Jul 5
2010
For example, do you prefer closed or open storage in your office or kitchen? Do you like to keep your windows naked, or do you dress them in curtains or shades? Do you keep stacks of mail on your kitchen counter or do you hide your bills in a drawer?
Do you embrace transparency in your physical surroundings?
Jennifer gave the final word
Looking around my place, I notice that what’s shown and hidden has a lot to do with what I want to show and hide about myself.
Tuesday, July 6 at 10:47am
Jennifer gave the Final Word
Yes. No. Both.
Looking around my place, i notice that what’s shown and hidden has a lot to do with what i want to show and hide about myself:
show: books. things i made. beautiful (to me) housewares. toys. cool street finds. pet.
hide: meds and various topical ointments. underwear. electrical cords. things to take to Goodwill. pet hygiene. my hygiene.
and then there’s what’s known around the workplace as “action items.” current writing and projects. near-future projects. forms. current bills. recycling to take out. jacket, keys, bag. phone.
i would also argue that even in this very private space, the show/hide choices reflect my ideal, public self.
i end with an exercise: guests are coming in an hour. what do you show? what do you hide?
Tuesday, July 6 at 10:47am
more:
show: warm fuzzy personal photos. beautiful fresh foods.
hide: depressing personal photos. canned and packaged foods.
are entertainment devices show or a hide? in her book Make Room for TV, Lynn Spigel traces the integration of television into the American home. at first, as with home computers, VCRs, and gadget chargers, televisions were hidden behind cabinets or other camouflage. today they hang on walls like art.
note that entertainment content (CDs, DVDs, LPs) used to be proudly shown (less so videos for some reason). now content is all stored in the internet cloud.
Tuesday, July 6 at 1:05pm
As haphazard as the creative process can be, my visual display of it tends to be tidy and orderly. I would say all the content that isn’t organized on my walls into a neat story is stacked in piles, always out in the open, because I like to keep everything to look back at, even the failures.
On the other hand, Ellen, I like the way you describe throwing things away, it sounds very liberating – is this part of how you interact with your work and space?
Tuesday, July 6 at 4:35pm
The question is truly multi-faceted…in some senses I believe that physical surroundings themselves occupy only one aspect of the realms in which we work and play and identify ourselves by. Without going sci-fi, or getting too deep here – it is, after all summer, a time for light, airy thoughts and attitudes – I believe through social networking media and blogs our perceived transparency is greatly increased, but perhaps only at the cost of our actual transparency.
Or put another way, we are selecting our transparency and customizing and personalizing it in ways that reach far beyond our physical orb. I am currently a curatorial intern in the Dept. of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an institution known both for its pivotal exhibition The International Style in 1932 in which streamline design and plate glass residential dwellings expressed the progress of Western Europe to an American audience and for its iconic Modernist building with exaggerated horizontal glazing and cut-outs framing the mid-town skyline. However, that increased transparency, both in exhibition and within the museum itself retains a set of ground rules – a platform through both the view out and reflecting back in is incredibly protected and controlled. So, therefore, isn’t the question of transparency an ongoing battle between outward appearance and self-progression? Aren’t we all guilty of staring blankly ahead on the subway only as a means of inspecting our own image reflected back in the grimy window?
Tuesday, July 6 at 5:34pm
interesting comments, sarah. you have a lot of ideas in there.
i agree with the idea of tension between “outward appearances” and the private (assuming that’s what you mean by “self-progression”).
i also think you’re spot-on about how our behavior in physical space parallels that of virtual space.
Tuesday, July 6 at 5:47pm
We recently designed a work counter in a studio space in the Graphic Design MFA program where I teach. I chose open shelves over closed cabinets because I’m hoping that students will make better use of the supplies available to them when they can see them (“Oh, we already have a glue gun”) as well as putting stuff away when it’s easy to do so (“Oh, I don’t have to open a bunch of doors to find the right place to put this hammer”). The way you choose to store things reflects people’s behavior, for better or for worse. So it’s not just about how things look but how we interact with them.
Tuesday, July 6 at 6:45pm
Ellen, I like how you say that it’s not just about how things look, but how we interact with them. I’m reminded of how, particularly in the digital environment (which, more and more, takes on the traits associated with physical placehood), it is so easy to express oneself that there are always necessary levels of self-censorship all the time- elsewise, everyone might constantly be jettisoning their thoughts into the ether without taking time to meditate and revise, to listen, or to be silent, and would never have any time to form connections or create conversations. Another way of putting it is that we forge our identities as much by what we don’t express as by what we do. This applies not only to the physical structures we design, build, and live amongst, and the places where we choose to make our homes, but also in the way we represent ourselves physically as people in our stylistic choices: hair, clothes, makeup, accessories, the company we keep, the things we carry. It occurs to me that with the proliferation of digital fora for expression, new modes of representation are presented that will challenge and stretch our definition of ‘transparency’ as the ground rules of personal identity and personal expression are modified. Sarah says this nicely by framing the question of transparency as “an ongoing battle between outward appearance and self-progression”.
Thursday, July 8 at 3:22pm
My work environment is an open transparent space. It’s like the open relationships I try keep with my colleagues where they can come to me to brainstorm ideas or address issues at hand. I try to maintain this transparency throughout the design process. Sharing experiences offline (and online) is another resource that can open up other uncharted opportunities during the research stage.
I keep the same thought process at home except for the bills and canned goods. Just as how my laundry is air dried in the open, not too much is private.
Thursday, July 8 at 7:23pm
In response to Ellen’s latest question, I can’t resist the temptation to let my architectural history self speak on my behalf…
The idea of transparency and workspace immediately harkens back images of Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall – replete with iconic imagery of architecture students drawing on wide horizontal drafting tables. (I highly doubt Mies would allow an adjustable one.) Clutter as a result of process was seen as a hindrance to the architectural imagery. I can’t help but wonder then what role the students actually played in the programming of the building. The following quote from Kevin Harrington’s description of Crown Hall in the AIA Guide to Chicago seems incredibly prescient with regard to this week’s conversation:
“During the day, Crown Hall seems a precisely defined, translucent, and transparent volume in perfect repose. At night it becomes a reliquary of light, as its interior illumination appears to make the building seem almost to float on a cushion of light.”
Friday, July 9 at 10:33am
I work with what I see, so everything is out in the open. It may look cluttered, but what is filed and put in a drawer is no longer a resource or a tool to me.
I would love to have a translucent refrigerator with interior illumination. Fruits and vegetables would offer the most interesting silhouettes and inspire me to make the delicious meals.
Friday, July 9 at 10:00pm
Keywords
Selected list of words appearing in this and other conversations.
Emily Leibin
0
My ideal environment is a minimal room with white walls and a big white desk, like the spatial version of a blank slate. It might seem a bit extreme, but over the years work spaces like this have been the most enjoyable and productive for me, especially in contrast to the sensory overload of NYC.
For projects that I live with for long periods, like designing a line of products, or the MFA thesis I recently finished writing, I love to fill the blank walls with notes, photographs and drawings and immerse myself in the process, editing, re-arranging, and adding to the collection of information.
Using space in this way allows the ultimate in transparency as Ellen describes it, putting everything out in the open. I find displaying my process in this way productive, as it fosters conversations and collaborations, and creates the opportunity to make new connections that would not otherwise be drawn from information stored away in computers and archival boxes.
Monday, July 5 at 10:56pm