2015.07.26
new Ichnographia Quondam
Started to work om a new 1x2 grid for IQ today, and it turned into a whole rethink of IQ. The entire grid from NNTC cown to the Circus of Maxentius now comprises IQ. The web pages (/60-/65 so far) have been designed accordingly. It all makes more sense now in that everything (cad) at Quondam is represented, and there is a place for everything as well. The main aspect of the new web interface is that one can now see how everything relates to everything else, and everything remains independent at the same time. The whole (cad) collection is now much more layered together, and, because it's all registered, the possibilities of connections are all the more evident (and readily doable).
I'm looking forward to seeing the web pages fill up. Not only will it all function incredably well as a museum, but the whole 'apparatus' will engender creativity as well.
I especcially like how the more or less obscure projects have a specific place and a relation to everything else, and I'm thinking that because there is an automatic place for anything new, no matter how little or obscure, it will all happen much more frequently and more easily.
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2015.07.26
beginning of Changing History
It starts with the sarcophagus of Maria engraving and the story behind it and how Piranesi changed it. With its story comes the "Catalogo," Robert Adam, Breakspeare (Hadrian IV?), end at the beginning, life of Maria and Honorius, position of Rome at that time, Obituary of Theodosius(?), and its position in the Ichnographia, where is St. Peter's basilica?, Temple of Apollo attached to the Circus of Nero and Caligula, two states of the Ichnographia and how and why I made the discovery. There is a lot of existing data (EI, etc) that relates to all this, and that's what I start organizing.
The next subject is the two states and an exposition of how the two states differ. Then comes the case for which state came first, and a possible explanation of why Piranesi made the changes--he created a double theater where one theater is the inversion of the other. There is that one final aerial perspective of two inverted theaters, but the changed circus(es) (may) reference the change from pagan munus circus to Christian grave site basilica. Here the story of Melania the Younger and the Horti Valeriani, which leads to the Porticus Neronianae being the X that marks the spot of the barbarian camp and the first sack of Rome.
But there are also two--Porticus Neronianae and Porticus Neroniani--another double inversion, and here we find St. Perter's basilica in disguise (another inverted double). From here comes the story of the garden of Nero and the pagan/Christian Triumphal Way.
I'm just now realizing that the cad ichnographia I work with should be the same orientation as the printed Ichnographia.
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2015.07.28
Borges once claimed...
"Borges once claimed that the basic devices of all fantastic literature are only four in number: the work within the work, the contamination of reality by dream, the voyage in time, and the double."
James Irby in Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings (1964).
I immediately saw a (possible) connection of this quote and the Ichnographia Campus Martius. Would it make a good opening quotation to Changing History? I guess the answer is yes and no. The voyage in time and the double definitely relate, and I suppose all the "sub-themes" could be considered the work within the work (but there really isn't anything like the city within the city or the plan within the plan), but I never felt that the ICM was contaminated by dream unless one considers Piranesi's architectural imagination to be a reality contaminated by dream.
If I were to use the quotation, I'd have to emphasize all four "devices" and how they manifest within the ICM, yet I've never taken the dream angle. Even if the plan is fantastic, it is nonetheless extremely ordered. Perhaps it is the plan/ichnographia itself that contaminated the reality of the viewer into thinking that they are seeing a dream (come true?). It seems that Bloomer more or less took up the dream angle.
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2015.07.28
Quondam's 20th anniversary
One way to mark Quondam's 20th anniversary is to redo seeking precedents... ...finding inspiration completely blown out to its furthest limit. This would cover so much territory relative to what Quondam has done over the past 20 years. This is definitely a go right now, and the work will most likely happen within /30-/39 with cad "sites" throughout IQ. I wonder where Giurgola's Roma Interrotta fits within IQ.
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2015.07.31
/labyrinth
There is a passage within the novel/fiction posts (5022-5050) that contains a reference to labyrinth. This needs to be added to labyrinth/36. In posting 30 July yesterday (@ archinect) I redid a page at Quondam that was linked but no longer online. I saw this action as somewhat labyrinthian, and I now wonder if that's how /36 labyrinth might work--pages with links not at all in sequence, yet all connected by links in the texts. I like this notion as it seems the exact opposite of how Quondam has been structured for many years now. Just now thought that bilocation could also be a dominate theme especially in the sense of locations throughout IQ.
Is the labyrinth a museum of architecture? I quess that's what it actually is. Do I somehow make full use of the key building drawings plans (and elevations) as to all kinds of locations within the labyrinth? That could certainly lead to all kinds of new and unexpected territory. With bilocation comes lots of superimpositions (as in Philadelphia/ICM in IQ), but there is also the way that some buildings occur in multiple places throughout the new IQ, often multi-locations occur. Is all that also a large part of the museum of architecture labyrinth? I suppose it is.
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