building vision

what if buildings had vision — and how would buildings perceive other buildings?

In pursuing how we perceive, I stopped to ask how objects that we usually perceive would perceive other objects and ourselves. In the political, historical hotbed of Manhattan’s Lower East Side (LES), contrasts between the old standbys like the Tenement Museum and newer developments like the Public Hotel mirror the discourse that inhabitants of the LES have been embroiled in for 100+ years.

Bringing these buildings in as a case, I filmed them for days as they tacitly cast aspersions onto one another. I edited the 360 footage to highlight, using the most common color-coded processes we possess, what these buildings could potentially see and think about the other. With a phone or headset for VR, users may stand in for the building and see whatever the building sees — living in the building’s world. While there is no real basis in fact for what they see, it promotes a critical need to be aware of the context in which we make things.

Many thanks to architect, playtester, and friend, Brian Turner for allowing me to film him in ‘building vision’.