existence minimum 07

Minute of the Thursday Seminar
1:15 – 4:15 pm, 06-01-2011


Thanks for your patience throughout the first seminar.  I’m not at all sure I will do this minute after every meeting, but occasionally, it seems useful.

1]  Fresh Readings (attached, please read them for Tuesday):

C. Wright Mills:

Man in the Middle: The Designer
On Intellectual Craftsmanship

Joan Didion

Why I Write
Goodbye to All That
On Keeping a Notebook

2]  For Friday evening:

Please attach a brief, informed commentary to the first entry in the WebLog on what – or what KIND of – place you would like to work on, with others, as a topograph.  Assume that the smallest group of co-workers on such a project is three people, including yourself.  Also, assume that I’m flexible.

3]  For Tuesday:

Please have three things in hand:

a]  Potential subjects of a monograph.  (I’m happy to supply suggestions of my own if you feel you need them.)

b]  Opening design moves on “Manifesto”.

c] A soundtrack – 60-75 minutes – for your thesis, 10 copies burned onto CDs, together with the cover art for each CD.

d]  Fresh Readings attached, please read them for Tuesday.

4]  Tuesday Schedule, Room 2014:

10:15 am to 11:45 am

Andrea Murphy
Elie Bourget
David Shellingerhoudte

12:45 pm to 2:15 pm

Veronica Lorenzo
Gabriel Guy
Jamie Ferreira

2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Aurelie Freer
Nikola Nikolic
Lindsey Nette

4:15pm to 5:00 pm, everyone, in the M1 studio, 3018.
IF you have ANY problems with the timing for your meeting, please just trade with someone else and don’t bother checking with me.

Minute of the Thursday Seminar
10:15 am – 1:15 pm, 13-01-2011


Thanks for your on-going patience throughout the seminars.  Again, I’m not at all sure I will do this minute after every meeting, but they seem useful, at least weekly.  AND, if you know of any great ways of picking up the pace, let me know; I’m all ears.

1]  Fresh Readings (attached, please read them for Thursday):

Michael Sorkin:

Minimums

Guy Davenport

Finding

Garrett Hardin

The Tragedy of the Commons

2]  For this evening:

Please get a weblog up and running –– Blogger.com. Put design development onto it.

3]  For Tuesday:

Please have two things in hand:

a]  Committed subject of a monograph, in 100 words or so.

b]  Design development on “Manifesto”.  THIS is the principle subject of the meetings.

4]  Tuesday Schedule, Room 2014:

10:15 am to 11:45 am

Lindsey Nette
Elie Bourget
David Shellingerhoudte

12:45 pm to 2:15 pm

Jamie Ferreira
Gabriel Guy
Nikola Nikolic

2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Aurelie Freer
Veronica Lorenzo
Andrea Murphy

4:15pm to 5:00 pm, everyone, in the M1 studio, 3018.                       IF you have ANY problems with the timing for your meeting, please just trade with someone else and don’t bother checking with me.

Plan for Tuesday Seminar
01-02-2011


Since we last met, I haven’t had a moment to look up, or around, much less think ahead on your behalf. The pace of academic life is finally catching up with me, I dread trying to get home in a snowstorm tonight, and there is a family thing in Toronto I’m obliged to care for.  That’s my alibi and I’m sticking to it.

That means Tuesday is by remote control.  I won’t be there.  Hopefully, if I work quietly, I might do my best work for you, and also get some other monkeys off my back.  You have the opportunity to work on your writing and we will correspond.


1]  Fresh Readings (attached, please read them for Thursday):

Henry David Thoreau:

Economy, from Walden

Ivan Illich

Convivial Reconstruction, from Tools For Conviviality

Edward S. Casey

The Problematic Place of the Imagination

Spalding Gray

Impossible Vacation, an excerpt

The first three readings are readings I referred to in the seminar on Thursday.  The Gray piece is there simply because it is an exquisite and simple picture of a place and time, and I wanted to share Gray’s writing style with you.  Gray develops the writing by performing a monologue from his notes, taping the monologue, transcribing the tapes, editing them and then repeating the process.  This protracted strategy of refinement leaves him with a delicate, natural diction, apparently without affectation.  To see the entire effect, it is worthwhile seeing Gray in performance.  He’s dead now, but many of those performances were made into films and I had the distinct pleasure of attending on of the last of his shows, a couple of years before his death.  It WAS translucent, and very funny, even if it was, in its way, horrifying.

2]  For today:

If you haven’t done it, please get a weblog up and running –– Blogger.com. Put design development onto it.  If you have, and most of you have, please see that you are following your colleagues, reading theirs, and linked to all of them.

Please have 300-500 words of a biograph in hand, with a MsWord copy attached in an email to me before the end of the day, and with the same text posted in your weblog.  I will review and edit these on-line and return them to you with commentary on your writing practices.

3]  For Thursday:

Have the opening plans for your monograph. Research details, illustrations, writing...  All you can muster without winding it up.

4]  Thursday Schedule, Room 2014:

10:15 am to 11:45 am

Lindsey Nette
Elie Bourget
David Shellingerhoudte

12:45 pm to 2:15 pm

Jamie Ferreira
Gabriel Guy
Nikola Nikolic

2:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Aurelie Freer
Veronica Lorenzo
Andrea Murphy

4:15pm to 5:00 pm, everyone, in the M1 studio, 3018.                       IF you have ANY problems with the timing for your meeting, please just trade with someone else and don’t bother checking with me.