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Preliminary Sketches for S,M,L,XL found at Less Adjectives More Verbs
('Dictum Ac Factum'? , see previous post)
In the largest scope my thesis concerns understanding how the emergence of new media effects our built environment.
Structure and Chaos
Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, in the book S,M,L,XL show the stress on existing formats, the printed book, through simply including the required amount of pages in order to represent the work adequately. Architecture does not exist within a bubble (as many are led to believe) but actually includes the greater, and extremely complex landscape of global culture. If this work is to be displayed it cannot be distilled into a compact collection of pages but must include and describe the chaotic torrent of content. This chaos is organized by size, S,M,L,XL but further structured by an overlaid personal dictionary assembled over the years by Koolhaas. This structured overlay creates interesting moments where dictionary terms are read next to largley unrelated body text, creating the spontaneous possibilities for cross referencing, encouraging contemplation and further critical thought.
New Media
I am just starting to read "The Language of New Media" by Lev Manovich. I am instantly drawn to the format of the book. A prologue titled 'Vertov's Dataset' uses an existing work, in this case a film, to structure the main ideas found in the rest of the text, each with the corresponding page numbers. A comparison is drawn and the main points are defined, allowing the reader to get an adequate overview of the work and to possibly choose which parts to dive deeper into, and which are of less personal relevance. This is an example of how the internet can enter the existing format of the printed book. Like links, the short paragraphs outlining the main ideas, allow the reader to quickly dive into one point over another, to jump in and out, across and back, rather then only going through from beginning to end.
A small observation, which may prove to be useful when writing / formatting my own written thesis.
