Bathtub IV

by: Keith Loutit (Australia)

Warning: this is not a model.

Discovering the world through a combination of time-lapse and fake-miniature photography when you procrastinate on a wonderful sunny thursday afternoon. It's the only way I can keep myself from falling asleep at my desk in this stuffy room.

T minus one month (and a little bit more) before I own my very first SLR camera.

a star necklance that only remains in memory...

Stars of different shapes and sizes, linked tip to tip, moving, flowing down the front of your neck. the necklace was not linked rigidly so that the stars moved and shimmered along with your movement.

About two or three years ago, I was walking around at Pacific Place with my mom after a lunch with some family friends. On the top floor of Pacific Place, where there are usually not that many people, there was a jewllery shop that was about to close down, and was therefore having a clear-out sale (I suspect that Pacfic Place was doing some space managment and had raised the rent on that floor, because now they are all replaced by some higher-end stores). It was there that I spotted the Star necklance. It was quite a beautiful necklace, but we didn't end up buying it, because for one, we weren't really looking to acquire any jewlry, and two it was not one of those necklaces you can just wear everyday...

but one day my mom came to me and asked me, remember that necklace we saw at the top floor of Pacific Place? The store is gone now, the necklace somewhere else in this world, what remains is the memory of me and mom having once found it. oh well.

loosing track of time & space.

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.
I can't remember when and where this happened, but I once dreamt that there was no such thing as "lemon tea" when I was in HK, which, in itself already makes this dream a nightmare.

Lemon tea was one of my favorite drinks when I was a child. Being able to order it at resturants and tea-resturants was as normal as the existense of air and water. But when I first moved to Taiwan and Beijing, neither of these places had ever heard of lemon tea, so when ever you would want lemon tea, what you would do would be to order tea, lemon and sugar/syrup.. and then proceed to make your own.
.

ah. random memories while you procrastinate on a sunny afternoon while your sitting inside drwaing diagram whilst the sun shines brightly outside. I still cannot decide till this day whether having to work on a sunny day (when you want to be outside instead) or a rainy day (when you are negativly affected by the weather) is worst.
.

i want to be able to see...

...how the gears that make up this world and its intricacies turn and operate.





might it not be that the great is the great simply because they ahev survived?




after-random-ponder:
does architecture impact humans, or does humans equally influence architecture?

lost friends

after many years, people change, people grow... or it could just be because I've forgotten who they were.
rediscovering through images, a good friend of mine back from the middle school where I spent a very brief year in HK.
our long silence include reasons such as leaving too suddenly, and only being there for such a short period of time.
8 years later, I happen upon what she's been up to...

http://www.nicoletung.com/

and then I think, what have I been doing for the past 8 years?

estrangement may have enhanced this odd spark for reflection,
but really, what am I doing?




and then like all questions without answers,
it fades along with every tick of the clock,
and I return to doing what I'm doing everyday...

coffeeeee?!

When there are no dreams or sleep, there must be coffee, therefore I've decided to write about my coffee adventures whilst dreams are lacking.

It is strange that a person experiencing problems with sleep will go and drink coffee. But the temptations of the experience of coffee in europe is just too much to handle and I finally caved (I mean, i was planning to cave anyway, but never had the perfect scenario to, until...) in Vienna, I decided it was a Viennese experience I should not omit.

cup #1: was a cup of ice coffee

at Cafe Central of Vienna, accompanied by piano music and torte (cake)

which i didn't stir properly, so it ended up being really bitter to start with, and then too sweet in the end. although i can't say i didn't enjoy it, the bitterness of it accomapnied the sweetness of Viennese Torte perfectly~

cup #2: was an expresso

I woke up at 3ish this morning to go and catch my flight at 6ish, and the night before I had trouble sleeping even at 1ish in the morning (in fact, we were so hyper we skipped all the way home and then took turns playing sudoku in the sudoku book, I have my suspicion that it was due to the above mentioned first cup of coffe... but who knows) so i made it back to Amsterdam and went straight to work without having slept much and decided to drink coffee again. but why the choice of expresso you ask? because the coffee button didn't produce any coffee and the expresso button was the next in line...

2009 memorable dream X | May 26

depth of time exists in dreams. it's existence amazed me to no end.

memories, there were even the forgotten and then recalled memory.
recalling a forgotten memory that does not exist in true life.
a series of memories that are so close to reality, but not, memories that happened through a period of time.

i dreamt a nightmare last night. a real emotional downfall, that i do not know how to face.
but life will go on, because as real as it seemed, dreams are not reality.



p.s. although i do recall in some odd part of it, i was conducting excursions to wonderfully designed swimming pools (as a continuation of a distant dream that I did have a while ago)
& also, i recieved an acceptance to Fosters (??)

words

words are not enough.
they were never enough to begin with were they?

it was never really the words though,
it was more the feeling implied and hidden between them.

conversations

it is within the conversations partaken with the people around you where you realize how little you know about this world.

2009 memorable dream IX | April 14

i had a nightmare in my dream, where a lady entered my dreams and was trying to steal them from me, trapped, i was hypnotized untill i would agreed to sell it to her for an unreasaonble price. it was very uncomfortable, and i felt very much like i was invaded, when i finally realized what was going on, i fought for my own conciousness, and forcefully woke myself up in my dream.

the rest of the dream continued to be uneasy, nothing seemed out of the ordinary except for everything was cast with a grey gloom. and something just didn't feel right.

2009 memorable dream VIII | April 06

3 dead bodies discovered in suitcases.

i was the detective in charge of the investigation.

you wouldn't let me lean on your shoulder.


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2009 memorable dream VII | April 03

the basement adventure.

i'm visiting somewhere from somewhere. my god-mother's house on a sea-side cliff, at the bottom of the cliff, access through the "harbour road" (no, she does not in reality own a house on a sea-side cliff).

yet somehow the interior typology is that of sunny life 1 except for an additional door in the garage that lead to the "basement".

Maritis their long-time housekeeper was around, with two additional members on the staff, both ..... non-human, if i remember correctly, one was a robot maid, and the other was a zombie. so we were all playing, the kids... and then somehow, we had decided we would go explore the basement. the funny thing is... non of the kids enter, the two non-human staff went instead, claiming that we were mortal, and therefore more dangerous for us to partake in the adventure, and that they would go instead of us, and report back their discoveries when they come back.

i wasn't exactly happy about it, but... somehow i didn't have a chocie, so we sat around the door and waited (i think i wasnt my current age during this dream, because i considered myself a kid the whole time. or maybe i'm just a kid anyways... :P) .... and waited, and up till the moment i woke up in the morning, nothing else happened.

waiting drifted off into half sleep when you're about to wake up yet still sleeping, you know, the sensation that you are aware of your surroundings, but not entirly awake. like when your brain is lucid, but your body is not....





1
"sunny life" is the name of the complex we lived at in Taiwan, when i was in middle school.
rows of town houses are paired off, two rows share a half-level elevated garden walkway as their "front door". and then on the back side of it, you share a driveway with the row on your other side, half a level below your front door. This creates a typology where your garage sits right beside, but half a level below your living room, and your kitchen/living room half a level above and thus, overlooking your living room. different parts of this complex constantly appear in my dreams in bits and pieces... reaons may be because I had most of my childhood fun here, and had also thought it was quite a nice typology.

2009 memorable dream VI | March 29

a murder mystery


male-A wakes up in bed, sees blood on the bed, it is female-A's but her body is no where to be seen, before he has time to react, hears a scream upstairs, a body is discovered 2 floors above. grandma calmly directs everyone to do what they should do.

murderer's p.o.v (time shifts back a little to before the sun rises)

slit's someone's throat in room A, ...

girl's p.o.v (time shifts back to match that of the initial sequence)

i rush up to the 1st floor and open room A, man-A is sitting up in bed in shock with blood on his hands, but he looks as if he just woke up.

murderer's p.o.v (time shifts back a little to before the sun rises)

...heads up the stairs to kill maid in 3rd floor room but accidentally knocks over glass of water, maid is groggy so does not react, kills maid without further delay.

girl's p.o.v (time shifts back to match that of the initial sequence)

keep running up the stairs to the 2nd floor to pass grandma's room, and up to the 3rd floor to see the body of the maid lying strangled in bed. screams.

murderer's p.o.v (time shifts back a little to before the sun rises)

heads back to room A to hide body under blanket being hung dry on the balcony (look! i even rationally explained to myself why there was no body on the bed... )

[somehow these two sequences happen at the same time, words are not sufficient to describe that sensation... but i was able to distingusih between the two due to the quality of light... murderer's p.o.v was a pre-dusk grey, and the girl's p.o.v. was brightly lit]

intial p.o.v

grandma sends everyone into the back of the 1st floor room.

[story shifts]

top of some mountain... oh everyone has snowboards, and i am in snowboarding gear, guess we are snowboarding, but i have no board, so dad heads back in with me to rent a board. i think they were those foam boards you sometimes find at waterparks instead though, but that was a "snowboard" in the dream, so there were no problems. went down the hill once (but no memory of it) lost the rest of the crew, so returned to the rental place which was located at the top of the mountain while our exit was at the bottom... !?!...

[dream continues to get rather confusing... and i wake up]

masks

something that allows you to be something you are not, and thus (the intention of doing so is to) protecting yourself from exterior/outward harm.

in simplier terms, it is to:

cry when you're happy
laught when you're sad
convince yourself that you do not care when you do
& place the utmost care in the most travial things

(other.) can also be defined as that which seperates the exterior and the interior things.

(sym.) facade, skin

2009 memorable dream V | March 25

my family went on a trip, leaving me behind.

i stayed in a 5 story humongous house (but it was a building, not a mansion or a house shaped building)... deja vu, this building has appeared in previous dreams before.

i saw (through a window) my cousin get gunned down by teorrists in the opposite building, but somehow i made no reaction what so ever to that event, as if i thought it was some sort of joke, or some acting for her project or something.

there were cats in the building, automatic light/security sensor system in the building, things turned on and off as i walked around, or it reacted as well to the cats.... i've definitly been in this building before.

the scene changed and we were in an old shanghai movie set.... sitting in the front hallway of a four court house. the children were rushing about, getting ready to go fly kites somewhere.... i say it's an old because everything appeared in a yellowish brown shade, like an old photograph.
and i say it's a movie set because everyone was wearing the appropriate clothing for (supposingly) that time period....

wtf?

2009 memorable dream IV | March 24

a log cabin, a double bed, on an island close to actual land.... we bike everywhere, party everynight, we have the ability to ominous, to view the island in birds-eye view, so that we can find the place of gathering everynight. creatures exist in this world that is not in the other. we dance around a bon-fire.... letting go of ourselves... drink beer on our porch as we watch the sun-set. I fall sleep there and I wake-up here, only to watch the glow of street lights fade and sunlight take over through the curtains on my window.

2009 memorable dream III | March 23

random.

wandering some city on foot, war game, justice, food?, smelly feet?, revival medine...
ambush at the post office, carrying a stamp (a stamp stamp, not a post stamp), what do i do with the stamp?

(like playing a video game, mixed in with random stuff)

strange elevators, pay per ride, tickets for the rides, buy 10 get 1 free....

wtf happened in my dream?

gimme a ride home...

I had to walk around the construction site of the road infront of our office. They've made progress today, the depth of the site is now dug so deep that I can no longer just jump down into it and walk across.

I unrestratined my ride, and swung my leg over after securing the lights to the from and back. the road is in a state of chaos during construction, no one knows which road to take anymore to get to where they want to go.

Green means go! after narrowly missing a car making a right turn (he must be new to the city, he didn't even look before zooming right!!) an old lady next to me shoke her fist at himm swearing in english instead of dutch.

Another light, i took the time to swing my bag to the back so that my leg doesn't keep hitting it. manually loosened my front brakes since i had forgotten to check them before getting on. It's just straight onwards for a distance now, this is the best time to go home, the time around dinner time just before everyone who is going out heads out and livens the streets up. up and down up and down i go passing canal after canal.

I wave my glove left and turned left before i hit the end of the street. turned right after the purse musuem and whizzled my way through the gangs of gathering people and tourists that do not watch where they are going most of the time (i used to be one of those people!! but i learnt fast enough. you have to! or else you'll get hit before long).

Leaving them behind, I finally hit the Amstel river, this is the hardest road to cross sometimes, depending on luck, there are sometimes endless streams of cars in either direction, and you just wait and wait for your turn, but today I'm lucky, no cars!! I rush right through since the hill coming up is a little steeper than the rest. I had to stand up for the last couple of steps, but the feeling of reaching the top is great. The momentary view of the span of the river, the buildings around it (more like the light from the buildings in this darkness). the garden restaurant always draws my attention, wondering what sort of fancy people are eating their tonight. And then the feeling of unrestraint freedom as you fly down the other side of the slope without holding down your brakes.

benches, candels lite against the windows of resturants, passing cars, taxis, motorbikes.... i round the square and start looking for a spot to park. jumped off when i saw one before it is taken by someone else... lock up, remove lights.... home sweet home.

it's a zoo on my computer...

currently under my collection, there is:

ADIUM (a duck)

chat program that i run on my mac that allows me to open multiple chat programs under one.

AZUREUS (a frog)

BT downloader that i run on my mac

RHINO (a rhino)

3D modelling program that i run mostly on PC, beta version for mac currently under development

GRASSHOPPER (an insect)

generative modeling plug-in for rhino that only runs on PC at the moment.

and....

MONKEY (a monkey)

scripting plug-in for rhino.

it's nice to see animals getting along and working with each other.

when design and necessity collides

the ground floor office of our firm has a glass facade towards the outside. a layer of mutating circles spell out UNStudio on the outside. the office is unseen from the outside during the day, but mightily apparent during the night (maybe that's why we don't have this problem during the night).... the thing is. during the day, many bikers like to lean their bikes against our facade momentarily... the sound of the bikes or their bike locks banging agaist the glass is echoed and echoed in the interior of the office until we feel like banging back on the glass at them....



design that don't consider the necessity of life exists everywhere. but on the other hand, if i did not sit right next to this glass facade, i would not know what the necessities are. how many of these necessities are we, as designers, able to predict when we design?.... i guess it is merely from experience, and the opened eye that we attain these observations for future reference.

[picture later]