Friday 7 November 2008

A Short Thought About the War

Pleased as I am by the election of Obama-
and his committment to Iraqi withdrawal...
I do not understand his plan for Afghanistan.
A surge?
Has he not seen Red Scorpion?

Tuesday 4 November 2008

The evening after the morning after the morning after the morning after the night before...

Yeah, still have a cold, but I have my bricks, damn it! Now, all I have to do is assimilate Greenhithe into my subconscious. Any advice?

Monday 3 November 2008

Monday

Still recovering from Hallowe'en, hideous snot dribbling, in internet cafe with no USB port, wondering when I'm ever going to get this brick assignment sorted....

Monday 27 October 2008

BA LArch BLD Project 3- Initial Research

Part of Project 3 is assimilating Greenhithe into the subconscious- well, my subconscious... I decided to visit the site, armed with Laura's digital camera (and my haunted analogue) and went exploring...






A new brief was given out on Friday 24th October and once again the Landscape students all trundled gleefully down to Greenhithe.

It was an incredibly bright day. I took the opportunity to photograph, catalogue and explore...

Saturday 25 October 2008

BA LArch BLD Project 2

PERFORMANCE PIECE WITH OBJECTS...

"All the things that dragged me here are tangled up around the pier"

-Tom Waits
(for no man...)
However, it waits for me...
9 YEARS PAST, SOMEWHERE NEAR GREENHITHE
TOYING WITH THE REMNANTS OF MY TRICYCLE
IN THE MOMENTS OF BRIEF RESPITE FROM CONTAINER FREIGHT
(for then, I was Human Cargo)
I glimpsed England for the first time:
seeing the bridge, spanning the estuary
I steered the ship home, wheel clutched between eager hands.
Beneath the water pulls strange threads.
Flotsam on the tide are we.
Invisible currents:
MONEY
DRUGS
VICE
POWER
CONTROL
Elemental forces, dragging us across the world, washing us up
unwanted,
on some unlovely shore.
Me?
I was running away.
My family were running away.

2 things brought with me... the first (the wheel) you've seen...

The second?
My water pistol!
Between six hour lockdowns I'd sate my thirst
with squirts... it was close.
We scratched at the containers rusting sides.
They had to let us out.
But we were too near to the shore
our protests were ignored
the air grew stale
stifled and choked, a frog in my throat..
and then
A RUSH OF COLD ESTUARY STINK!
Chill night stench swept in as the flung open the container door.
Greedily, we inhaled.

The vast night sky

-suffused with an orange glow, bi-sected by the bridge-

smiled its hello.

I ran to greet her, to stretch my aching limbs.

I ran to the prow to steer the ship home.

"SO THIS IS ENGLAND! WONDERFUL, MAGICKAL ENGLAND!"

A solitary Eddie Stobart crawled across the bridge.

~~~~~~%&*(

My shoe fell in the water. It slipped off.

I, fearing mother's anger,

and engulfed with shame

at arriving in my new country

with one shoe off and one shoe on

Jumped into the dark water..

And so the ship that brought me here

left me tangled up, beneath the pier.

Friday 17 October 2008

BA LArch BLD Project One







BA LArch DCI- Photoshop Assignment "Mind the Gap"

DCI- Coursework- MIND THE GAP

The School of Architecture and Construction at Greenwich university offers a course in "Design and Communication" in the first year of study for most programmes. As Landscape Architects, we have to learn the basic principles of design, and to master the techniques of expressing our ideas visually. Our first Coursework assignment concluded a short course in Adobe Photoshop.

We were provided with three different images from the built environment. Our task was to prepare two designs to fill the gap between two buildings. Whilst we were free to pursue whichever avenues of research we desired- and were expected to record such journeys, alongside initial idesas, in our sketchbooks- the final image had to be produced in photoshop and graphic elements had to be introduced from provided images.

These images were of our fellow students' hands.

Above is an example of how hands were turned into building materials, but initially I took the brief too literally...


However, these experiments did help to practice some of the techniques picked up in the class.

As has been stated: we were expected to keep a full record of the design processin our sketchbooks- which was assessed alongside our final prints.
For the next design I looked at a more corporate environment and thought about intoducing a vertical garden and landscaped forecourt- unfortunately, I never got round to the landscaping (like so many developments...) so never fully realised my glorious vision (please be aware of irony)...



So, there you have it: my first (unfinished) assignment. Actually, there is a more complete picture but I haven't yet converted it from PSD to JPEG yet, so it shall remain hidden.
It would have been far kinder to the environment (and my wallet) if I had been able to publish the whole thing instead of running off reams of full-colour prints....




























Landscape Architecture Assignments

For posterity's sake (and critical evaluation at later date!) I am posting all my University assignments on this blog.

The programme of study for Year 1, Term 1 BA Landscape Architecture is composed of the following courses:

Basic Landscape Design
Cultural Context
Design and Communication I
Hard and Soft Materials I

Postings relating to assignments will be coded in accordance with the nature of the assignment eg. my work for the Design and Communication photoshop Lab will be posted as

BA LArch DCI- Photoshop Assignment

I will try to post them as I hand them- but please be warned, I will backdate late postings so I have an accurate record of my work!

Joe

Thursday 13 March 2008

Myspace Archive: nesia memorea phantasmagoria

nesia memorea phantasmagoria

They are jingles
snipped passage melody
infectiously simple
and
oft repeated,
memories of early childhood.
Brightly coloured postcards
monophonic
4/4
i whistle them because they are stuck
i whistle them all day long.
A little boy i try and remember, humming contentedly to himself.
The one they all said was a dream?
I wasn’t napping.
I was playing with my lego bricks.
Building a duplo totem of babel,
arching from its ridiculous height
finally collapsing in a rubble mound of primary colours
gleaming in the light
refracting through the nicotine yellow nets.
A ghost is watching.
Comes right up to me, hovering over.
Until the moment I look up i think its my mother.
Falling bricks pass through barely tangible feet
this apparition
grey dust death shroud
in an empty terrace
carpeted with dog hair.

Tuesday 11 March 2008

MYSPACE ARCHIVE: Goldsmith Be Damned!

GOLDSMITH BE DAMNED

So Goldsmith thinks children should pledge loyalty to the Crown and the State...

Repeat after me: fuck queen and country.

Swear allegiance? Anyone else feel like the state owes us rather than the other way round? Things like the provision of democratic, representative government; proportional representation; abolition of heriditary privelage; corporate responsibility; tackling child povety; decent education and work prospects for all; an end to involvement in illegal wars?

Maybe not. Lets build more flats!

Friday 18 January 2008

MYSPACE ARCHIVE: Necropolitan

We are pleased to anounce that Ifscapulet Publishing will be issuing a new quarterly magazine for men and women of all ages in this, the city of the dead. NECROPLITAN recognises that in this throwaway culture people appreciate products that are made to be valued and cherished more than ever- especially when manufactured from objects most people would just shove in the ground and forget! For this reason the volume is beautifully bound in the tanned hide of an unbaptised child. The title is embossed in the surface in a dramatic, Gothic-esque script (actually an entirely new typface- neogotha- devised especially for this publication) and illuminated with the molten silver teeth obtained from those who no longer require them. Each of the beautifully bound six hundred and sixty six pages is manufactured from our own, in-house paper. A composite of dead skin, moths' wings and the pages of bibles torn out in anger, each is 100% recycled, peace of mind indeed for today's environmentaly conscious reader. And every page is uniquely scented with a bespoke perfume created by our master perfumier, Moloch. A whiff of sulphur, a hint of opium, the slightest touch of burning tar- the very smell of our publication excites curiosity and exhilarates the senses. At the turning of every page, small insects escape, fluttering delicately about the reader's head. They bite. Not all are poisonous or pestilence-ridden.Some pages are written in a near illegible scrawl, others in beautiful copperplate calligraphy. Articles are in English, Amharic, French, Greek, Arabic, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic. The illustrations are beautiful but it contains no photography. It is big enough to be enjoyed with both hands but small enough to slip discretely into most ladies' handbags. Articles cover most subjects- from shoes to scarves to starving Africans- though the magazine is mostly adverts.

Monday 14 January 2008

MYSPACE ARCHIVE: Youssef Ifscapulet

Youssef Ifscapulet

Grappled with demons etc. got some good moves down, ultimately lost but ran away. Youssef fled. I apologise. The music, the poetry, the man, the myth- lost to the mists of time. Weep, my children, weep, though your tears be in vain. You may cry an ocean before the Blessed Bastard returns to stage or screen. He haunts my nightmares, maybe your dreams... but I am strong.

When I am awake, I have freedom. In sleep I am a slave. But now, awake, I assert the right to me own identity. To my own name. Not quite that with which I was born, but one by which I am known to many. Josef Donovan.

Having written for so long, indeed existed for so long under the wretched pseudonym, lived alongside the cruel beautiful creature of my imaginings, it is a struggle to assert who I am, as above I have attempted. For many months in the shadows hidden, now emergent into this glorious world, this wonderful year, a moth free of the cocoon, his wings heavy with mucus, drying in the moonlight the he so desires to swallow. It is far, the moon, though it near. Do not be distracted by pretty lights. Especially candles.

Youssef was his name- a wretched child
born disfigured and half lame- his flesh defiled
once beset by guilt and shame- abandoned to the wild
claimed that one day he'd be tamed- god only smiled...

well, I was that wretched boy stayed hidden in the shadows
embittered, twisted and annoyed, humour of the gallows
until the city promised fame with a travelling show....
Youssef was my name...

now they call me Joe.

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