BSc Unit 1 Yr2: Gregory Barton; Jane Brodie; Alexandra Critchley; Tamsin Hanke; Imogen Holden; Thomas Kendall; Nur Md Ajib; Dhiren Patel; Olivia Pearson; Chi Ian Philip Poon. Yr3: Ioana Barbantan; Alicia Bourla; Alice Weng Sam Iu; Luke Jones; James Purkiss , Amy Louise Sullivan-Bodiam; Daniel Swift Gibbs.
Deja Vu The term deja vu, French for ‘already seen’, describes the feeling of having sreviously witnessed a new situation, or visited a new place. A compelling sense of familiarity usually accompanies the experience of deja vu complemented by a sense of eeriness and strangeness. This previous experience is frequently attributed to a dream, although occasionally a conviction it genuinely happened in the past prevails. Deja vu, also known as paramnesia (from the Greek para, parallel and mneme, memory), has been described as ‘remembering the future’. Inspired by the unsettling psychological experience of deja vu, this year Unit 1 attempted to define the traits of an ambiguous architecture fluctuating between familiarity and the uncanny. We studied: identical spaces, posing questions of authenticity between an original and its copy; illusory spaces, where an extensive span hides in the restricted physical dimensions of a smaller room; repetitive and mirrored spaces, appearing multiplied within each other; inverted or reversed spaces; covert spaces, purposefully concealed or veiled in habit; and delayed spaces, when a distinctive atmosphere trails the physical experience of a place. The focus of our investigation was Venice, the prototype of a city deja vu, existing within the experience of every other city.
Penelope Haralambidou, Max Dewdney and Chee-Kit Lai
Show Cat 08.indd 16
Clockwise from top: James Purkiss, Thomas Kendall, Daniel Swift Gibbs.
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