empathy and pathos

I've written about empathy a few times on this blog. There's something about it that seems to be crucial to being a human being, an artist and a citizen. On friday night, the conversation turned to empathy and it's relationship with being able to learn languages. A friend was noticing the link between his partner's inability to pick up languages and her lack of understanding about the more pathetic aspects of his personality. i use the word pathetic here intentionally, as it highlights the link i'm interested between empathy and pathos and that etymological goodness in between. The polyannas of this world, who prefer to only laugh and dance and skip, not to stir in the muck of difficult feelings like sadness and despair, miss out on the depth of subtleties of the human condition.
oh, "the human condition", hey. romanticism is sooo 19th century..-ed

I guess when it comes to understanding and having a compassion for the way another person is - to walk a mile in their mocassins, to be able to talk their language - pathos is crucial. You need to know what it feels to hurt, as pain is universal. In fact, i think pain traverses cultural and linguistic barriers more so than happiness, love, freedom. We all have slightly different definitions, needs and expectations of love, joy and other lovely feelings. However, i think grief, anger, pain - all those wonderful experiences - resemble each other across the divide. The way we deal with them, mind, is so different that it's ridiculous. But if you say to me ' i'm sad', i know that i have felt sadness too and can relate to how you feel, whether i enjoy it or not. but i don't need to wonder about translating that into something i can define. Whereas, if you tell me you're in love, i think that i have been in love too, but there is always a sense of difference, perhaps an insecurity of whether i have really felt what you feel and whether we speak of the same experience.

I believe that it's the pathetic, uncomfortable elements of us that are interesting. I see them as points of intersection between one language and another (empathy) and perhaps between the public and private self (identity).

image credit: mazoons

airports, design and emotion

i wrote here a while back about my particular relationship with airports and air travel. in fact, i discovered a hot book called airplane the other day at gemma's place - all the cool stuff about airplanes. naturally including ms penelope-inspired hostess outfits from the 70s. swoon!

but this is not a post about pan am. or pam ann

when i was at the RMIT architecture open studio thing, i was checking out the lower pool concept drawings and projects - quite a few at docklands (yawn), a stadium and and one which caught my eye about airports. while the sketches and mock-up didn't altogether float my boat, there was a strategy diagram which underlined the whole reasoning behind her project which was amazing - focusing on the sad, happy, lonely and waiting places of airports. yes, that's right kids - emotions! the intangible, but incredibly real element of human-ness in airports. i can't tell you how pleased i was to see this appear in the working docs for the plans.

i'm not an iconoclast. i like a building to look beautiful. but i also firmly believe that architecture has to work. it has to support the process for which it is intended. it has to respond to the brief (which, interestingly, i heard as the main difference between craft and design). what i think happens a lot of the time is that the brief can easily get swallowed up in the tangible: on time, on budget, OH&S standards, building codes, material considerations, door widths, step heights, dimension, depth, reflections, etc, etc. of course those things are important, but and then don't forget about the fact that within that space, somebody is going to feel something.

this is the bit that keeps me thinking about place and looking at space, is this consideration for how somebody feels somewhere. and perhaps good architectural design - be that exterior, interior, landscape or urban, is the best possible consideration for our emotions.*

*which just got me thinking again about empathy. hmm. spaces for empathy.

feel free to browse

Following on from Interesting South, I've decided to go to more stuff like it more often:

pecha kucha flick thanks to paisdelasmaravillas from flickr

Pecha Kucha
Started by a couple of architects, Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, it began as a place to network and also to check out their eventspace. It has since gone on to be a global thang, a place to hear interesting people talk about interesting things.

I almost got to one at the ICA when i was in London, but missed the last one. Bugger. But, filed it under EXCITEMENT PLUS, the last Pecha Kucha Melbourne for the year is on Tuesday night! Yay!

At the Blue Diamond Bar on Queen St from 6-ish, I'm looking forward to checking out a variety of creative/brainy type presenations. 20 slides, then get the fuck off the stage. Love it.

coffee morning flick thanks to russell davies from flickr

Coffee Morning Melbourne

Regular readers will know that when in London, I did as Londoners do and went to Coffee Morning at the Breakfast Club in Soho. I met some amazing people there, including many who I call dear friends now. There are a few Coffee Mornings around the world. Sydney has one, Melbourne tried it a while ago and so I've decided to try and resurrect it. Mainly for the selfish reason of wanting good coffee and conversation.

The only thing is, I don't really know what works for the Melbourne bloggery types out there, so I'm putting forth a bit of an option type thing and if people can put their suggestions in the comments section, that would be ace. [I should probably put up a spiffy poll, but I honestly couldn't be fucked]. And if you know others who might be into it, get them to tell me too.

Now, I've stuck to the CBD, in the interest of being central and I'm sticking to Friday, in the interest of continuity (not to mention it being a lazy-ish kind of day and perfect to have coffee on).

VENUE
Option 1
Journal Cafe on Flinders Lane

Option 2
Section 8 Container Bar/Cafe in Tattersalls Lane

Option 3
Nick's on Queen St

TIME

Option A
Friday, 8am

Option B
Friday, 9:30am

Option C
Friday, 11am

Discuss.

*Sorry to those for whom that was an interminable bore. Now, back on topic.

dorkbot tee flick thanks to chesh from flickr

Dorkbot

I saw Pia, fabulous Dorkbot Overlord speak at Interesting and have decided to go to one of the Melbourne Dork-bot meetings. Now, the last one for the year was last Sunday (while I was wandering lost around Wollongong, great.) but I thought I should just give it a bit of a shout-out anyway. Go to the Melbourne Dork-bot wiki for more info.

* It also reminded me of the fantastic Chris Northcote's Forkbot, reconstructed EggsBaconChipsBeans at Interesting in London.

And what's the point of all that garbage for? Well, the thing is, it's the Real Life 2.0 version of a browsing, or going through your blog reader. Hearing about a range of stuff from strangers is fantastic for expanding your experience of stuff: great for empathy, brilliant for jiggling an idea around and, dare I say it, good for the soul. I like the way I feel when I hear new stuff and I feel like a more informed member of the human race. Surely that's a good thing, right?