ARCH 415 - THE CINESTHETIC LANDSCAPE

Introduction
On a primary level, design can be understood as an imaginary realm of vision and insight, often operating through the subconscious. Video functions in similar realms and has only marginally been utilized towards the production of physical design, i.e. architecture – landscape – interiors.

This course will introduce and advance videography as an operational path towards design analysis, intervention and representation. The broad nature of subjects, ideas, and methods covered in film and video throughout their history, lend themselves to a multiplicity of design approaches. By borrowing the operations of filmic montage, and the assemblage of thought inherent in the medium, designers have an opportunity to translate these methods into design interventions, and ultimately built projects.

Video, through its visual, temporal, and visceral mechanisms, is an intervention process that distills memory as a means to inform the present. Given the dynamic and changing nature of the landscape, the complexity of urban issues and characters, the video camera becomes an appropriate tool for representing sites within context, engaging time, movement, and narrative. As part of a suite of digital media tools, video is a realm of montage in which to narrate and illustrate design positions. Video is conceived of as an active participant, an agile agent of representation and design.