harmonic accompaniment

This image which is titled Negative Spaces was taken in Melbourne recently. I called it that as a reference to both the spaces between buildings regarded as non-space or voids (light) and the space within buildings as solid (dark). The ambiguity of the image suggests this can also be read inversely giving different meaning. This is similar to how urban analysts create diagrams of cities to investigate aspects of density and flow. Depending on the perspective of the viewer, these maps can be read very differently.

Is the black or the white the void?

Perhaps such imagery should not be seen as representing opposites of the same thing but rather as Amos Ih Tiao Chang observes in the Tao of Architecture (Princeton University Press 1956)

"To an architect whose composition is beyond physical function, reduction of solid or preservation of void has its aesthetic contribution. As an empty being itself, void could become various forms in its dependency on solid. In analogy to musical composition, solid is playing the treble part to crystallize architectonic melody, the seeming emptiness of void is inherently and coherently playing the harmonic accompaniment without any tangible shape of its own."

So void/solid is not necessarily a conflict of opposites but an interacting, interrelated, integrated composition.

Another thought on void is that we view void as empty, defined in the dictionary as an empty space, without contents. However, one of the major discoveries in physics, Particle Theory, is based on the observation that emptiness is not empty and chemistry tells us that the seemingly emptiness of air is actually a composition of various gases, mainly nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide cohesively forming our atmosphere. From physics, gases are seething pots of atoms in an electrical field, not empty at all.

The natural invisible co-existence of positive and negative charged atoms is equivalent to the intangible and seemingly accidental harmony of our built environment.

The harmony in Negative Spaces is exaggerated by the void/solid or light/dark contrast.

yesterday in brussels

The attraction of the tapis de fleurs in the Grand Place

disruption

In April, when the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud paralysed air travel across Europe, it had an impact on people’s daily lives ranging from causing panic and stress in those who could not reach important places at important times, to those who simply had to stop and take time off from their hectic schedules. Which in some situations even led to re-assessment of life goals and achievements – what is it all for if something like this can end it so dramatically? The ash cloud did not end life as we know it but certainly, for 5 days, made us think, made us realise how mortal and vulnerable we truly are.

Now, 4 months later, the incident is all but forgotten, nay for those who are still to be refunded for cancelled travel arrangements. Not unlike the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, BP has plugged it but what of the environmental impact, the cost to our ecosystem. Yesterday’s news.

These incidents change our lives, change our destiny, change everything but we can’t see it, the media tells us its no longer our primary concern, our lives return to how they were before. How far removed are we from our reality?

Just like this photo essay of where I was at the time of the ash cloud ‘disruption’. Black and white images of colourful moments, frozen instances of dynamic passages of time.