Sarah Breen Lovett
Expanded Architecture 01 - 06
The Intersection of Moving Image Installation and Architecture
Introduction
This practice-based research of Expanded Architecture aims to use moving image installation to explore our relationship to architecture, how we physically and psychologically relate to the architectural elements around us. This site-specific research is carried out by re-framing, re-focusing and literally re-projecting the existing architecture of the installation back on itself with moving image installation.
Fundamentally, the pairing of architecture and moving image installation, has an inherent contradiction; architecture is normally experienced in a state of distraction, while art work, especially film is experienced in a state of awe. (Benjamin 1936). By reframing the architecture back on itself, this inherent contradiction leads to an interesting wavering of consciousness between the moving image installation, and the architecture. By using one to explore our relationship to the other, a third entity is formed. One is not totally ignorant of the architecture, nor in awe of the moving image, but sits in tension between these elements.
This practice-based research of Expanded Architecture, has revealed that folding the architecture back on itself through the moving image installation, creates certain tensions between self and space. Where ‘tension’ is understood as being held in a state between two opposing states. The mirroring of the architecture back on itself either through footage used in the moving image, or the construct of the installation has a destabilising effect on the sense of self within the space, because the sense of self in space is held between the architecture and the moving image.
It can be explained that, in a wavering state between the moving image and the architecture, one's sense of self within space becomes decentred (Bishop 2005). The un-noticed or ignored comes into focus; the familiar architecture becomes strangely unfamiliar (Vidler 2000). The elements of spatial exteriority of time and space become unreliable, further creating a tension between self and space.
Expanded Architecture explores a gap in practice by shifting the focus of the moving image installation, from the moving image content or multi-screen installation to the architecture present in the installation. This folding the architecture back on itself, extends the narrative, representative, image focused, screen based works that pervade the contemporary moving image installation landscape.
Contemporary Context
The body of practice-based work extends and builds on a lineage of artists and architects that have explored the relationships between moving image and architecture.
Since the mid 1980s moving image installation has been accepted as a main-stream art practice (Foster, 2004:654), contemporary artists that explore the relationships between moving image installation and architecture do so by primarily focusing on the viewer's experience of the content of the moving image in a multi-screened environment (Aitken 2006) (Penz 2003) (Shoning 2009), or creating a relationship between the architecture of the installation and some other networked site condition (Kwon 2002) (Rendell 2008).
The most noted artists who use imagery of architecture as moving image content are Jane and Louise Wilson. They use filmed footage of various architectures and construct moving image installations from these, such as A Free and Anonymous Monument (2003), in which a dialogue is set up between the architectural content in the moving image and the series of floating screens being projected upon. This is primarily set up for installation in a gallery or museum context and does not necessarily include of the existing architecture of the installation within the image.
The focus with these kinds of multi-screened moving image installations is to create a relationship between architecture and the multi-screened environment, focusing on motion and emotion (Bruno 2002), triggers to memory and nostalgia (Connolly 2009), sense making, perceptions of void space, creating a sense of the ‘other’ and warped spaces (Vidler 2000).
One of the better-known contemporary artists, creating a relationship between the architecture of the installation, and some other networked site condition is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. Lozano-Hemmer has developed a concept called Relational Architecture (1997-2008), where he looks at a series of relationships between the viewer and the artwork, but not specifically the viewer and the existing architecture.
Within this broad picture of contemporary practice, the Expanded Architecture research is neither solely concerned with the viewer’s experience of the artwork, nor with expanding the notion of site beyond the space that the installation is in. Concepts exploring the relationship between the art work and the viewer have been the focus of many artists over the past few decades in installation art practices and are now considered par for the course. (Bishop 2005)
Rather, the Expanded Architecture series of works aim to reflect upon the relationship between the viewer and architecture, through the medium of the moving image. As such, broadly speaking, the Expanded Architecture practice would be positioned between gallery installations that use imagery of architecture as its content and contemporary architectural projection based ‘site’ works. This area of art is a contested ground that highlights a tension between gallery, cinema and site (White 2008).
On a finer grain, the Expanded Architecture research would position itself with between the site specific filmic installations of Lisa Roberts, Blind Side and Betraying a Portrait 1995, which re-projects the original architecture back on itself, blurring the line between the real and the projected, and Gigi Scaria, whose installation at the Venice Biennale 2011 (alongside his writing) reflects on the relationship between the viewer and architectural elements.
Historical Context
Historically speaking this contemporary terrain can be traced back to the 1920s, where there have been installations that explore the relationship between moving image and the space around it. Early examples can be seen in Rythmus 21 by Hans Richter and Anaemic Cinema by Marcel Duchamp. In both of these films the ‘space’ of the screen, in terms of its depth and our perceptual awareness of it, were played off in tension to the image being projected. Through the use of black and white imagery in graphic tension (ciascuro) the screen surface itself appeared three dimensional and was just as much a focus as the image portrayed upon it.
During this time Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in his Light-Play and Poly-Cinema experiments at the Bauhaus, aimed to explore the various relationships between moving image installation and architecture. Specifically his experiments were focused on stabilising the time space continuum. Amongst others, Moholy-Nagy believed that there was a certain balance (equipoise) to be attained through the intersection of moving image installation and architecture. He specifically aimed to explore the relationship between space and time with his Poly-Cinema concept, whereby layers of different films would be played together in various shapes and arrangements, in order to heighten the awareness of the relationships between time and space. However Moholy-Nagy did not have the technology at the time to extend these experiments into practice and they remained in theory. The Light-Space Modulator can be seen as an extrapolation of the Poly-Cinematic proposals, because of its ambitions to create a dialogue between space and time.
In the 1960s and 1970s one motivation of Installation Art was to expand art beyond the single object, physically into space (Krauss 1979) and conceptually into ideas (LeWitt 1967). This period of art set up a dialogue between art and architecture, where the defining lines between the two were becoming blurred. Specifically some artists of this time used architecture within their installations to comment on the relationship between art and architecture, where one is foregrounded over the other or makes comment on the other.
Dan Graham’s Picture Window Piece (1974) focused on the relationship between a picture window and other types of viewing platforms. Gordon Matta Clarke’s Anarchitecture, foregrounded pre-conditioned expectations of what architecture is. Mel Bochner’s Measurement Rooms (1969) looked at how the architecture is experienced in a state of distraction, while the art is foregrounded. While Blinky Palermo and Michael Asher specifically took architectural elements from one part of the gallery space and relocated, or re-presented, them in another part of the gallery in order to question our normative understandings of art and architecture (Rormier 2001:228-274).
During this time the Expanded Cinema movement was concerned with expanding cinema beyond the traditional cinema experience (Youngblood 1970). This was done in a variety of ways, but the most significant for this research, was the way in which they expanded the projection of the moving images into the space of the architecture using multi projection surfaces. In this way the Expanded Cinema practices shifted attention from the moving image to focus on the existing architecture in the installation itself. This kind of expanded cinema was most notably explored by certain ‘Para-Cinemas’ (Sconce, 1995) of Anthony McCall (Walley 2007), specifically his Long Film For Ambient Light (1975), where the moving image was reduced or removed all together, to focus purely on the architecture of the installation (Walley 2004) (Joseph 2005). This piece of work by McCall marked a significant tension between the moving image and the architecture. Where invariably the moving image gains precedence over the architecture in the installation space. The movement of the image either distracts from the architecture or changes perception of the architecture.
The practice based research of Expanded Architecture, extends this lineage of artists and architects exploring the relationship between moving image, installation and architecture.
Sarah Breen Lovett, Still Stair 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 01 : Still Stair 01
A moving image installation, as part of the Emergency Display Exhibition, curated by Alex Wisser at The Vanishing Point Gallery Newtown, Sydney, May 2010
Architecture
Still Stair 01 reflects on the way that we physically and psychologically relate to a staircase. The purpose of a staircase is for the vertical transition between spaces in a building. On a stair the body is always in transit, always coming or going, upstairs or down stairs, or rather in stairs and out stairs (Buckminster Fuller in Youngblood 1970: 20). As such the staircase creates a particular state of encounter, which creates the normative use of a stair.
Due to the functional nature of stair as a place for transition, a shadowy or dark stair, can be perceived as a place of disorientation. ‘The staircase is a transition space in which you are neither here nor there. The shadow really engenders a feeling that you are on a journey, it is not a negative darkness, but a darkness that opens up the imagination.’ (Binet et al, 102) Within Still Stair 01 the spatial encounter of the stair for ascent or descent, a space for transition, is folded back upon itself through the moving image installation (El-Dahdah 1995; Pallasmaa 2005).
Practice
The staircase chosen for this installation was an interstitial gallery space, a space in a gallery that is not normally used for exhibition. The installation aimed to reflect upon our normative encounter of the stair as a place for fluid transition between spaces. In order to do this, the practice referred to the antithesis of fluid movement; fragmented movement, the focus of Marcel Duchamp’s and Eadweard Muybridge’s consecutive works, Nude Descending Stairs, which explored the fragmented nature of a body on a stair.
To reflect upon the tension between fluid and fragmented movement, the existing striated pattern of the stair soffit was taken and created as a fluid journey across the screen. This original fluid journey of the film and the stair was then broken up by the installation. Two projectors situated on one side of the stair landing, were aimed into a series of three mirrors on the other side of the landing. The mirrors fragmented the previously fluid image around the staircase.
Outcome
The resulting installation created a destabilised space, a tension between the self and the stair, the image and the architecture. The normative occupation of the stair as a place for fluid transit was destabilised. The body cannot physically move in the stair space without interrupting the projections. The body must position itself, in a static state in order to view Still Stair 01.
The origin of each projection is disorientated by the use of the mirrors. The body in the space intercepts the light-projection two fold, firstly between projector and mirror, secondly between mirror and stair. The striated pattern of the stair soffit is fragmented throughout the stair, creating the previously fluid experience of the stair to become multiple and fragmented throughout. Instead of the stair being a static element for the fluid body in transit it becomes a fragmented element, perceived to be in transit by a static body.
Sarah Breen Lovett, Loos Pleasure 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 02 : Loos Pleasure 01
A moving image installation, as part of the Decorating Loos Exhibition, curated by Georgie Pollard at The Vanishing Point Gallery, Newtown Sydney. June 2010.
Architecture
Loos Pleasure 01 reflects upon our relationship to the architecture of the public toilet, and the use of ornament or decoration within these spaces. The nature of the public toilet is simultaneously one of amenity and one of entertainment through ‘daubing on the toilet walls’ (Loos 1908) and the voyeuristic opportunities the public toilet presents.
In tandem, a contradictory relationship exists between Aldolf Loos view of ornament expressed in Ornament and Crime (Loos 1908), compared to that of the ornament he proposed for the unbuilt Baker House he designed for the beautiful burlesque dancer Josephine Baker in 1928. The exterior of Loos’ proposed design was ornamented with horizontal black stripes, the interior penetrated by vertical voids or raumplans and a series of voyeuristic opportunities, through to dressing areas, pools, bathrooms and toilets.
In this regard the whole design had been described as a bachelor machine. ‘A bachelor machine is an apparatus that, once set in motion, orchestrates ir-reversible roles akin to those played in seduction’ (El-Dahdah 1995). It is this notion of the bachelor machine, created through ornament of architecture in the public toilet that Loos Pleasure 01 reflects upon.
Practice
Loos Pleasure 01: was created in a curated set of toilet cubicles, purpose built for the exhibition Decorating Loos. In order to reflect upon our relationship to the public toilet as wavering between amenity and entertainment, it was decided to transform the toilet cubicle into the earliest form of moving image production, a peep show parlour. Within Loos Pleasure 01 the toilet cubicle is locked and two peepholes are created in the door. On the interior of the cubicle a projection is reflected in a mirror on the back of the door. The reflection of the projection appears opposite the peepholes.
The imagery seen through the peepholes is Loos' ornament proposed for the unbuilt Baker House. Navigating the internal surface of the cubicle, the projection reflects Loos' justification of the ornament, as he says, the black and white stripes visually dissolve the corners of the cubicle (El-Dahdah 1995). Each peephole has a different view of the Baker House, one moving vertically up, the other moving vertically down. Loos himself described the use of black and white stripes as being symbolic of a woman lying horizontally, with the man vertically penetrating. This symbolic language of Loos' proposed architectural ornament is reframed, and relocated into the very place where he detested ornament, the toilet cubicle.
Outcome
Through this practice, Loos Pleasure 01 creates a tension between self in the space, through a transition from toilet cubicle to peep show; from amenity to entertainment. This installation subverts our relationship with the toilet cubicle through the moving image installation. The subject of the space is placed outside of the toilet, only to be entered by the voyeuristic eye. The stability of the experience of toilet cubicle is unsettled, by highlighting the voyeuristic undertones of the toilet.
In a secondary layer it explores the tensions between use of solicited ornament that the architect designs and the unsolicited ornament of ‘daubing on the toilet walls’ (Loos 1908). With each peephole displaying a different image in such a small space, concepts of spatial capacity are also challenged, where the boundaries of the interior of the cubicle appear extended beyond their spatial parameters.
Sarah Breen Lovett, Skewed Screen 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 03 : Skewed Screen 01
A moving image installation as part of the Day and Night Exhibition, curated by Archetype Gallery. Chauvel Cinema, Paddington, July 2010
Architecture
Skewed Screen 01 was created to reflect upon the spatial relationship that the body has with oblique architectures. This can be thought of in terms of Guilana Bruno’s geospatial, geophysical exploration of haptic space (Bruno 2002) and Walter Benjamin’s sense of haptic awareness through sight (Benjamin 1936). The body normally traversing horizontal planes while surrounded by vertical planes, encounters the oblique with an adjusted positionality, as discussed in the 1960s article The Oblique Function by Paul Virilio & Claude Parent. The oblique is between the vertical and horizontal and this installation reflects on the state of being between these two planes.
The oblique surface that was chosen was an oblique mezzanine soffit, in a cinema foyer space. This context also allowed reflection upon the relationship that one has with the cinematic screen, usually on a vertical surface, encountered by a static body.
Practice
Through the practice of creating an installation that reflects upon our relationship to oblique architectures, it became evident that the piece would need to use imagery that the body has a kinaesthetic relational awareness of. An imagery that had recognisable elements of up and down, so that when it began to turn our haptic sense also momentarily began to turn. To do this the piece used imagery of trees, as the haptic body has a relational perspective with trees. When the self looks at the image of trees it instinctually knows which is up, and which is down. The moving image of the trees was projected upon the soffit and made to turn at such a speed and ratio that it became less about the image, and more about the oblique soffit, creating a situation where ones attention would waver between the two.
Outcome
This practice created a tension between the self and space, experienced through the haptic relationship to space. In viewing the slowly turning imagery on an oblique angle, overhead, one's sense of stability was erased. The usual parameters of the horizontal and the vertical were challenged. The projection itself unfolded slowly over a period of time, on first glance it would seem it was unmoving. Also, due to the natural light levels, the projection slowly became visible at night, while the turning projection slowly transformed from day to night imagery and back again.
A scrolling image of light and shadow transports the viewer from horizontal to vertical coign of vantage. Elements not visible during the day come into view as night falls, questioning the rectangular cinematic image, and the visceral relationship between day and night, architecture and viewer.
Sarah Breen Lovett & Lee Stickells, Window Wound 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 04: Window Wound 01
A moving image installation commissioned by Silvester Fuller Architects. BMA House, Macquarie Street Sydney, September 2010
Architecture
Window Wound explores the relationship we have with the façade of a building. The façade hints at what lies beneath the surface, but does not reveal it completely. In this way the windows on a façade almost become the eyes of the soul, where there is the opportunity to reveal what is normally hidden from view.
The building that was chosen for this installation was the historic British Medical Association House (BMA House). Originally designed by Fowell and McConnel in 1930, BMA House won the Royal Institute of British Architecture (RIBA) Award for Street Architecture in 1935 and RIBA Bronze Medal.
The wound — a gap — is, like the window, the juncture of interior and exterior. It is a liminal space of rupture but also possibility: a chance to cut is a chance to cure. WINDOW / WOUND explores this frisson, revealing spatio-temporal slices of BMA House’s interiors through the windows of Studio 1. (Stickells)
Practice
In order to reflect upon our relationship to the façade, Window Wound explored the interior foyer spaces of BMA house, re-presenting them to a passing audience on the street. Two views of the foyer interiors were filmed and re-projected into the two separate windows of the façade. The scale and depth of field of the projections in relation to the window surface, created the illusion that the filmed footage of the interior was a shadowy reality just behind the surface of the window glass. The moving image installation was set up, so that the filmed footage was sliced to align with the actual architectural columns. In this way the imagery of the occupants of the filmic architecture appeared to disappear into the gaps of the real architecture of the facade.
Outcome
The reflection upon our relationship to façade, by bringing the interior of the building to the façade through the moving image projection, created a tension between self and the façade. The self becomes uncertain about what is the real façade and what is the filmic façade. In a state of wavering between the moving image and the architecture, the normative relationship to façade is destabilised.
A further layer of tension was created by the slippage between the moving image and the real architecture, where the human figures within the cinematic space were slipping away in the gap between the architecture and the cinematic spaces. In this way a tension between the filmic space and the architectural space is created, where a slippage or disjuncture exists between the interior and exterior.
Sarah Breen Lovett, Window Detail 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 05 : Window Detail 01
A moving image installation, as part of the Duoscope exhibition with Yvette Hamilton. Sound by Greg Reeves. Gaffa Gallery, Clarence Street, Sydney, November 2010
Architecture
Window Detail 01 focuses on the inherent duality of the outward and inward view, where the window is a filter, a frame through which to view the outside world. The window also allows the outside to be reflected back into the interior space that which is present outside affects the occupation of the interior (Hill 2006: 21). The installation, specifically explores how architectural space fragments and disperses multiple images from the exterior to the interior. This installation engages with architectural thinking on interior to exterior (Pallasmaa 2005) and Immaterial Spatial Perceptions (Hill 2006).
Window Detail 01 also explores Gottfried Semper's concept of ‘woven fabric’, ‘Most theories identify the origins of architecture in a solid and protective home. Semper argues, however that architecture originates in the woven fabrics that generate and enclose domestic space when placed on the ground or hung in the air.’ (Hill 2006: 113)
Practice
In order to reflect upon the co-dependant relationship between the interior and the exterior, an architecture had to be found that it was possible to experience both the interior and exterior at the same time. An internal gallery space was chosen for this work, where an internal window existed in the space. This allowed the moving image projection to be experienced on either side of the window space, where either side of the window, could be perceived as interior or exterior.
The installation consisted of a single projector with a slideshow, two interior rooms, a window between them and a floating fly screen mesh (a woven fabric hung in the air). Projecting the slideshow in this architectural interior lead to four perceivable projected moments from one projector.
One moment is the projected image onto the window glass. A miniscule projection due to the close proximity of the glass to the projector, it is barely deciphered by the naked eye. Another moment of projection is filtered through the glass and onto a floating fly screen mesh beyond. The screen captures the normally unseen image mid-space. However as the light shifts from dark to light in the slideshow the gauze of the fly screen also shifts from being visible to invisible. A further instance of the projection is on the wall behind the fly screen mesh. The mesh filters the projection, creating a further fragmented image. The image is read on the wall fragmented by the gauze of the floating fly screen mesh. A final perceivable image is on the wall behind the projector. The source of which is perplexing to the viewer, as the projector appears to be pointing in the opposite direction, until they realise that this projection is a reflection from the first miniscule image on the glass.
Outcome
Through the practice of using moving image installation to reflect upon the co-dependant relationship between interior and exterior, a tension between self and space is created. The visible fragmentation of this single projection into four perceivable projections reflected, refracted, filtered and multiplied from interior to exterior, blurred the line between the two. The reflecting image throughout the space is destabilising, as one's usual parameters of cause and effect are challenged. It is not clear where each of the reflected projections are coming from, and the boundary between the interior and the exterior becomes erased. This practice reveals that there are multiple fragmented images reflected from the exterior to our interior that go largely un-noticed by the human eye.
Sarah Breen Lovett, Dome Detail 01, 2010
Expanded Architecture 06: Dome Detail 01
A moving image installation at Peats Ridge Festival Land of the Hopeless Utopians curated by Victoria Johnstone, dome by regener8, sound by Greg Reeves, December 2010
Architecture
Dome Detail 01 reflects upon the spatial and haptic relationship we have with domes. A dome is an architectural space where the usual parameters of the horizontal ceiling meeting the vertical wall are erased. The ceiling in a dome morphs and becomes the wall, without the delineation of a corner. This creates a space where our normal sense of boundary is challenged and our peripheral vision is given space to extend (Pallasmaa 2000: 78).
The dome that was used for this installation was a lightweight geodesic dome. A modern day incarnation of Buckminster Fuller's invention, an architecture that can achieve maximum spatial coverage with the minimum structural weight. Our haptic awareness of this structure is one of lightness, in comparison to the every day architectures that we occupy.
Practice
In order to reflect upon the spatial and haptic relationship we have with geodesic dome architecture it was important to use footage in the moving image projection that was comparable to the architecture, but also lay in contrast to it. It was decided to use pre-recorded footage of heavy weight architectural domes and details, shot in Spain and Morocco. This created a juxtaposition of highly decorative, ornate and heavy traditional architecture, projected over the light weight geodesic dome structure.
Within the architecture of the dome three projectors were set up to allow for a 360 degree projection of images, so the peripheral vision would be filled if laying on the ground looking up at the dome.
Outcome
Through the practice of this installation it was discovered that a tension exists between the perception of the lightweight geodesic dome structure and the weighted architectural imagery projected upon it. The use of the heavy architectural imagery sliding over the geodesic dome creates a sense of unsettling, where the boundaries between real, architectural and filmic space become blurred. The blurring of these two elements created a third architecture, a space in tension between the two, where ones consciousness wavers between the real and filmic.
The speed and direction of this third architecture was all encompassing. At times the dome felt as though it was lifting off the ground or lowering itself onto it. The dome appeared to rotate and the haptic bodily response to the original dome to this was unsettled and held in tension between the real and filmic spaces, between the self and the architecture.
Expanded Architecture
Conclusion
The iterative practice of Expanded Architecture has revealed a number of inter-relationships between the works. All works are embedded within their existing architectures. All of the works begin a dialogue about the way that we relate to architectural spaces, in terms of the encounters that they provide us with. In all of the works, the practice of reframing the architecture back on itself through either imagery in the footage or spatiality of the installation creates various tensions between self and space, the architecture and the viewer. Various essential co-ordinates of architecture are challenged through this practice leading to a destabilisation of the normal parameters of architecture, and therefore self in space.
For example; within Window Wound 01 and Window Detail 01 the normative co-ordinates of interior and exterior are blurred, where interior imagery is presented to the exterior façade and the exterior imagery to the interior experience. The relationship between interior and exterior is questioned; What is being framed by the window in these installations, the exterior view, the interior occupant? How do we relate to architecture differently when on the interior compared with the exterior? Window Detail 01 specifically reflects the exterior imagery throughout the interior and exterior to a point that the perception of the two become in tension with one another. The normal co-ordinates of what is interior and what is exterior becomes unsettled.
Within Still Stair 01 and Dome Detail 01 the relationship between the immaterial presence of the projection is overlayed with the material presence of the architecture. In one way it can be seen that the projected image dematerialises our perception of the architecture, liquefying it, embedding it kinetically. While in another way it brings an awareness of the architectures material weight and permanent presence in contrast to the projection. Specifically Dome Detail 01 explores this idea by projecting imagery of a heavier, more permanent architecture onto a lightweight architectural structure, inverting this normative relationship. In viewing the pieces the material architecture and immaterial projection at times appear as one, while at other times appear at odds, creating a mesmerising effect where the attention wavers between the architecture and the moving image.
Loos Pleasure 01 explores the relationship of self with space in terms of amenity and entertainment. The installation inverts the typical relationship to the public toilet and creates it as a space of voyeurism. Bringing this voyeuristic relationship to the surface destabilises the normative use of the space. While on a second level, by having two separate images projected into what appears to be a small space, the sense of spatial proportion is also destabilised. In viewing the work, the attention is at once wavering between the moving image and the architecture of the installation, where the use of one questions the existence of the other.
Skewed Screen 01 explores the essential architectural co-ordinates of horizontal and vertical, whereby we normally traverse the horizontal plane surrounded by vertical planes. These two co-ordinates are bought together in the oblique angle and Skewed Screen 01 highlights this tension by projecting imagery that slowly moves from the horizontal to the vertical. In viewing this piece the normative relationship to both is destabilised, as the image wavers between the horizontal and the vertical, the attention wavers from the moving image back to the architecture.
The practice-based nature of Expanded Architecture contributes to the knowledge of practice as research through its iterative, multiple approaches to a singular conceptual framework. Working within particular constraints, the architectural site, the medium of the moving image and the conceptual framework of using one to reflect on our relationship with the other, allows for multiple interpretations of a singular concept and overall conclusions about our relationships to be drawn from them.
Most notably, while the existing architectures within each installation vary quite widely, in terms of scale, size, public-ness, private-ness, orientation, amenity, use, function, permanence and transience, an overall conclusion can be drawn. This is that this practice of Expanded Architecture; using moving image installation to reflect on our relationship to architecture, leads to a destabilising effect on the sense of self within architecture, what ever the architecture is.
Expanded Architecture, the intersection of moving image installation and architecture is a valuble tool in exploring our understandings of architecture, which is useful in architectural contexts, installation art practices and cinematic development. This practice is unique, in that it is formed through the desire to understand our relationship to architecture, researched through the lens of moving image installation. This in turn leads to a destabilisation of the initial relationship to architecture and the creation of a third space, a space in tension, which sits between the architecture and the moving image, between self and space.
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