Hello all!

We've got a nice program lined up for this coming Thursday. Two doctoral 
students from the Bartlett are going to present recent work, followed by
time for discussion and debate.

You know you've been busy writing your own stuff...so take a break and
come see what others have been working on. As usual, a pint or two to
follow.

Thursday, June 14 at UCL's Pearson Building (right off the main entrance)
in Room G07.

Presentation I:
This Is Not Graffiti: A Geosemiotic Look at Hybrid Surface Inscriptions
Sabina Andron, [log in to unmask]
The Bartlett School of Architecture

Presentation II:
Fringe landscapes. A research of the multiple approaches to the phenomenon
in the case of Bilbao.
Maider Uriarte Idiazabal, [log in to unmask]
Visiting PhD researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture supervised
by Dr Ben Campkin and Prof Nick Gallent through the period January-June
2012.
PhD candidate (2010) at the department of Architecture of the University
of the Basque Country, (UPV- EHU) Donostia. Supervised by Dr Architect
Marte Mujika.


ABSTRACTS:

I: Sabina Andron
My proposal for the Stadtkolloquium seminar is a focus on images in the
city, an exercise into urban visual culture based on the observation of
urban surfaces. Instead of using the categories of the sanctioned (like
street and shop signs or advertising posters) and the unsanctioned (with
its aesthetic categories like graffiti and street art), this presentation
will look at their intersection, namely the territory of hybrid surface
inscriptions.

I focus my readings on several visual examples of such inscriptions, where
the boundaries between the sanctioned and unsanctioned start getting
blurred and produce a new form of visual and textual expression. I believe
this expression characterises our contemporary urban culture, so I am
trying to define it and understand its components in relation to space,
language and visuality. As these mixed types of interventions have a close
connection to their spatial support, I look at them through a place
oriented semiotic reading (geosemiotics).

What I want to present at the Stadtkolloquium seminar is a starting point
for a reassessment of the way in which we categorise and speak about the
visuality of our cities. Based on some visual examples I have collected
throughout the years, I will demonstrate the necessity of conceptualising
these “hybrid surface inscriptions”, while showing the results that a
geosemiotic perspective can potentially produce. Finally, I will emphasize
the function of these inscriptions in the landscape of urban environments,
raising some questions about their relevance and localisation – all in an
open, clear-for-all manner.

Abstract II:  Maider Uriarte Idiazabal
Visiting PhD researcher at the Bartlett School of Architecture supervised
by Dr Ben Campkin and Prof Nick Gallent through the period January-June
2012.
PhD candidate (2010) at the department of Architecture of the University
of the Basque Country, (UPV- EHU) Donostia. Supervised by Dr Architect
Marte Mujika.

My research deals with the multiple angles of understanding urban rural
edge landscapes, specifically in Bilbao. These are places which are
commonly associated with negative qualities, however, as we know, the
common sense assumptions involved with tastes and preferences are based on
often dubious conceptualizations and oversimplified stereotypes and
archetypes.
As places of everyday routine, with multiple layers of experience, some of
them very transited and ignored –the commuter’s transport infrastructure
landscape- but others less travelled and well known to few –the allotment
or the path, these landscapes indicate the presence of an unknown, ignored
and invisible place. Edgelands are often unnamed areas of cities which
suffer frequent alterations and transformations or become forgotten
residual places.
The human experience and perception of landscape is closely knit by
personal impressions and memories and cultural and artistic
interpretations of place. This is what Alain Roger calls the double
artealisation du paysage. Landscapes are also means to communicate
political, cultural, identity and marketing messages. They have been often
reduced to a mediated visual commodity and this affects both public
opinion and policy making. By using a visual method of juxtaposing images
of site-specific cultural symbols with images of edgelands, I want to
provoke a reaction in the observer and perhaps try to challenge the
notions which support his/her opinion.
I argue that there’s more to these landscapes than negativity, as these
are areas of high aesthetic potentiality, functional utility, biological
richness that challenge the typical ideas of landscape. My interest
towards them relies in their capability to challenge the traditional
categories of rural and urban, natural and artificial; divides which are
fundamental for planning or architectural practices, however, contested
precisely by the hybrid characters of the edgelands.