matthew goulish : lecture in the shape of a bridge collapsing


B: 7.transparency

A: By transparency, a component of sensibility, or the "capability of being perceived by the senses," I mean the degree to which one can directly perceive the operation of the various technical functions, activities, and social and natural processes that are occurring within a settlement: can one actually see people at work? hear the waves strike the shore? observe the course of a family argument? see what a truck is carrying or how the sewage drains away? touch what is for sale or see when the parking lot is full? watch the transfers of money and messages?
Some of these processes are important, some interesting, some trivial, others abhorrent, but they all convey a"sense of life" in any settlement, and are the direct perceptual basis for deeper meanings, since functions presented immediately to our senses help us to understand the world.
A transparent approach, one that attempts"uncreativity", openness, one that attempts to reveal as visible and perceptual, rather than to conceal and obscure, the steps of the process, inevitably absorbs the audience, the critic, the pedestrian - any who would make meaning - as an active participant, because transparency cannot function without an observer.

C: A tree uprooted

C: The architect Tadao Ando tells the story of growing up in the underground level of a housing project in Japan.
One day a remodel demolished the middle portion of the upper floor, temporarily removing a central strip of the Ando family's ceiling.
Into what had always been a shadowy dwelling, there flooded a brilliant shaft of daylight. "What has happened to my home?" he thinks, as he sits mesmerized by this new material that shifts and intensifies with the passing hours of the day,"Is this beauty, and is it my friend, and is it possible without destruction?" Like all transfixed children, he is staring at his future.

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