Afterthoughts

A reservoir of sensations: the habits and habitats I will learn to draw upon when I no longer live in a place that can satiate my curiosities regarding phenomenology. I doubt that day will ever come because even a place like New Jersey can create amazing designers.

Tulips at the Tuileries

Saturday morning Football

Walks along the west bank

Watching the city turn Green

Reading along Pont Neuf

Learning how much I need to work on my strategies as a chess player...

Atmosphere

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm not going to give you a picture, but perhaps 1,000 words, ok more like 500... Don't be lazy, use your imagination. It's more fun that way.

Today, after a long night with some friends from Como, I had a relaxed brunch at a familiar spot called Le Pain Quotidien just off of Rue St. Honore. Familiar not because I had been there before, but because it had reminded me of a time back in California with great friends and incredible memories. The amazing part of the meal was that I sat at the same communal table, and I was a part of a sort of pseudo-family. To my left was a young bloke, no more than seven who thought it proper to push the chair to my right with his short legs and pretend as if there was some sort of a spirit lurking about the table. The rest of his family, a group of five or so, continued their conversations as friends of theirs made their way into the café and joined us at the table. Double kisses on the cheek for everyone there. Across the way was an older woman, straight out of an old Zola novel. Her hair neatly pressed, sporting a fine man's driving cap and a smile that could stop a horse. She noted the fact that I was sketching, and I am pretty sure she turned her head so that I could view a better angle of her face. Directly to my right, were two young women who couldn't stop laughing about who knows what. It didn't even matter because it made me laugh non-stop as well. Everything was covered in an old distressed wood, so much so that a few of the planks below foot would pop up if stepped on by a hard heel leaving a sort of undulating landscape of textured wood. Aside from the food, the air was thick with the smell of salted butter melting onto fresh bread. The drinks, fresh citronnade, sharp and full of sweet pulp. If you were finished with your meal, a waiter would casually walk you to the door, ask you if you enjoyed your meal, and then continue with the logistics of paying and what not. Afterwards, they would see you out. Of course most people didn't leave promptly because it felt as if we were dining together in someone's home. You never leave after you eat a meal at a friend's home. You stay, converse, chat, so that's what we did. What I loved about this place is that it was instructional. A sensuous map about everything you need for a great experience that you won't discover in a picture. There was no fast-pace dance music playing in the background, no silly waiters dressed to look more 'french,' and of course no tourist section of the restaurant. The sound was just of people enjoying themselves. The space was simple, intimate, and warm. Every table, communal. No one ate alone... not even the weird kid from Los Angeles trying to find answers to questions he doesn't even know how to ask in French.

And yet isn't that the point? So you close your eyes, and your 5500 miles away, back in Claremont enjoying, enjoying.

Freud

"My idea of travel is downward travel really, getting to know where you are better, and exploring feelings that you know more deeply. I always think that this--knowing something by heart gives you a depth of possibility which has more potential than seeing new sights, however marvelous and exciting they may be."

Lucien Freud

British Painter, grandson of Sigmund Freud

I have been lucky enough to live the life of a renaissance man here in Paris. The verbs exercised in my everyday life are wake up, walk, think and write. One day, I'll elaborate upon the issues that have been surfacing in my head, but it would be premature to do so now, so I'll give them time to marinade. It was only through the process of listening that I came to these ideas, so if I had to give you a hint as to what this is about... one day, there will be a design course that I may teach entitled "Sense and Nonsense: Redesigning the Brain."

ABIVA © 2010.

Back to the café to think some more.

" "

Listening to a certain jazz trio here in Paris, for some reason, always leaves me excited about my work as a designer. Whether it's being completely fascinated by their kinaesthesia and how that relates to sign language, or mapping out the many ways one can play upright bass--the sounds you can achieve when you treat it like a drum, I always walk away with some inkling, some sort of new perspective.

During our dinner tonight after their set, I had a chance to talk with Ziggy, Jeff, and Christine about their work how they started so on and so forth. At one point during the dinner, Jeff and Christine stepped out, so I asked Ziggy, 'What is the hardest part of playing the guitar?' Now just so you can picture him, Ziggy is half French, a quarter Taiwanese, and a quarter African, elegantly dressed in a suit, hair slicked back, sporting a classic smile.

After he takes a sip of wine, he asks me why I want to know that, and I tell him that it's important to know the struggles that any creative person has to undergo because you appreciate their work that much more. So he tells me, "The hardest thing about playing the guitar is the silence. You see, guitar players don't need to stop playing to take a breath, they can fill the room with notes both complex and technically challenging, but the silence is the most important aspect." I asked him why, and he said "Silence is the only time when you can think of a sound, and use your imagination to fill it in. People in the crowd will hear silence, and they'll fill in whatever note or scale they want. If I keep playing really fast notes I get bored, the crowd gets bored. It's the silence that brings them back in. Jazz can't exist without the silence in between."

I had never thought to consider the silence.

So now you're wondering... why do I care, what is Matt talking about, this is weird... The merit here reveals itself when you consider the silence in design of cities, public spaces, even the home. What design allows for the crowd to fill in the space with their imagination?

Rewind

I realized just now, that in my effort to move forward with a project that has been almost two years in the making, I forgot explain just exactly what I am doing in Paris. It is a little bit funny since so many of you sort of followed along without any real understanding of what I am trying to achieve. So here is the proposal that won me the 2009 Jon A. Jerde Traveling Fellowship:

Abstract

When we see a musical instrument, we know something about its textural quality, its craftsmanship, and its tone. It evokes a mood and emotion, and we can hear the visual sound projecting from its form. And yet, a violin is often best experienced through the other senses, in this case hearing, because it provides a more human experience.

The same can be said of the city of Paris.

Theoretical context

In trying to understand genus loci, or the spirit of a place, visual stimulus should be taken into account, but what of sound, touch, and temperature... All of these sensorial aspects work together as a composite to form a composition of multi-sensory experience.

What does a chapel in Paris after Sunday morning mass sound like, and why does the space command your silence? Why does it not? What are the environmental sounds tied to the high streets of London and how does that change our experience of the architecture? What is it about the sounds and sights of Quincey Market that make it feel comfortable, what are these sensibilities?

It's indisputable that although the eyes and the ears are two different senses, when working together in the composition of a space, the effect is much more memorable. What I wish to achieve is a different means of documenting the architectural experience of a place. We cannot divorce ourselves from the power of vision, but when we consider it within a larger context of the human senses, I believe we can achieve a value that is honest and of this place and time.

Proposal

I propose to study this phenomenon at different architectural scales. I plan on visiting Paris, the ostensible city of lights, in order to document the soundscapes in each urban environment. I have chosen specific places to document because they have been aurally etched into my memory, and I constantly find myself looking back on those experiences, painstakingly trying to bring that element of grace into the work.

This in no means will satiate the understanding of experience in a place, but I hope it will at least open the flood gates for discussion.

Seat of the Muses

Elephant Graveyard / Cabinet of Wonders

I've always believed that if you want unconventional answers, you need to look in unconventional places. The places that I find most inspiring, are usually never architectural masterpieces. The inspiration is often too personal that to most, it will never make any sense. When I find spaces like this, healthy obsessions as they say, I always force myself to understand what I'm seeing as future design strategies, never just as beautiful objects. Some people will look at these pictures and will just see a room full of bones. I can see the next five/ten years or so of one's design career. So, it's no wonder they call it a museum.

I stayed here for a good four hours, just observing... creating a mental roladex of ideas and inspirations of designs yet to come.

This blog makes me feel like I'm giving away all of my secrets, but if it helps you to understand or be inspired in any way possible, then I'll keep on posting.

Whale Fin / Future Inspired furniture

Elephant Spine / Stacking Chairs in a park setting (Jardin du Luxembourg), Instant Art

Elk Skeleton / Tensile Fabric Roof Structure

The Exodus / I can't give everything away now can I?

Bull Head / Fish and Shoe graphic

If you get this... you're too good, and you need to be teaching art classes

Primate skeleton / Stylistic approach to Cathedral ceilings

Skeletal Exhibitions of primates / Refurbished interiors of the Pebble Beach Club

Gills of a Whale / Louvered structure at night

Reflected Geometries / Cinematic Approach and Focus

I suppose I'm still a kid inside. I like to think that all of this stuff is like the old 1980's art Magic Eye. You just need to look harder.

"Focus... focus... ahh there it is... wait, I think I did it wrong, is it a dolphin?!"

Pregnant

For this post, I'm just going to write... just to get the ideas down. No holds barred:

When you study sound, you gain a thicker appreciation for materiality in the physical world. This whole experiment is akin to sitting in an old theater (which I did not to long ago) and not being able to see a single thing. You are surrounded by the darkness, and you can't see a thing, you don't understand anything. Then, your eyes start to adjust, and the shadows reveal themselves. Then there are hints of light, color, and space. Then you decide to take a picture, the camera clicks...FLASH! Enlightenment.

It's there for a second, so you flash again, and again, until you can finally understand what you're sitting in.

There are days where the work is completely boring, and you're frustrated because the recordings don't come out the way you had planned.

And then there are days where if I'm patient enough, the beauty will reveal itself...

FLASH: By being patient, I am beginning to learn why certain breads sound the way they do, or why all of the chairs in the cathedrals have straw seats. At first I was annoyed by the sound of the seats, but it made me start to ask 'why straw?' If you've ever sat in a straw seat versus a wooden one during a cold day, you'll understand why. Aside from comfortability, straw conducts heat much faster than hardwoods. It makes all the difference, trust me.

FLASH: On friday, I visited an old school which had floors that sounded like one hundred trees being ripped from the ground. With every step another forest snapped.

FLASH: Whenever I walk through certain gardens, my shoes are left with white chalk stains from the gravel, and when I see the stains the next day when I'm putting on my shoes, I start to remember the sound of the gravel under foot, and what it felt like to be in that surrounding. There's a peace to it.

FLASH: The way wet stone captures the light in the afternoon.

Materiality isn't just for looks, and it's not something you can just look up in a catalogue and choose from. Every material is saturated with meaning and symbolism, and it's from our memories of these experiences, these flashes, that we can achieve satisfaction in our work. It's a different kind of design intelligence.

They say that to be a strong member of any intelligence agency you have to have a steady mind, an unswerving sense of believe in what you're doing, and be a hopeless romantic.

6787 327.

First Sign of Spring

It rained all of last night. I recorded a few hours from my studio balcony so as to not get the equipment wet. When I walked to get some breakfast this morning, I noticed all the trees along La Seine had bloomed.

I Speak Your Language

Blind Drawing of Jeff, an upright bass player, Paris 2010.

Blind Drawing, saxophone player, Paris 2010.

Blind Drawing of Ziggy, a guitar player, Paris 2010.

The life of an expatriate, especially that of one in Paris, has an odd way of focusing your thoughts and your happiest moments onto the small instances where you make a connection with that of another human being. This is due partly to the fact that I no longer have a cell phone, my social circle has shrunk down to just my person, and of course, the language. But this Wednesday, I had sort of a little achievement. As I tried to instigate some sort of ritual and pattern in my weekly activities, I went back to the same jazz lounge I visited last week and the same musicians were there.

I sat down in my usual table, and continued to order my dinner: a simple pot of boeuf bourguignon, some bread and a light berry tart for dessert. The room now is full of businessmen and fashion execs from Rue St. Honore and I'm starting to feel a little bit out of place, but I ease into the shadow of my table, pull out my sketchpad, and start to record.

The trio starts to play a few warm notes and I'm ready to enjoy the session. Sometimes I feel as if the Parisians themselves don't have a chance to really enjoy the atmosphere because its their everyday, their state of normalcy. So as the set starts, I begin recording (clandestinely of course, with mics hidden both in my books on the table and in my jacket lapel) and I find myself just being incredibly excited and overwhelmed by the musicians movements and the cool control they exude over each of their instruments.

Forgetting about proper table etiquette and manners, I start to cheer them on as they masterfully paint through their improv solos, and we start to make eye contact, the musicians and I. They smile and throw a nod at me, as if they're saying "Hey thanks, listen to this..." I'm laughing uncontrollably by this point, because the bass player and the guitarist, Jeff and Ziggy, are throwing melodies around in such a relaxed but calculated manner, it feels like watching baby chicks playing Battleship.

By the time I look at my watch, three hours have passed, and most of the night crowd is gone but we're still enjoying ourselves having musical conversations across the room. Jeff introduces everyone and he thanks me for coming to listen...for really listening. He tells me that they play for people like me, I suppose 'who come to speak their language.' Of course he's not talking about French. He's talking about the universal language of jazz, a means of communication most Parisians tend to gloss over.

There's an exchange of some words, a business card or two, and before I know it, he's inviting me to art openings and future concerts later down the line. Jeff's last words are "Cool Cool. We'll see you around Matthew Jamieson Abiva. We'll definitely see you around."

NY Times: Using City Sounds in E-commerce

Listen to this website... Who said what I'm doing has no practical applications? It's a high end e-tail (internet retail) site which uses city sounds to offer a more luxurious presentation to its daily visitors. Albeit this is the complete opposite of what I'm trying to say with my work here in Paris, it still proves a point.

People want to sell experiences.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/fashion/18iht-acawecom.html?pagewanted=1

Performative Dynamics

When it comes to creative work like this, sometimes its better just to do and analyze later. Work fast so that the mind does not yet have time to clutter up the idea with pedagogy, tradition. Stay sober on emotions and feeling, what most think of as intuition.

This living idea will be premiered for the first time publicly at Walt Disney Imagineering on Wednesday. I, of course, like many of you, will not be there to hear it. It marked a time and a place in my life that creatively knew no boundaries, and I feel that it now has a life of its own. Even though I've never trained classically as a composer, I feel that in the end, that has made all the difference. There are no rules, no need to follow formulas, nothing to clutter up the emotion...just music.

Like most things in my musical career... there is generally always one person who misses the performance. I never realized I would be one of them.

Good Luck.

A City Inside

Typical Haussmann Street to your left, Musée D'Orsey to your right

The experience of life as gained through the senses will be our starting point today, as it is with any other.

Invisible Cities is a short, but intimate novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. In it, he documents the travels of Marco Polo, describing each city he visits with an imaginative sense of exploration while re-creating lucid windows of habitation. My favorite aspect of the novel is that in the end, if you are reading between the lines you'll figure out that what Calvino is describing is not many cities, but one, Venice. This notion has stayed with me for some time now, and it provided the perfect metaphor for this post.

The day before yesterday, I went to Musée D'Orsey, sat down observed and recorded. After about six hours, I left with no real conclusion as to what I did that day. This happens more often than you would think. So I went back to the studio, listened to the recordings, to myself walking through the space and I found the city inside. I realized that the main space's "comfortableness" is due to the fact that it performs strategically as a space we're very familiar with. The way one moves through the building is the exact same way you would move through a typical Parisian street during a time before there were automobiles. I had only come to this conclusion because the day before I accidentally recorded myself walking home, and the transitions and diversity of sound spaces in D'Orsey reminded me of that recording.

There is a central street lined with sidewalks. Secondary to these main sidewalks are larger public squares which open up to smaller more intimate areas. Once you pass these areas, both large and thin, you will find lobbies and landings providing access and circulation to the smallest of spaces, the rooms... Because the space is stimulated by a street-like organization, the life here is more than just a promenade, it's theater. Take notice of the people behind the lenses of their cameras here. They pose like statues, there is a grace to their line.

So there it is. When you come to Paris, and you will come, find this invisible city.

Two ways of looking at the same thing.

Op. 0178

"...Look his eyes are here in the space, but he's listening to his music..."

Friday mornings find me in the upper level of the Louvre's main atrium, a place where I can watch the silhouettes move across and through the corridors. For breakfast, I usually have an espresso and a petite tart de pomme depending on my mood that day. Once I sat down, I got settled, and started to paint the sound. Two women, one who was Italian and the other possibly from Iran, sat down next to me. Five minutes into the recording, this is what I heard.

"Look at this guy across from me...

Look his eyes are here in the space, but he's listening to his music

See, look, he's in his own world. He's listening to his music, but his eyes are here.

It's nice."

[I was definitely listening to my own music]

"His pen has water inside, look I've never seen anything like that. It's like a fountain pen, with water."

Their conversation continued, and I finished the recording about 10 minutes later. But as I finished up my drawing they said this:

"Wait watch his eyes move, he's not looking at the space.

What is he painting?"

At this point I laughed which was my mistake. It hinted at the fact that although I was wearing headphones, I heard everything that they were saying. The woman directly across from me leaned in and whispered, 'Can you hear me?'

Without even looking in their direction, I nodded and the three of us had a huge laugh.

They had been watching me, I had been listening to them. We had a dialogue before we even exchanged a single word. We talked for another 2 hours or so as I explained the project to them. It was the first honest conversation I've had in Paris and I'm glad I have the recording and the sketch to remember it by.

(quotes in blue are taken from opus 0178)

Steel and Air

Before I go home every day, I walk through the Pyramid at the Louvre just to check out the way the light reflects into the space. I think this is where Olafur Elliason got his first inspiration for his work. What do you think?

L'ecole des Beaux Arts

Thanks to Dean Ma's lettre d'intention, I finally got clearance to attend studios at the world renowned L'ecole des Beaux Arts here in Paris. I'll be working with students who have sculptor Richard Deacon as their professor. Getting access is the easy part, convincing the students to let me record them paint and sculpt... let's just hope for a miracle folks.

Red Velvet

I reconnected with a few American friends tonight at L'hotel du Louvre. Maybe you know them...Coltrane, Fitzgerald, Armstrong. The beauty, verve, speed and integrity of improvisation coupled with the amazing setting of a room, once frequented by Napoleon created such a sensual world, so much so, that I think I will have to let this one marinade before I give it a proper post.

But for those of you who devour books, something to satisfy your curiosity.

To me, buildings can have a beautiful silence that I associate with attributes such as composure, self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well; a building that is being itself, being a building, not representing anything, just being.

The sense that I try to instill into materials is beyond all rules of composition, and their tangibility, smell, and acoustic qualities are merely elements of the language we are obliged to use. Sense emerges when I succeed in bringing out the specific meanings of certain materials in my buildings, meanings that can only be perceived in just this way in this one building.

When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, when I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history, and its sensuous qualities, images of other places start to invade this process of precise observation: images of places I know and that once impressed me, images of ordinary or special places places that I carry with me as inner visions of specific moods and qualities; images of architectural situations, which emanate from the world of art, or films, theater or literature.

-Peter Zumthor

Tonight, I was more than impressed.

It is Today

During my morning exploration of the Latin Quarter, I found something written in small letters on a wall and this is what it said (translated from French) :

The Secrets to a Parisian Life

1. Read a poem
2. Listen to a piece of music
3. Gaze at a piece of art
4. Eat good food
5. Create something
6. Express gratitude for something
7. Have a DIRECT experience with life
8. Drink tea
9. Touch the earth
10. Stop getting to work on time
11. Love with an open heart
12. Walk at the Jardin Luxembourg

I decided to take the rest of the day off, and do just that. This was my list.

1. Read a Poem: In my sketchbook I have two poems from a friend back in California. If he's reading this, you'll be happy to know I went to the place where I was among giants, I read the poems, and I drew a sketch of my shadow...

2. Listen to a piece of music: Easy. I took a walk through the Latin Quarter, where its not hard to find a street band dancing through the tight compressed city streets. I saluted them, and they gave me a smile back.

3. Gaze at a piece of art: Art isn't only at the museums. I went inside a patisserie and watched the pastry chef work his magic through the glass windows. I can't imagine how hard they work. They wake up at 3 am everyday to create art that you can eat.

4. Eat good food: After gazing at the "art" I went to the cassier and bought one pain au choco amondes, which are pastries with almond paste, and small lines of chocolate. On top, it is covered in powdered sugar and slivers of toasted almonds. Trust me it was good. It's always good. The food here makes me want to start a second blog just about french butter.

5. Create something: I continued walking in and out of city streets, paying no attention to where I was or how I got there. Being lost in Paris is definitely my favorite pastime. I found a small park with a fountain in it, so I made a small paper boat from my french newspaper that day, and set it free on its course.

6. Express gratitude for something: Mr. and Mrs. Jerde... This one is for you. When I see you next, remind me to give you the piece of paper I wrote on called "Number 6."

7. Have a DIRECT experience with life: See all of the above.

8. Drink Tea: Just a block west of Jardin Luxembourg is a small shop I like to eat in called Bread and Roses. Can you guess what they sell? I stopped for some Moroccan mint tea--two sugars. The clerk I knew spoke arabic, so I said thank you in that language. "Shukran madame, Shukran."

9. Touch the earth: I know what you're thinking, and no I didn't do that. Instead I went into an old map shop and looked at their vintage globe collection. The globe I was looking was in all black, and the distance from Paris to Los Angeles was the exact distance from my thumb to my little finger.

10. Stop getting to work on time: Let's just say I'll stop doing that for the next, oh seven weeks.

11. Love with an open heart: See below.

12. Walk at the Jardin Luxembourg: I spent the rest of my afternoon walking through the gardens, people watching, pondering, sketching sound diagrams, and thinking "I really love it here."

Making Air Visible

The process of visualizing something that cannot be scene with the human eye always brings on its own challenges. Think of unicorns, Santa Clause, and the ever present poet, el chupacabra. Like I said: its own challenges. So as I sat in the front of Notre Dame waiting for mass to start, I faced my own Parisian unicorn, and visualized the invisible.

Without warning the organist trumpets his first chords breaking the flow of tourists as they rush to the pipes to take a picture of them. I imagine them going home to their husbands and wives to show them, and I laugh because I wonder what is the more powerful memory, the image of an organ or the sound of one? I understand their thought process though because the image states to the rest of the world, "Look, I was here!"

The collected sacredness of being in Notre Dame and the profanity of a line of tourists behind me made me feel like I was in a zoo, so I decided to close my eyes and open my ears.

I imagined the sound as a huge sky of silk filling the space transforming from an airy delicate fabric to a heavy bellowing concrete cloud and back again. During the whispers, it would float just above my head and throughout the chorus it would will every void within the space like water in a sponge. I could feel the expansiveness to my left and my right due to the millions of folds in the reverberations. Since the main choir was in front of me, their wall of sound would hit my face and echoed with each evolving chord. The sound had physically conceived itself in a cruciform pattern. I was left speechless.

I broke every drawing rule I taught at USC. I threw out perspective/detail and I began to draw blindly with my eyes closed, from imagination to image. Literally three hours later, I opened my eyes and stared at the mess of lines I had drawn trying to document the sound. It looked nothing like I had imagined. In fact, it was better.

And to top it all off, it said to the world "Look, I hear"

My Scissors

Henri Matisse, Blue Nude, paper cut out, 1952. Musée Henri Matisse.

Much of the beauty

that arises in art

comes from the struggle

an artist wages with

his limited medium.

-Henry Matisse

Like a stray cat, frustration followed me through the evening and into the morning. Yesterday's recordings were the first results which upset me due in part to the simple fact that my focus on sound reconstructed past memories of a place and atmosphere I once thought I understood.

I realized that I have no 'frame of reference' such as the one a photographer may have. There is no landscape, there is no portrait. I cannot create a picturesque focus on the Champs Élysées, and crop out the construction to the left of the street. It's no wonder so many people walk with ipod in hand. My sound here is not uni-directional. It encompasses a spherical space about the body that encounters both the good, the bad, and the ugly. This recording is a positive step towards finding intelligible evidence that can help enlarge my understandings of atmosphere and environment.

I will save the conclusion for this blog for the actual exhibition. However for those of you who cannot wait, a hint. There is a place in Paris where sound performs in the way a band-aid would perform on a cancer patient. I may be wrong, so I will have to return again and again to this place until I can have concrete evidence. What I can conclude with is this:

I am finally unlearning how to see.

One thing that brings me comfort on this subject matter is a man who continues to inspire me. For those of you who are not yet familiar with his story, during his last few years as an artist, Matisse suffered from severe arthritis and it was painful for him to hold a paintbrush. In order to combat this, he began his paper cut series where the scissors formed the lines he could not make with a brush. It enabled him to produce some of his best works. I have to continually remind myself that there is an untapped potential here with the study in Paris...I just need to find my scissors.

Visual Sound

Here is a visual collection of the spaces I have been recording thus far. Surprisingly, the most beautiful of images here do not necessarily correlate with the most beautiful of sounds.

1. Silence of Stone: tourist echoes within the vaulted ceilings of Notre Dame

2. Ocean Waves: a fountain at Place de la Concorde, the place where the guillotine once stood

3. Turning the Page: a reading room at Shakespeare and Co.

4. Going Home: the transition from Le Louvre to my studio