PERCEPTUAL IMAGING — ALGORITHMS OF URBAN REALITY

Study of complex urban rhythms utilizing categories of polarities that appear indispensably as a mathematical repetition of a circulation and oscillatory movement between two poles of the opposite charge. / affiliated with Places en Relation — Civic City

In the context of conceptualizing polarity within space, it is the movement between the mechanical and organic, discovery and creation, cyclical and linear, continuous and discontinuous, quantitive and qualitative. For every ‘place’ there is an ‘anti-place’ as a complementary element — for every dynamic action taken there is a return to the state of stillness. Landungsbrücken in Hamburg as a large hub concentrates the dynamism and complex movements of multitude of oscillating small-scale actions. On a large scale, it appears as a pulse that changes its pace as a unified resonant force. The project was performed as a series of detailed mapping routines used as a comparative agenda to the general image-based perceptual narratives of the place. // affiliated with Civic City

Image of a landmark — practice of accumulation

The general image of a landmark is easily recognizable. Coherence of this image is being built step by step for a longer time. The more frequently the place is used in a certain way, the more coherent gets the image. People and their activities are the important elements creating the city. Through these, the place accommodates its daily routines. The activities that the users choose are in correlation to the routines of a place, they are at the same time strengthening them and therefore co-creating the image of the place. The environment suggests distinctions and relations, and the observer (user) with great adaptability and in the light of his own purposes selects, organizes and endows with meaning he sees.

Steps / Documenting the social practices and routines and try to understand how they spatialize and leave physical marks in the space. Defining different types of users and their activities, observed the flow of the masses, noise pollution as well as distribution of the spaces and their primary and the most dominant use. Defining perceptional boarders of Landungsbrücken and defined zones of interest. By visiting the site on different days at different times, a great variety of performed activities was observed. Collecting textures, surfaces and perceptional scapes and collected small-scale physical objects. Marking repetitive symbolics and their meaning, historical traces. Unfolding multiple layers of development of spaces.