People & places

 There were two topics that attracted my interest in the second session. One was about Stimulation theory and the other about Place Attachment.

  "Stimulation theory refers to the quality and quantity of stimulation as expected by the various modalities like visual, thermal and auditory. " (Weisman,2001) This theory reminds me of the installation by Vitto Acconci which named Seedbed.

   Fig 1. Seedbed installation by Vitto  Acconci

" The artist's spoken fantasies about the visitors walking above him were heard through loudspeakers in the gallery. In this legendary sculpture/performance Acconci lay beneath a ramp built in the Sonnabend Gallery. Over the course of three weeks, he masturbated eight hours a day while murmuring things like, "You're pushing your cunt down on my mouth." Not only does the architectural intervention presage much of his subsequent work, but all of Acconci's fixations converge in this, the spiritual sphincter of his art. In Seedbed Acconci is the producer and the receiver of the work's pleasure. He is simultaneously public and private, making marks yet leaving little behind, and demonstrating ultra-awareness of his viewer while being in a semi-trance state. " (Wikipedia)

  I believe that this kind of art can be considered as an environmental observation, artist somehow observing people’s reaction toward something unexpected in a place like a gallery.

  People always expect to see some pictures on the wall or some sculptures in the gallery. But by doing this the artist somehow challenges the hidden program which is a universal belief about a certain place.

  Place attachment or a sense of a place (SOP) is another topic that I was interested in a lot. Actually I myself really experienced it, when we moved to a new house from the house that I was born in and grew up. I still had the image of my old house in my mind. When I closed my eyes I just had the image of all stuff in my old bedroom. Sometimes when I opened my eyes I got shocked how sharp those images were that I did not think they were just in my dream.


References

.Weisman, G. (2001). The place of people in architectural design. In A. Pressman (Ed.), The architect's portable design handbook: A guide to best practices. New York: McGraw Hill.

. Retrieved from.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Acconci

Fig 1. Retrieved from http://www.believermag.com