Exercise Seven: One Book, One Site, One Image, One Quote

You have been assigned an artist as part of Project Three. Research your artist, and post the following to the blog.

• The title of one book on this artist that is available at the Dorothy H. Hoover Library. Bring this book to class next week.
• A working link to a website that features the artist's work.
• One image of one piece of the artist's work, annotated with the name of the piece.
• One quote from writing either by the artist or on the artist that is emblematic of the artist's body of work.

During the process of completing this Exercise, you may discover that one or more of the above requirements are impossible to achieve. If this is the case, it is up to you to contact me right away, and I will assign you another artist. You must contact me at least 48 hours prior to the Exercise deadline.

Note also that any changes to your artist must be completed and confirmed by me prior to completing this Exercise.

Exercise Seven is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, November 13. Please use the label 3.7 Exercise Seven Submissions for Exercise Seven.

Exercise Six: An Exquisite Corpse (and label)

In class, as per my instructions, you drew an Exquisite Corpse.

Click here for more information about the origins of this exercise.

Please post the corpses you drew in class, using the label 3.6 Exercise Six Submissions.

Field Trip and Exercise Five: A Sectional Tour of Downtown Toronto

As a prologue to Project Two, we will begin next class with a tour of Downtown Toronto. This tour will take advantage of Toronto's PATH system and other non-street interconnections to explore the sectional relationships that exist in this urban environment.
I have assigned each of you a site, shown below (click to enlarge).
For Thursday, please research your site and be prepared to present a minimum of three interesting facts. Be creative about the facts you choose to present, and remember - the site includes more than its resident buildings. In order to acheive an "exceptional" grade for this Exercise, you will need to present at least one fact that I don't already know. Hint: if it's on Wikipedia, then I probably know it. Post your facts to the blog before 830AM on Thursday, October 16.

Click here to download a PDF of the tour map above.

PLEASE MEET AT 8:30AM AT THE NORTH-EAST CORNER OF UNION STATION.

We will conclude the tour with the launch of Project Two, back in room 556.

Label for Exercise Four

Please use the label 3.4 Exercise Four Submissions for Exercise Four .

Exercise Four: Corner Reading Summary

In your Project One groups, clearly and concisely summarize the portion of James Corner's essay The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention listed below.

• Kipling Group: The Agency of Mapping, The Efficacy of Technique
• Downsview Group: Maps and Reality, Space and Time Today
• Finch Group: Mapping, Mapping Operations (Overview)
• Don Mills Group: Mapping Operations (Drift, Layering)
• McCowan Group: Mapping Operations (Game-Board, Rhizome)

Your summary should include the following:

• one or two sentences per paragraph recapitulating its main points
• definitions of any difficult vocabulary
• visual examples wherever appropriate

One member of your group should post the summary to the blog. Exercise Four is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, October 2.

Exercise Three: A Psychogeographic Map

The psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. Man is a differentiating creature. His mind is stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. Lasting impressions, impressions which differ only slightly from one another, impressions which take a regular and habitual course and show regular and habitual contrasts - all these use up, so to speak, less consciousness than does the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates.

from The Metropolis and Mental Life by Georg Simmel, 1903

Buildings have been man's companions since primeval times. Many art forms have developed and perished. Tragedy begins with the Greeks, is extinguished with them, and after centuries its "rules" only are revived. The epic poem, which had its origin in the youth of nations, expires in Europe at the end of the Renaissance. Panel painting is a creation of the Middle Ages, and nothing guarantees its uninterrupted existence. But the human need for shelter is lasting. Architecture has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than that of any other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to comprehend the relationship of the masses to art. Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception - or rather, by touch and sight. Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building.

from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin, 1936

The production of psychogeographic maps, or even the introduction of alterations such as more or less arbitrarily transposing maps of two different regions, can contribute to clarifying certain wanderings that express not subordination to randomness but complete insubordination to habitual influences (influences generally categorized as tourism that popular drug as repugnant as sports or buying on credit). A friend recently told me that he had just wandered through the Harz region of Germany while blindly following the directions of a map of London. This sort of game is obviously only a mediocre beginning in comparison to the complete construction of architecture and urbanism that will someday be within the power of everyone.

from Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography by Guy Debord, 1955

Read and briefly ponder the above collection of excerpts regarding the psychological basis of our experience of the city.

Now: shake your arms, spin in a circle, and do a jumping jack: clear your mind.

Using the provided set of arbitrary directions, trace a path departing from the lobby of 100 McCaul Street. On a single sheet of paper, take sketch and prose notes of everything you see, think and feel. Scan your sketch and post it, unedited, to the blog.

Upon completion, re-read the collection of excerpts. How does the psychogeography of the city affect our ability to map its characteristics?

Exercise Marking Scheme

As discussed in class, Exercises will be marked as follows.

1) Each Exercise will be marked out of 3. Exceptional completion of an exercise will result in a mark of 3; adequate completion of an Exercise will result in a mark of 2; inadequate completion of an exercise will result in a mark of 1, and non-completion of an Exercise will result in a mark of 0.

3) Exercises will be weighted at the end of the term, to reflect their relative time commitment. For example, an Exercise that takes most students 4 hours will be assigned approximately 4 times as much weight as an Exercise that takes most students 1 hour.

4) Exercises constitute 15% of your final grade.

5) Exercises may not be submitted late for any reason other than a documented illness.

5) You will not receive regular feedback on Exercise results. An anonymous list of marks to date will be posted peridocially throughout the term.

Exercise Two: Three Analytical Plans

Generate three planametric drawings at different scales which analyze the social spaces of your home environment. Obey the following constraints.

1) The three scales should be chosen so as to reveal different qualities within and around your home environment. For example, you might choose to draw a plan of your house, a detailed map of your street and a less-detailed map of your neighbourhood, and analyze the different social qualities that exist at each of these scales. Please graphically indicate the scale on each drawing.

2) Represent spatial information first, with black line on a white background. You may choose to vary your lineweights to emphasize certain spatial qualities over others, or you may choose to maintain a single lineweight so as to not create a visual hierarchy.

3) Represent analytic information second, with colour line, wash or block. Provide a legend for your this information. Remember, colour can have powerful associative qualities that may override your legend definitions.

4) Upload your three drawings to the blog. Upload the drawing as large as possible (Blogger will downsize all images to 1600 pixels on the largest side). Remember to title and label your blog post correctly, and to curate as necessary.


This exercise is deliberately open to interpretation. The drawings should be reasonably accurate, but need not be measurable or hard-line: scanned free-hand drawings are perfectly acceptable. Your spatial information should include all objects that are spatially affective at the scale in question. Your analytical information should represent the qualities of the social spaces that exist within and around your home environment, again at the scale in question. These qualities could include, but are not limited to: vehicle traffic, pedestrian traffic, pet traffic, weather conditions, light conditions, perceived safety, cleanliness, fun-ness or any other variables of your choosing. It is expected that the spatial information you record will be primarily objective and descriptive, while the analytical information will be primarily subjective and interpretive (though this is not necessarily always the case).

Click here to download the partial example that was shown in class. Note that this example is at one scale only.

Exercise Two is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, September 18.

Exercise One: Introduce Yourself

Your first Exercise is to perform a number of administrative tasks that will help our section of Research Studio: Social Space run smoothly.

1) Join the blog. I have sent a message to your OCAD email account inviting you to join the blog. You will need to set up a Google account if you don't already have one.

2) Make a post to the blog. Include the following:
-Your full and (if different) your preferred name.
-A photograph of you, that clearly shows your face.
-A brief description of where you see yourself in 10 years. You may want to be the next great starchitect, a town planner in northern Ontario, or a designer of virtual landscapes for computer games - or perhaps you don't see yourself as a designer at all. Be honest, be bold, and be concise.
-1 to 3 visual examples of constructed environments you find inspirational. These may be drawn from architecture, landscape, the cityscape or a perhaps a virtual world. Do not provide any identifying or explanatory text, but be prepared to discuss your selection(s) in a future class.

3) Curate your post. Presentation is always important in design. Publish the post, and see what it looks like. If you're not happy with the spacing, the image quality, or the graphic composition of your post, then revise it.

Please title your post "Exercise One: [your preferred name]." For example, my post would be called "Exercise One: Jesse Colin Jackson." Please label your post with the Exercise One label provided. Please consistently follow these conventions for titles and labels in the future.

Exercise One is due at 8:30AM on Thursday, September 18. Exercises will typically always be due at the beginning of the subsequent class.

On to Exercise Two!