L'Mariage de Marion et Louis-Marie

At times, I find it extremely hard to write on this blog because the days unfold like movies, movies which I have a hard time believing myself. And yet it's better than a movie, because it's life -- my life here in Paris. For my thesis at USC with Prof. Annie Chu, I naively created this term called 'erlebnis erafhrung effect' which is defined as an individual living through an event or an experience in which emotional responses are evoked. Every day here in Paris has evoked emotional responses, has executed the EEE, but today's recordings were on a completely different level.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so I am always observing the scenery around me with the eyes and ears of a detective. I clued into the wedding 30 minutes before it started because the entire parking lot in front of Louis Vuitton was empty except for one lone Aston Martin DB9-it may have nothing to do with the wedding, but I new something was up. Then I noticed some women tying lilies to the chairs along the aisle, and I also saw a number of instrument cases strewn across the floor of the choir area. I knew something must have been up, so I waited and then I saw the family filing in as if it were a promenade. Luckily, I was dressed to the nines today, so no one mistook me as a tourist even though I was surrounded by long-tailed suits and hats that made the women look like moving sculptures from another time. So I sat down just to the right of the bride and groom, and in the time of two hours, this is some of what I heard:

1. The sound of wedding vows echo through a church, a confident "oui, je t'aime" from a man to his future wife...

2. The sound of a family cheer on their newest extended family...

3. Two best friends wishing the couple a happy life together...

4. The sound of the entire wedding party surrounding the new bride and groom and singing them a song of good fortune as they skip out of the church...

5. A glissando from l'orgue, sortie avec l'orgue... incredible.

I didn't even know these people, but I was still moved. Today's recording was so different that the others because it was a familial effort, hundreds of voices singing in a tone so cheerful that it felt warmer than the sun coming into the church. I still wonder, how can I achieve the same emotional response that a composer achieves in a piece of music in the experience of a building? Any suggestions?

I have so much work to do beyond this fellowship to answer that question, but I am moving forward, blindly. (pun intended-when are they not?)

To Marion and Louis-Marie... Thank you for letting me be a part of your day. Cheers, and a long life to you both!

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory | Video on TED.com

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory | Video on TED.com

Thanks Victor for sharing the post with me.

A day in the life of Matt

Days like this are so creatively stimulating I have to force myself to stop, just to send oxygen to my brain.

Mondays are usually the one day where I leave the docket empty and I make it up as I go. Here's my Monday docket for April 5, 2010. I wrote this one down because one day, when I can no longer do these things, I want to remember how amazing a day can become when everything is left to chance.

1. No surprises here, start the day off with a walk along the Seine

I decided not to take the metro today since it was the first day in a long while where the sun was strong enough to warm my back. I had intentions of going to the Petite Palais to do some more research, but the walk along the Seine was so therapeutic that I kept walking with no real desire to get anywhere fast.

Breakfast of Champions

2. Listen to the saxophonist under the bridge, Passarelle Léopold-Sédar Senghor

He played Edith Piaf's 'La Vie en Rose' for me while I sat and watched the boats pass by. Don't worry, I've got it recorded if you're interested in hearing it.

'La Vie en Rose'

3. Make a creative note about my dream home

I continued my walk to the docks along the Champs-Élysées. I took notice of the colors of the boats, colors worn down by the river, by the sea. One of the side projects I'm working on involves finding spaces in Paris that comfort me and designing a program to pull swatches from these spatial memories. So far, I've got about nine color harmonies. They have inspired rooms in my dream 'studio' as well as future fashion statements I may one day make.

4. Forget about time

I followed the Seine, stopping here and there to sketch or make a recording, and three hours later I found myself in front of the Eiffel Tower.

OK Eiffel tower, you got me this time...

5. A quiche lorraine with a view

After deciding to take a quick break, I went into the café at the architecture museum at the Trocadero. It has the best view of the Eiffel and you can have an amazing lunch for just about eight euro. I stayed there and watched the light change. I read a few lines of Munari, wrote a few lines myself and continued to get lost in the city.

The light.

6. Research for children's book

I ended up in the Nautical Museum of Paris, where I ended up taking about 300 photos. Sorry, I have a weak spot for these kinds of things, and I swear everything in this museum got me excited to continue this story I'm working on. Coming to a pair of hands on you soon...

This woman in beech wood, caught my eye and my attention for 30 minutes

Studying the hidden landscapes in nautical rope

Diving Bells and Butterflies.

Light house light bulbs... I wonder how man Frenchmen it takes to change this one.

7. Walk back, high tea

Now it was about four in the afternoon. In London, four means tea time! So I walked back to the Louvre to have high tea in my secret place, Mariage Fréres. The one I go to has an incredible atmosphere, and they usually play cuban jazz which fills the air with this aura of a time long ago.

This is an image of the downstairs seating area... I have yet to clandestinely take photos of the incredible space above.

8. Regatta

More research on the book... I watched a regatta which is my way of describing french kids sailing toy boats at the Tuileries. Today, all the boats were rented out so I just sat back and watched them sail away. The neon colors of the sails and the sound of kids running on the gravel always stays in my mind.

I think I'll miss this the most.

9. Shakespeare and Co.

This bookshop across from Notre Dame is where I spend many of my evenings into nights because of two reasons: they always have a reading on Monday nights and it's generally the best time to go because all of the artists and intellectuals from the Latin Quarter leave their studios to get in some good poetry.

Mr. Calder reciting poems from his book 'Solo.' notice how moved the girl (Gemma) on the right is...

10. Meet someone famous, be inspired, take their advice and 'fly solo'

Today's reading was by John Calder. If you don't know him, he's a famous poet, writer, and publisher. I listened to him read a few of his poems, and we got to talk afterwards. From what he says, Samuel Beckett was quite the character in his day. I told him about the project I was working on in Paris, and he told me to stay a while so he could read me a poem he wrote called 'Solo.' He said it might inspire me...

11. End the day with the sunset along the Seine

Like a close friend of mine who just celebrated her birthday, this one never gets old.

Good night Paris. You've made my Monday.

Excerpts from the Traumatic Fantasies

Her eyes were wet like glass.

Clear and deep, they were the only feature of her body that echoed a life once lived. Her feathers so black, so vapid gave off a thick perfume of ash and smoke. You could touch her skin with your eyes. The organ was so leathered by the fire that it draped a blanket across her large frame causing it to disappear into the now soot painted walls. The new camouflage would not help her here.

She had died a second time.

The feathers had burned off of her coat but their tips, fragmented, were attached to the body as if she had turned into a flightless porcupine atop the legs of a small giraffe. If you shook her, remnants of her burnt self would fall to the floor like fire flakes, snowing. She had no purpose but to continue to stare and watch as the rest of her frozen body burned amongst the electrical wiring.

Who will take her picture now?

It's important to me to be able to write descriptively and imaginatively about experiences I encounter because when we design, we must inherently create a space, an image, and describe it. Like a detective, the mind has to be as small as an ant, and walk every surface of the space or object, explore every shadow and have an intimate relationship with the unseen surroundings. If I can't draw a space at first, I'll write about it. This is a design exercise that works best when describing mundane things which force you to change scales such as olive oil and balsamic vinegar, locks on a door, or the proper way to eat a hard boiled egg. For my ten lucky readers, I can post others in time so you can understand more about these mental exercises I make for myself. Just let me know in the comments section.

If you ever see me in some sort of a haze or deep thought, I am usually doing one of these exercises. This is the first time though that I've told anyone what I was really thinking about. Hopefully you can gain something from it.

The space here is a section of the taxonomy shop in Paris called Deyrolle which burned in a tragic fire.

Our lady, a stuffed ostrich:

Noisy Neighbors

Paris treats its musicians well, and every day I'm starting to memorize these different sound environments. The musicians here perform in the same way that one uses icons and landmarks to navigate through the city. Each musician creates a sonic neighborhood, which offers new avenues for mapping out urban experience in cities similar to Paris. Not that I ever get tired of drawing Nolli plans... Did he just say urbanism? I could hear the same studies being done in London, New York, New Orleans or Barcelona. In addition to music, sound promotes urban experiences through relationships between pedestrian protection, scale, green space, wet space, transportation, and even temporary events such as flea markets or art exhibitions.

Back in Los Angeles, a mentor of mine told me he always found transitional spaces to be key players in design, and after having gone through maybe 400 or so sound recordings, I couldn't agree more. The way the sound behaves when transitioning through space is gradual. It never turns itself on or off like an ipod. It just fades into an echo. In fact, most times, I feel that the city sounds and the music I hear is even more beautiful when you hear it from a distance reflecting off of the facades a million times a second. It definitely adds to the quality of life index to the life of Parisians.

Usually design wants to stop sound from coming in. It may pertain to the sound of a local train, or an airplane landing just down the bay, or the infamous noisy neighbors... here, at least for me that's definitely not the case. De-De-Definitely.

Un Claude Deux Claude

Monet and Debussy were the two who led me to this watercolor. There is a reason and a relationship, but I will divulge those ideas at a more appropriate time. For now, we can be content knowing that I can start to visual my ideas and process driven research. If you think you know what it's going to look like in the end, you are assuming too much because the creative office has yet to wrap its head around the analysis, but things are starting to surface.

"If you already know the answer to the question, then why ask?"

Sound is merely what we hear when we listen. We're not dealing with sound, we're understanding processes of listening. Sense of hearing, not sense of sound... I realize this will probably make no sense at all, and most of this is stream of consciousness, but I feel its important to write it anyways. Don't forget, the world was once flat.

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...