"a building that will elicit an experiential sense."

Thao,

As for the progression of your project, I am less concerned with the specifics of 'building' or 'type' as I am with your ability to express, understand, and write about what you are attempting to accomplish. This is the perfect time to begin to research, write and think; if you are fretting about programming for your project, I think you have to realize that 'programming' for you will be the 'what,' 'why,' and 'how' of the phenomenological experience, and not so much the particular building. Are you familiar with the works of Merleau-Ponty? His Phenomenology of Perception might be helpful, but it also is a tad technical (philosophically speaking). Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought might also be of interest to you - not necessarily in that it directly correlates with film, but in that it discusses an art form and how it can act as a catalyst for human experience, catharsis, and change.

The idea of creating an architecture that elicits collective perception is an interesting one, but not one that is necessarily possible or provable. I think it is an idea that is worth exploring, but I'm not sure how you can go about creating such collective experiences; that is both the beauty and mystery of experience: you and I can be present in the same movie/space/concert/where ever and have two entirely discrete and discordant experiences. Perhaps you can say that your aim is to create a building that will elicit an experiential sense, but I am not sure that you can say more than that.

Don't worry about whether this will seem more like an installation. Just move forward researching and trying to find spaces that bring about such 'sensorial experiences'

Another book that might be helpful. I've never read it, but it looks interesting. The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience

Stephen Szutenbach

Stephen,

I absolutely agree with the comment about collective experience, more so when I speak about collective perception, I think what I mean to say is that though everyone is certainly open to walking away with different interpretation of what may have just been perceived, what is more important is that they are put within the realm of others, in which collectively everyone is able to be aware of the same thing, rather or not that triggers a different response isn't necessarily something I am focusing on, what is more important is how that collective act, even for a second, may be able to inscribe our sense of place, moment, or community. For example, as a reference to my past, I am thinking about when I went to see firework shows during 4th of July. My parents would take us every year, it would be at the same beach, same set up in the park, and even when we're surrounded by hundreds of people, our actions, rather we were conversating or cooking up food, allowed us to feel fairly detach from the crowd. The same circumstances seemed to hold true for everyone, as everyone was coming from various distance, with different background, history, and experiences. However to whatever background you may have come from, at the moment of collective perception, past and future is forgotten in order to recognize the moment, and in this case, the first firework to ignite allowed everyone to break from there current activity to be drawn into a mode of collective perception. Its this very moment that I hope to eventually convey in my spatial set up. So I feel my studies will be based around that very moment and act of percieving and not necessarily around the reaction in which that which was perceived has begun to affect us long after.

Perhaps calling it an act of collective experience is the wrong way to go about it and perhaps its as you have said "a building that will elicit an experiential sense."

Thao