laser cut, assembled, and coated with epoxy resin. the tiles were then glazed and hung in a several locations and configurations. at the same time i was looking at video surveillance and thinking about how to use it’s visual language to create a different experience. [more about this here]i am often torn between wanting to know how something works and wanting to just marvel at the thing [more here] this project [assisted speaking devices] was equally about making a low tech device that invited interaction and setting up the conditions for something to happen… [something else here] and finally i began to look at the location based technologies of global positioning devices and motion tracking. while some of these projects reached a specific final moment, i think they are all interconnected parts of larger projects that i hope to complete this year and in the future.

ugh… maybe i should look this over in the morning. i’m getting tired and losing focus… i still have to get my slides in order….