Finding the In-between Space
Name
zhu-emmazhu-sm-arch-2021-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
4.53 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1efd6d0f630bb5ed0c5e4229c1c093f7
Author(s)
Zhu, Emma (Yimeng)
Advisor(s)
Renée, Green
Date Issued
June 2021
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Lines can be seemingly benign as a series of pixels or vector objects, but lines are political and social, as when they are used to draw a divide between groups of beings both in concrete terms in the way that lines demarcate borders and thus define patterns of migration and more obliquely in the way that lines are drawn between disciplines such as architecture and visual art. This sense of division takes on a more instrumental quality under Euclidean geometry which imbues lines with the authority to keep things tidy, neat, and hygienic…. Is there any line beyond a “clean” line? Ingold provided a taxonomy of lines in his book, ranging from thread, trace, cut, crack, to crease and more. These alternative interpretations of the line hint at non-Euclidean ways of perceiving the world.
By examining the threads, cuts, cracks and creases, the lines that are not clean, or well defined, this thesis attempts to make room for the “in-between space.” The “in-between space” happens at various scales and in various contexts, from the very intimate level of perceiving one self’s (one’s own body’s) boundary as an in-between space to connect across entities, to the rendering of screens (medium and object) as liminal and porous lines facilitating unusual linkages, and eventually to the reinterpretation of borders and migration as spaces for collective imagination.
The approach is mostly self-reflexive and self-referential, combining selected writings and works I did over the past three years, while suturing them with the thought experiment of “finding the in-between space.” As the title suggests, I am in the state of finding and not-knowing. I want to be as open as possible towards different perspectives.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
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