Inversion Immersion
Recently I've noticed a few architecture blogs featuring Inversion, a house installation by Dan Havel and Dean Ruck. A couple things made me think this was weird: (1) This is a project I featured on this page just over two years ago, and (2) this project was demolished that same year. Granted, the appeal of the project is not lost on me -- the vortex of wood seeming to devour the existing house like a black hole, a hole in which passers-by could venture -- but the sudden popularity on three popular architecture blogs made me wonder why now? So I decided to trace these posts backwards to find out, and also to get a taste of how this thing called the Blog-o-sphere works, for better or worse.
Of the three pages linked at top, only Tropolism leads back more than one page (.mnp links to Calvin and Calvin's a dead end), like so:
A Technorati search for "Dan Havel" brings up 77 posts between June 11 and today, and a quick rummage through about half of those shows that a lot of people found Inversion at designverb, a fairly popular blog on all sorts of design, though not as popular as its source, Hemmy.net, one of those blogs that touches on just about everything. Its source, BoredStop, is a web site new to me, though its posts appear to be limited to images. And when I say limited I mean limited; no explanation (outside the title), no links, no sources, no comments, the end of the road. Apparently, it's up to places like Hemmy.net and designverb to, in this case, make a meme out of a piece of art long demolished.
Update 07.17: According to an Art League Houston press release, the new facilities for the organization that replaced the houses that Inversion ate -- the replacement process affectionately called Inversion -> Conversion -- opened on the first of March this year. Designed by local architect Irving Phillips, here's a look at the building, from the Art League's web site:
Of the three pages linked at top, only Tropolism leads back more than one page (.mnp links to Calvin and Calvin's a dead end), like so:
Tropolism
(July 16, 2007)
.
via
.
designverb
(June 11, 2007)
.
via
.
Hemmy.net
(June 11, 2007)
.
via
.
BoredStop
(June 9, 2007)
.
via
.
? ? ?
Update 07.17: According to an Art League Houston press release, the new facilities for the organization that replaced the houses that Inversion ate -- the replacement process affectionately called Inversion -> Conversion -- opened on the first of March this year. Designed by local architect Irving Phillips, here's a look at the building, from the Art League's web site:
I actually ended up tracing it back to designverb also, and boredstop through mirage.studio.7. But I was initially reminded of the project by Calvin's blog [I think I saw it here a long time ago, now that you mention it - but it may have been somewhere else], so I only linked to him and boredstop [that was my process, just to add to your post here].
ReplyDeleteWeird thing about having a blog is sometimes I don't care how old something is, or how relevant - I just want it to be on the site. This was one of those times, I guess...
Interesting journey into the blogosphere though...take it easy man.
ryan - architecture.mnp
Interesting indeed. I saw the tropo post and I was really, really confused. (the installation was replaced by an arts complex and a coffee shop, a shop that i used over three months to finish a thesis.) i thought someone had cribbed dan havel for a second.
ReplyDeleteso should we revive that old trope that the blogsphere is just one huge echo chamber, one that's sometimes fed by another echo chamber, wikipedia?
ryan - At first I was taken back by the outdated nature of this string of posts (a string much larger, as Technorati illustrates), though my interest was mainly how these things happen. My digging hit a dead end with BoredStop, though I think what you say (how old something is isn't as relevant as what it is) applies wholeheartedly to blogs. What takes off and becomes a meme of sorts, though, is hard to determine. Some of the pages that I found on Technorati are so minimal in terms of content (an image of the project and a link, if at all, to the source), that I'm guessing it's the ease of blogging that definitely contributes. When a page like yours inserts some personal insight and commentary, at least it's contributing more than strictly just a continuation of the same. Cheers to that.
ReplyDeleteClarence - Maybe these sorts of memes go through cycles, every couple of years, if this is any indication. Thanks for the mention of the replacement; it makes me realize I should update the post with some of that information, some NEW content!
Isn't that exactly what makes something a meme? Its contagious nature? Maybe it's dormant for a while, then someone discovers it, uses it in a presentation, it gets emailed to someone who hasn't seen it, there are a bunch of new people receptive to it and it starts acting like a pinball again, bouncing around in media. Not just the blogosphere though, there are a bunch of different forms and levels of media. Emails, conversations, a reference in a paper that's been written...
ReplyDeleteStill relevant? Of course if you didn't see it before... and even if you did, it's still cool as hell.
Cheers,
Matt