The World is Flat, 2008

A1 map representing drawn pencil marks and text. 25 copies

EAVES (Architectural/or Architectonic Object) + DROP (Site or point in space for audible contact)

I would like to restructure a particular act of listening and thereby transform it. I would like to use the act of eavesdropping as the basis for an audible experience through this drawing. I want to undo the negation of freedom and the secretive or covert act of listening that is understood through the use of the term eavesdropping, along with its implied use/abuse of architecture into a positive and productive verb. Whereas listening to a conversation without the awareness of the speaker carries cultural and psychological stigmas, the term eavesdropping contains an architectural object compounded with a physical movement, thus making it a perfect linguistic term to describe the occurrence of moving through architecture while encountering audible situations. It is perfectly suited to how our bodies relate to the urban environment.

So in a sense: An eave is the edge of a roof. Eaves usually project beyond the side of the building generally to provide weather protection. Usually, windows divide the walls that hold the eave.

This drawing suggests a plan for a room, where physical trajectories are represented as thin lines, moving between each other toward acoustic situations that are never quite touching each other. These lines continue onto the edges of the paper – almost connecting to it, similar when eavesdroppers connect with the outside of a building. After a brief or long encounter, the lines change direction, back into the room away from the edge. As you follow the lines they slightly vary in tone, suggesting how sound affects our physical trajectory in space, perhaps as a result of being exposed or conformed by the experience of eavesdropping.

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