<p> In an effort to unveil the underlying potency of architecture I take banal structures and give them a dynamic intervention. Basic architectural forms are manipulated in a way that alters our relationship to them. Once ordinary, the forms are now anomalistic. It is through this surreal reinterpretation of form and space I hope people are encouraged to examine the world around them. By unconventionally combining materials associated with contemporary building practice, or reinterpreting their functionality, I aim to displace the familiar and emphasize the tension inherent in places we think we know. </p>

<p> Since the Devonian Period, 360 million years ago, trees have been foundational for the survival of aerobic life. Today, most humans relate to trees through the idea, material and commodity of wood. This understanding is primarily informed by its use as a building material: the formal attributes of its grain pattern read to assess structural integrity and aesthetic applications. I think of these marks as autonomous and unique natural drawings, documenting time in a scale different from our lifespan. Wood&rsquo;s composition of cellulose and lignin create patterns that record temporal fluctuations in precipitation and the unique soil compounds of each tree&rsquo;s growth site as a codex. As an MFA candidate, I used woodworking techniques to explore the relationship between temporality and materiality. Along the way, I became interested in the reductive carving techniques of woodturning as a metaphor for this investigation: cutting through layers of time. Small segments of wood were laminated together in mathematical patterns and turned to reveal parabolic grids on the interior and exterior surface of each object. This study led me to consider the limitations that traditional art display conventions impose on the viewer&rsquo;s perception of an artwork, and to the realization of the <i>Thoughtitarium; </i> an eight-foot diameter fiberglass hemisphere that hovered above the gallery floor in architectural scale.</p>

<p> The study of an architecture of autonomy consists of theoretical investigations into the realm of building types where a sole use or purpose is manifest in a structure that could, site provided, be constructed. However, provisions that conventional architecture traditionally provide are not present in these explorations. Technological advancements such as indoor plumbing, electric lights, and vertical conveyance systems in the form of elevators and escalators are excluded. Platonic geometric form-making are instead thoroughly investigated, imagined, and manipulated for the purposes of creating new spatial experiences. The desired resultant is an architecture of singularity, an architecture of fantastical projection. </p><p> Through a series of two theoretical ritual-based investigations, three-dimensional form manipulation and construction of proportioned scale models, the essence of elements that compose a spatial experience contributed to a collection of metaphorical tools by which the designer may use to build a third imagined reality: the re-imagination of the archetypal museum. A building whose purpose is not solely to house ancient objects in a near hermetically-sealed environment, free of temperature, humidity and ultra-violet light aberrations, but is a re-imagined. A structure meant to engage the presence of two seemingly divergent communities: the local patron/visitor and the extreme distant denizen. </p><p> This paper also examines key contemporary global artists&rsquo; work and their contributions to the fragmentation / demolition of architectural assemblages for the purposes of re-evaluating the familiar vernacular urban landscape while critically positioning the r&ocirc;le of both the artifact and gallery in shaping contemporary audience&rsquo;s museum experiences. </p><p> The power of the internet and live-camera broadcasting of images utilizing both digital image recording and full-scale screen-projections enable the exploration of &ldquo;transporter-type&rdquo; virtual-reality experiences: the ability to inhabit an art work&rsquo;s presumed original <i>in situ </i> location, while remaining in Chicago as a visitor within a vernacular multi-tenant masonry structure: vacated, evicted, and deconstructed for the purposes of displaying art amidst a new urbane ruin. The complexities of this layered experience is meant to simultaneously displace and interrupt a typical set of so-called <i>a priori</i> gallery expectations while providing the expectant simulacrum that video cameras and screens provide, whetting a contemporary patron&rsquo;s appetite.</p>