BEAUTY MEMORY ENTROPY

MAKING AND VISUALIZING

 

Sheen: Beauty and Latency

Peter Goche,  Iowa State University

 

ABSTRACT

In the field of design, in which realization seems to employ decisions that derive from utility, and rejoin obligations of the world of aesthetics, the act of staging provides an intersession during which revelations particular to ‘what constitutes beauty’ are formed. In this engagement we enter into a dialogue with the humanity of place; an intercourse with time, deep time; and thus, are immersed in the visual and perceptual challenges of the inherited landscape and, consequently, its

cultural educe. Each inquiry is part of a process by which the perceptual experience of a particular setting is revealed.  Black Contemporary is an experiential laboratory whereby ongoing investigations are conducted in effort to expand our knowledge specific to the study of atmospheric logics and the Midwestern agricultural landscape. Using experiential perceptions as spatial conditioners, current studio projects focus on the act of making and curating a series of research

assemblies within a dormant seed-drying facility constructed in 1979. Based on a series of modulated experimental actions, the foundational body of work provides a material/immaterial reflection on the contemporary social configuration of the post-industrial landscape of Iowa. This work might best be understood as a peculiar deposit of site-adjusted installations that indicate the presence of, and makes clearly recognizable, its context as a realm of beauty. The cumulative effort might indicate the potential use of this facility, and all of Iowa’s derelict agricultural facilities, as laboratory inasmuch as it provides a dormant environment conducive to conducting a series of sustained observations.

This paper proposes beauty and latency as a material practice that opposes the objective distance typically associated with research through the immersive act of experiential criticism supported by a series of research assemblies with a relative capacity to unite or react or interact with the soft luster of the inherited landscape.

 

BIO

Peter P. Goché is a practicing architect, artist and educator. Goché works with the nature of perception and spatial phenomenon in developing his material practice. His works provoke a temporal-spatial encounter that understand the simultaneous and complex nature of cerebral and corporeal experience. He is founder and executive curator of Black Contemporary, a rural field station dedicated to the study of spatial phenomena and perception. His research on material practices has been published in a number of edited books and journals, including Architecture as a Performing Art (Ashgate, 2013) and Architecture and Culture (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, vo. 4 issue 3 11/2016). Goché has exhibited and lectured on his creative practice and scholarship at many conferences and cultural institutions throughout North America and Western Europe. He has lead multiple academic workshops including “Caution Wet Floor: Slipping Into Deep” at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale (Venice, Italy). As educator in the Department of Architecture and foundational design at Iowa State University, Goché holds both B. Arch and M. Arch degrees in architectural studies from Iowa State University. He taught in the Department of Art at Drake University before joining the faculty at the Iowa State University, where he is Assistant Professor coordinating and teaching design studios.