Birds Nest

If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

I currently see my work as kind of like a massive birds nest of ideas all tangled together and difficult to unravel. Its frustrating, every time you think you've found a way forward, another knot gets in the way. But enough with metaphors, Iv found recently that I'm finding it difficult to stay concentrated on something. To really get my teeth into what I'm doing. I just end up going back to the books to find out more interesting nuggets of information (which co-incidentally adds a few more knots to my nest) but Id rather have it this way than have one route. Id just end up with a linear process. But my problems currently lie with the investigative process, and how to clarify my ideas. How to extract the intersects of thought and how could a project be spun from my threads.

Having began with Agriculture and Traditions, Iv been analyzing why, and what it is I find interesting, and as a consequence I have moved my focus back into the living space. The domicile. Iv been reading a book by Akiro Busch called Geographies of the Home; her perspective on the domestic relations within the home are inspiring, thought provoking and almost offer me a glimpse of the gems that I could base a project upon. The areas which stand out in my mind as I write this, are her observations on the way modernization has changed out impression of the Kitchen. In Victorian times, food smells were considered vulgar, and therefore isolated from the rest of the house (and having attempted a slapdash omelet tonight I can thoroughly sympathize). The kitchen was a place for servants to cook, an industrial place for routines. In modern times, the kitchen has become the central hub of the home, and as we bolster our collection of gadgets, utilities and appliances, our time in the kitchen has shifted in perspective.

Culinary commodity is stocked on our supermarket shelves as both hyper-instant and DIY, one day you may buy a ready made sandwich, the next you may bake your own bread. We choose to both consume the ready made, and invest time in home production.
"While mechanization has surely diminished the drudgery of household chores, it seems that when we are able to choose which chores to do, and when we do them, they can give us profound comfort"

Busch references her statement with note to her acquaintances and how a person such as a barrister will bake his own English muffins, as a method of therapy.

I guess the argument is that, once you know a process, it becomes easy to do without really thinking about it, and although if every task you did in the day was similarly without stimulus it would be dull, for those who feel fatigued with their stresses find relaxation in the act of doing something such as cooking, a basic need. But it almost reveals that this is their only motive for doing so. The hard wired act of cooking for survival, for nutrition has been superseded by the need to relax.

Another similar strand of interest is our love for new time saving appliances, but never at the expense of traditional looks. While we shroud our dishwashers, fridges and washing machines in faux cupboard fronts, the Aga sits quite proudly within its own island of importance. While probably being the least responsive or reliable appliance, its nostalgic charms of a simpler life give it an elegant charm, but that isn't to say we don't have a gas grill tucked away nearby, or possibly even a microwave skulking in the recesses of a cupboard. These objects almost shame their owner, especially within a traditionally designed kitchen, but like many things that shame us, we still rely on their presence, even if we seemingly try to block them out of the kitchen "scene"

I guess the whole of my research stems from nostalgia. The intrinsic nostalgic values which we embed within our homes, which may run at odds with the actual way that we live. In the same way that the barrister bakes his muffins as a mental retreat to a simpler existence, his place is in the present, and I very much doubt that after careful thought he would personally regress to the role of a farmer or a servant.

When the automobile became popular in the post war climate of England, the daily commute was stretched, people could live outside of the city, and seeing the quaint villages, the city folk restored farm buildings villages, however now the occupants lived in a hollow myth. They believed themselves villagers, but their occupation was one of a dormitory, the once working farm building has been improved, cosmetically at least; but the effect was one of taxidermy. The point of the building had irrevocably changed, and soon the working communities became empty all but the commuters. This in the same way represents our nostalgic struggle with the domicile. We have in place traditional elements that have no rational (or at least honest) place in our lives. and speaking from personal experience, Aga ovens are crap.

Thesis? Where?

This is a thesis...

" A statement or theory that is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved" or in Helgian philosophy "a proposition forming the first stage in the process of dialectical reasoning"

I'm finding this whole business of outlining a thesis very disturbing. On one hand my over reaching foresight into the realms of a final design hinder my search for an appropriate one, and on the other not enough grounding into what I aim to achieve will equally hinder my progress. I can neither cling to keeping my eyes on the horizon, nor can I stare at my feet. The feeling being quite similar to being asked to walk in a completely new environment blindfolded, and my stumbling will somehow lead me to the interesting gems of discovery; which indeed makes sense, but my reflexes are on red alert.

Similar to being told what to wear as a child, clothes feeling rigid and constricting, the imagined sensation of asphyxiating collars and top buttons, this project feels like we have been forced into something new. What brief? There is no brief, write down one hundred ideas, pick your favourite, explore the idea. How? How do I know if this is right? Obviously there is no "right" path, but my rationality suggests that there MUST be an "incorrect" path, and the more I consider my choice of direction, the more I worry my choices will lead to a flimsy half baked project.

And so ensues a torrent of "escape" projects sideline trains of thought, because I know what I planned to do when I began this project, but now my ideas seem too hazy or irrevocably detached from a design path. My interest in the subject lies in the fabric of the history rather than design possibilities stemming from it. But then again, if I was already imagining designed outcomes, I fear I would have finished too soon, running out of options. But then some of my peers have already began "playing" already at the stage where ideas can be generated physically. I have my arena, but no focus or feeling as to where it may go.

Tommorow I'm getting out Howard's End, maybe something will come from that. Why are academic texts not in Audiobook, what student has time to read everything?

At the moment the project is looking at Rural life, and the way that "the city is the achievement of the countryside" I used to live on a farm, and now I have entered the city, so it remains a poignant topic. My nostalgic clutch of memories grow every year, life in the sticks. And its something that has apparently been of quite some interest in the nineteenth century when due to rising imports, farming waned, and due to their poverished state, people were forced into the towns to find work. Man was severed from the land, and this nostalgia for it ensued.

In the "single tax" campaign of Henry George, his analysis of the economic situation was simple "the wide - spreading social evils which everywhere oppress men amid advancing civilization spread from a great primary wrong - the appropriation by the few, of the land which and from we must live...no power on earth," he asserted "can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership of the land" he suggested that once this was sorted out 'all ills vice misery, poverty and pauperism' would dwindle away.

Blake's 'green and pleasant land' willing the destruction of those 'dark satanic mills'

their suggestion was that we should abolish the factories and return to the 'guilds and workshops' of the village, a sentiment later echoed by Vance Packard and Victor Papanek, that smaller worked better.

But I don't believe in any way that this is my direction, my skepticism is far too overpowering to believe that any attempt to alter society will result in anything more than to appear hippy-ish or idealistic. The project needs to feel more like a tangible, do I want to expose our roots with the ground? Or possibly subvert them?

I feel like my work should err towards a form of responsible design which encourages self sufficiency, or home industries, or some way of empowering a person. Design an object that tries to re-establish the link between man and the soil, or something like that. I guess I cant force a path, I just need to find it. Find what it is that I want to say. Oh fuck this is hard.