2019
next: 2020
underground spatialities
an interdisciplinary workshop
Rice University - Spring 2019
Moody Center for the Arts & Rayzor Hall 123
description
The analysis of space has been historically dominated by a
horizontal imaginary that privileges notions of wayfaring and planar geometries.
This class introduces students to the theoretical, phenomenological, artistic
and political implications of thinking about space volumetrically and kinaesthetically.
It builds on scholarship that calls our attention to the geopolitics of volumetric
space using underground water movement as a case study. We will focus on three
underground formations: Rice University's tunnel system, the Natural Bridge
Caverns near San Antonio, and the Houston Cistern.
The course combines insights from science, anthropology and the humanities
and offers an opportunity for students to translate those insights into a
collective multimedia exploration of underground space that will combine photogrammetric
modeling, digital sound and film recording/processing and photography. With
the support of the instructors, students will design and produce a collective
installation that explores underground movement gaining practical skills on
how to conceptualize a spatial exploration, collect and combine existing research
but also generate creative, sensory material methods to be translated it into
an audio-visual-sculptural installation, and coordinate its execution in some
cases doing the work themselves. The installation will open to the public
at the end of the semester.
Taught by Prof. Andrea Ballestero, Prof. Johannes Birringer, and Dr. Marie Saldaña
The workshop begims Wednesday January 9 and runs through April 19, 2019
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