Ben Lenoir

Response to Inka Article:

I found the article to be excruciatingly boring. Getting past the verbose and repetitive parts of the article, it became mildly interesting. I think it was a very important point to raise that the Inka used these structures almost as a marriage to the mother earth, because it was their form of altering her natural beauty into something orderly in which to live. I also found it nice that it was only shaped stone that went into the structures and they used no mortar to seal the gaps. The pictures of the outcrops were themselves very pretty but I believe to see this in real life would be overwhelming. The stories that were part of their oral culture of man being wild before there was an order to living was intriguing, because they saw no separation between man and animal without some ordered structure to call home. I wish the article had not turned me off to the subject because it is really interesting to reveal how a culture converts their land to make it their own but also to make it a system that interacts with the earth instead of overtaking it.


System/Architecture Project:

My initial idea for the project was at the atomic level and how atoms interact together. Mostly their interaction to form stable bonds is open space. I find it very interesting that something that is so loose and open can create such a stable structure like clay, rock, or metal. I dont know if I can illustrate that point witout being too obvious or science project-esque. My second idea which I like better is illustrating the way parents absurdly explain sex to their children through the use of silly anecdotes. I also do not know if I can achieve this without making a piece that is taken at face value because it is humorous. I have too many broad ideas right now to give a good description of what I would like to do and a lot of kinks must be worked out before I can begin.