The cartography of self

Jess Tubb / RIBA pt 2 student / Oxford School of Architecture / Zone5

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Landscape Elegies : Archaeology on Morn Hill, Winchester. by Russell Moreton Via Flickr: “dustsceawung” the contemplation of dust. Peter Ackroyd, Albion. 2002 www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol2/pp197-200 www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English sites/5067.html

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Drawing the choreography of social space: Proxemics

Throwback to something I was interested in before Christmas - the choreography of social space. Could this form another layer for how people move around the island and inform the observation platforms I would like to design. 

Diagram of Edward T. Hall's personal reaction bubbles (1966), showing radius in feet

Proxemics analyses the measurable distances between people as they interact with one another. It was introduced by anthropologist Edward Hall in 1966 who believed that space speaks to us as loudly as words and in his book ‘The Hidden Dimension’ Hall categorises distance as intimate, personal, social, or public. Although, speculative I find it an interesting way of reading the social implications of space in a tangible way. 

Intimate distance:  embracing, touching or whispering

Close phase – less than 6 inches (15 cm) Far phase – 6 to 18 inches (15 to 46 cm)

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The topography of the states of consciousness

Unfinished drawing | by Jess Tubb

Superimposing Fisher’s continuum and its states of consciousness on to the island of Es Vedra as a method of manipulating the the landscape to create the perfect viewing platforms for the 3 psychotic episodes (delusion, hallucination and dissociation). 

The states according to Fisher are in equilibrium and appear as definite straight lines in a concise and rather boring diagram. When quite literally places the lines on site they take the form of the islands extremely rugged and steep topography. The states of consciousness’ relationship to one another have been defined in plan but do they relate in section?

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The red line

Unfinished drawing  | by Jess Tubb

Details to come of the red line. The line is symbolic to the divided self and corresponds to Fisher’s continuum. It is ‘I’  and ‘Self’. 

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Precedent Study for the superimposition of states of consciousness onto the landscape of Es Vedra

The Sajama Lines of western Bolivia are a network of thousands (possibly tens of thousands) of nearly perfectly straight paths etched into the ground continuously for more than 3,000 years by the indigenous people living near the volcano Sajama.

The lines were created by scraping aside vegetation and the dark surface material consisting of soil and oxidized rock and exposing the lighter subsurface material. Like the better-known Nazca Lines (which differ from the Sajama Lines in that some of the Nazca are depictions of animals) neither the purpose of these lines, nor how the makers achieved such precision, are completely understood. - Wikipedia.

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Dissociation Defences 

A1 Drawing/Collage | by Jess Tubb

These defence mechanisms sit delicately on Es Vedra’s steep rocky face only lightly touching it’s surface. Their fine, fragile structures support the pendulum like mechanism that works by distorting reality to defend against a feeling of anxiety and tolerate the stress of a hyperaroused state of consciousness. 

Dissociation of the mind is achieved through the breakdown of normal integrated experiences; mental structures of preconceived ideas, frameworks representing some aspect of the world.

This is cause by deliberate re-deployment of attention - hence it is voluntarily induced by deliberate concentration/contemplative meditation.    

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Precedent study for dissociation architecture - psychotic episode 3/3

Admiralty scaffolding

British design of anti-tank and anti-boat obstacle made of tubular steel. It was widely deployed on beaches of southern England, eastern England and the south western peninsula during the invasion crisis of 1940-1941.

I want psychotic episode 3/3 to sit on Es Vedra’s rock face very delicately, it does not penetrate into the surface - into the conscious but creates a defence mechanism that protects the rock face. 

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The final element. Psychotic episode  3/3

The three architectural elements nested within the islands landscape are reactions to my understanding of delusions, hallucinations and dissociation of the self (the primary effects of psychosis or madness) and correspond to Fisher’s continuum. 

I am now at the stage of working out what is ‘dissociation’ and how can it manifest itself in a physical form on site.

In relation to the continuum it sits under ‘hyperarousal’ this is my own personal view on it’s connection to the states of consciousness, purely as when reading into the types of dissociation disorders I found that they are all psychological defence mechanisms used to tolerate the stress of a hyperaroused state of consciousness - an overwhelming event for example. As a result the self become ‘unembodied’ -  abandoning the body and withdrawing into mental activity as a method of protecting its being and relationships to others. 

It’s is a inbuilt mechanism of survival instinct.

What the sufferer of dissociation is complaining about it the sharp sensation caused by the breakdown of their normal integrated experience (mental structure of preconceived ideas, framework representing some aspect of the world). This is cause by deliberate re-deployment of attention - hence it is voluntarily induced by deliberate concentration/contemplative meditation. 

They are distorting reality to defend against a feeling of anxiety.

The mechanism for dissociation needs to manipulate, deny and distort. Rationalisation is one of the processes its uses. Integrated experience is viewed by one as a sense of time ad place.

Reading: The ego and mechanisms of defence (1936) Anna Freud.

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How do they work?

Sketches/collage | by Jess Tubb

The crumblers sponge like skin act as a surfactant in breaking the surface tension of the water to create the white foam that I see to be illustrative of the product of a hallucination.

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Story of the crumblers

Es Vedra’s rock face becomes our conscious, it is in a state or quality of awareness, or, of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.

Here the crumblers threads of reality are wound up tightly within the rock and their abnormal excitation mechanisms sit below the surface of the pores.

The crumblers sit within the pores of the shoreline, waiting to be washed away. As a they wait they build up energy from the continuous movment of the waves lapping up against them, until...

The energy is enough to release them from their pockets to be taken in the sea currents. As they bounce and swirl around there sponge like surface breaks the surface tension of the water to add to creation of the thick white foam that occurs in crashing waves.  

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Closeups of drawing

Drawing | by Jess Tubb

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Crumblers (want to think of a new name)

A0 drawing/collage? | by Jess Tubb

‘Hallucination’ derives from the Latin deponent or half - passive verb alucinari, ‘to wander in the mind’.

The hallucination crumblers are more like rounded fragments that are released from the surface of the rock - the conscious to float away in the sea - the unconscious. Always attached by thread of reality, if broken that fragrment of consciousness may be lost forever and psychosis can occur.

The egoic self is always engaged in seeking. It is seeking more of this or that to add to itself, to make itself feel more complete. Surrendering of the egoic self brings the hallucination to an end and the fragment is wound back into it’s crevice within the islands rocky face. These crevices appear like deep pores in the surface of the shoreline. 

The fragments sponge like skin act as a surfactant in breaking the surface tension of the water to create the white foam that I see to be illustrative of the product of a hallucination. It’s the movement and result of the conscious and unconscious that I am most interested by. 

I NEED TO DO A MOVING DRAWING. 

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The work planned for easter is...slow progress!

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Thoughts...

‘My project is an observation of the ambiguous underlying mechanisms and surface features of madness in an attempt to construct a landscape that celebrates the less rational self’. 

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Creativity and Consciousness: Philosophical and Psychological Dimensions edited by Jerzy Brzeziński.

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Site Map

Unfinished drawing | by Jess Tubb

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Superimposition of 3 theories of ‘self’

Drawing | by Jess Tubb

As a method of manipulating the site and deciding where my architecture will sit on the island, I have superimposed the three idea’s I read that relate to the fascination I have for the question of what is ‘self’ and the states of consciousness. 

The first is Sigmund Freud’s renowned analogy of the iceberg to describe the there levels of the mind. 

The second psychedelic researcher Roland Fisher’s model of the “perception-hallucination continuum” in which the states are marked by a gradual turning inward toward a mental dimension at the expense of the physical, found in his 1971 article “A Cartography of the Ecstatic and Meditative States”.

And finally the third is my favourite R.D. Laing’s theory on the divided self. (I have written about this earlier on in my research).