In today’s studio, we were all given the opportunity to share about the places in which we currently reside. It was interesting, listening to everyone’s stories and their experiences with the places they live in.

I’ve only been here in Melbourne for five months, living in a student accommodation. I explored the elements of my home earlier in the week and actually found it rather dull. But as I listened to my classmates and actually thought about it, I found that there is so much more to a space than just what it looks like on the surface.

Here are some of the points that stood out to me when Robbie was talking about it in class:
1. A house as a structure, and home as a substance.
2. We are projecting our lives onto spaces.
3. It’s not about dimensions (meters, diameters…). It’s about how you feel. Are you comforted?

 Having that said, before it came to my turn to speak up in class, I thought about the various things in my place that made it home to me. The few things that made an impact revolved around the relationship between my roommate and I. The both of us are friends from back in Malaysia, and we’ve always had a good relationship – we do practically everything together and it’s all really nice because we can also sit comfortably in silence whenever space between us is needed. That’s probably something that I will be looking into while working on my first assessment.

Robbie also showed us a couple of works by various artists, and the one I liked most would probably be the Wikisinger.

He sings the same song in fifteen different places. Not only did I find this a really cool concept, but the quirkiness and melody of the song was just as intriguing, and the visual properties of the entire video was just so nicely planned out. The video sort of reminded me of Wes Anderson’s films – which I absolutely love, by the way.

Robbie also introduced “I Am Sitting In A Room” by Alvin Lucier to us. It was my first time listening to it, and I found the whole concept incredibly fascinating. The moment I got home today, I actually listened to the entire thing, and it was great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jU9mJbJsQ8

I’m feeling a little more confident now and managed to get a couple of ideas from today’s studio session, and I look forward to working on my first assessment and the few ahead of me. We’re going to be visiting the Grainger Museum tomorrow, so that should be interesting.