Romain Odin is a filipino french artist with an interest in the built environment and deep ecology. His artistic practice stems from his architectural background, exploring and experimenting with materials through sculpture, drawing and photography. collaborate@romainodin.com
Does the building need fixing? Who must one reach out to to know? Is there a framework where students can be directly aware of what type of care is required for each building upon arrival to Hooke?
Hooke is a place to experiment and speculate, many of the buildings sitting on the forest’s soil have stories and ideas that have never made it to the final build, let alone on paper.
This document speculates a scenario specific to the Field- station in hopes to carry on a tradition for future students to relay information about the perpetual nature of an unfinished project.
Directly engaging each generation of Hooke with the buildings that surround them will mean spending more time on the land that will nurture them for at least a year.
Understand and feel the place you live in.
Daily journeys into the woods have transformed the routine of transcendental meditation within an urban setting into practiced ritual. The engagement with the forest keeps the mind in exercise as it is continuously exposed to the ever changing conditions of the forest’s flora, fauna and microclimates. Wandering off from Countryside Commission to pick up a crude stool fabricated upon arrival at Hooke, exiting Westminster lodge marks the start of an hour -or so- long journey into the forest fabric. Subconscious decisions lead body and mind to the various landscapes, seeking a tree to rest upon and open one’s eyes to gaze into the landscape after a twenty minute session of transcendental meditation. Muted eyes, thoughts and observations arise while repeating a mantra, perceptions are experienced through haptic sound, expressed after a portable Casio alarm rings. Written descriptions, sketches, simple photographs, sound recordings of the surroundings help the mind for future recollection and immersion. As the session adjourns, the journey back marks the transition into a day in the workshop.
A Fathom for the Fleeting can be read ‘sideways’. There is a repetition in methodology but the nature of the practice is accumulative and iterative. A full term marks first phase of digestion giving written observations spatial dimension, transforming text into texture crafting traces and experimenting with media. Within a fabricated archive folder are essential documents to clarify and engage the reader with a deeply personal practice. The strength of this practice lies in its commitment and rigor, which will well exceed a time at Hooke and provide with sufficient clues for immersive recollection in the future.
Does the building need fixing? Who must one reach out to to know? Is there a framework where students can be directly aware of what type of care is required for each building upon arrival to Hooke?
Hooke is a place to experiment and speculate, many of the buildings sitting on the forest’s soil have stories and ideas that have never made it to the final build, let alone on paper.
This document speculates a scenario specific to the Field- station in hopes to carry on a tradition for future students to relay information about the perpetual nature of an unfinished project.
Directly engaging each generation of Hooke with the buildings that surround them will mean spending more time on the land that will nurture them for at least a year.
Understand and feel the place you live in.
The Ati community has a long history of indigenous culture within the Philippines. First inhabitants of Panay Island, several Ati communities are also located in Guimaras island today. Initially nomad, this Ati community, Kati-Kati, have been donated land by the mayor in 2016.
Throughout a week of quietly listening, carefully watching and actively documenting, Possible Scenarios extracted two areas of intervention to contribute to a transitioning Kati-Kati community.
With an interest in construction and material applications, Possible Scenarios aims to build a lasting relationship through organizing building workshops together with the support of local suppliers.
The bunker is the source of gameisalreadyset. Challenging our initial proposal of a stage performance -the spatial questioning-, on one hand, had led to rethinking the original intentions. In parallel, the intangible characteristics of the bunker contain a particular dynamic with GASSS’ cultural background. gameisalreadyset is the combination of both reflections, a gamelike interactive immersive experience revolving around the theme of alienated identity where the audience is given the possibility to meander through the space as the performance(s) take place. One could consider the characters as fictional, another could observe them as real, or even both. Open ended, gameisalreadyset’s story operates in the realms of dreams with fluctuating interpretations on the nature, origins and outcomes of each character expressed through several levels of intensities within analog and digital mediums of sound, sculpture, movement and light.
Initially meant to be physical encounter in the format of a gamelike interactive immersive experience, its current output is reflected as an experimental film. Though the essential base of the performance has already fulfilled its unique transient purpose, gameisalreadyset’s aftermath remains to be appreciated as an entropic runthrough
Merely Artificial is a site specific installation within a larger on-going project in collaboration with several artists with dance backgrounds seeking to explore other creative fields such as digital visualization, sculpture and sound. What was initially intended to be a stage performance quickly transformed into an interactive project by further exploiting our chosen space, a historical bunker, consisting of a series of textured narrow corridors and culminating in a larger volume where Merely Artificial will be carefully placed.
The Magic Map served as our graphic tool to explore the dimensions of the journey namely sound, light, movement and the simulated intensities the audience would experience.
Meant to be a representation of time through the melting wax dripping onto the floor, the slight variations in the aluminum’s geometry then reveal themselves. Merely Artificial lends itself to the immersive experience’s theme about alienated identity.
A wooden formwork, four aluminum bars, two buckets and a pot are needed for one sculpture. They are then cleaned and reused for the remaining sixteen.
Traces of Ufer aims to operate within the 3 axes of the Berlin loft through proposing a functional piece of sculpture. The massive spruce attempts to come in contrast with the intricacy of laser cut aluminum and milled birch. An honest proposal as an introduction to the process of machine fabrication, focusing particularly on proportions and geometry. As a result, a surface to leave valuables upon arrival along with mobile trolleys housing either silverware for dining or beverages for the living area.
Applying structure as ornament, the construction process is meant to be visually understood by exposing all elements. Supporting all four sides of the milled birch plates are a series of 4mm laser cut aluminum sheets riveted together, adding a hint of roughness through the imperfections when hammering.
