Eye on Citadel

tldr: Eye on Citadel is the title for an analog photography project. It documents and compiles graphic evidence and criticism about urban and architectural development, particularly —but not limited— to those developments that integrates bitcoin in whatever component of its own ethos and scope. At the same time, it tries to be a project that gives insight to the author’s own professional exercise as an architect. The name is inspired on the ‘Eye on Springfield’ gag from popular T.V. show ‘The Simpsons’

Analog photography; Brakeless Bikes; and Hard Money

One of the many descriptions of photography is beautifully put by John Berger: “… photography… is drawing with light”, as opposed to the vague idea that a photography is nothing but a recording of reality.

Granted: photography can serve the purpose of the to save, of reality, or say, to record a moment that —indeed— happened in real life. Photography, however, in its most rudimentary form, shares the dwell of reality along with the most sophisticated forms of graphic representation nowadays: said, those that ornate the ending product with filters, emojis, and most recently, with the imagination of artificial intelligence.

In that regard, analog photography isn’t less fake that a drawing of reality, made since the imagination of Chat-GPT, on which the only difference with its human competitor, resides on the technical capacities of the camera, and the camera man, whilst manually adjusting the light that goes within the camera, in order to draw a picture.

Hunting reality

If reality is there, and yet, no one is able to catch it, and affirm that it can be held with each own’s hands, then, what is left to be done with it?

Since an a phenomenological school of thinking, reality is akin to our own mere condition of being; meaning that, our own ability to perceive reality is a fundamental —yet an ineffable— characteristic of what makes us humans.

As paradoxically as it might seems to be, imagination is there to complete reality. The “theidos”, or the tissue, that conforms what we perceive, is made, at all moments, and at the same time, in equals parts of reality and imagination.

What it changes, according with each person’s ability to perceive, is the articulation of the ultimate description of what is being perceived. This, in a phenomenological school of thinking, might come to be a definition for an appreciation for life experience.

Going without brakes

The play with old-school analog photography, thus, revolves around how the act of photography is experienced.

“It’s all on the attentive-eye”, Henri Cartier-Bresson would say, without forgetting that this attention, can come by some infinite number of ways: to offer attention, is to imagine how it has to be offered, for then proceed to offer it, and just for moments later, to reflect on what just happened, and what could happen next.

The fixies, or say, the reckless kind of urban cyclists that usually make their own way through citadel’s traffic, by mocking cars and running red lights, are ultimately called as irresponsible punks, out of any possible proper kind of civilization. Although here, I’d like to explore another way to perceive this style of cycling.

The fixed-gear bikes are made for enclosed environments, to race under rules of game competition. This fact makes obvious the need of brakes: “why on earth would you need brakes, if the whole point is to go as fast as possible as you can, in order to win?”

In urban environments, within the same sense of fixed-gear mechanics, although with a different formulation of the question, it would arise something like: “what on earth could happen, if I’m not able to stop, if for whatever reason, I would need to?”, on which resolution, it could be put on play more than just a simple game.

By not having brakes, the cyclist is obliged to stop by any other means, being popularly these, the skid techniques or, to brake with solely the force on the legs, along with stylish bike footi-pulation. Indeed, the mechanics of this kind of “braking”, makes the cyclist to perceive not only the city, but himself, distinct to the rest of the environment and its all kinds of transients. By following the same logic: it would be possible to say that, the removal of brakes in cars, could make car drivers more responsible on their own style of driving?, at the very least, they might have to brake by how Freddy Flintstone used to brake his car back when that particular imaginary age of stone and dinosaurs.

Only 30 pictures, and within those, a handful

Each one of us, thus, is able to perceive reality on its own kind of ability and condition, assisted if possible, by some kind of technique or style.

The possibilities of modern cameras are primarily those of attention capacity, this being, how many pictures can be captured raw in just one run. With an analog camera, this condition is limited by the cartridges, which usually carries from 20 to 30 slots, each. As with brakeless bikes, this condition obliges to perceive distinct the whole play of photography.

Cartridges aren’t cheaper, neither, nor the subsequent process of making a way for a picture towards its final print. The valuation of the precise moment on which a picture is taken, demands an exercise of scrutiny, along with whatever attentive the eye could be. This exam, however, is not always done in the most rigorous of the ways, so for it can also happen by emotional sparks that make their way just on their right time, and right place. Eye on Citadel, is an attempt to keep practicing this particular style, on the hunting for value.

À propos: The hard dangers of soft money

Finally, the justification for bitcoin implication on this project comes by two ways.

Firstly: money, as bikes and cameras, are also perceived and put into play. By the time this project started run, bitcoin has already make its way through the psyche and soma of fair part of the population, particularly, those that feel the urgency for accommodation, or say, an adjustment to the usual way of perception and the by pass of reality.

For many, the realization of bitcoin comes along a kind of “eureka” moment. For each person, bitcoin can be perceived on his own particular way. Yet, this perception can make its way towards the collective: on the formation of communities, groups, or meme crews. For citadels, the attempt is not much different.

Secondly: if the project has to have an hypotheses, it would be the next one: bitcoin stimulates perception in a way that effectively communicates an imagination of development, based in certainty and robustness, towards its formal realization through its own means of work and energy saving. Put it otherwise: the problems of uncertainty, corruption and conflict of soft money, are now to have to be put on palliative testing, towards an attempt to adjust reality.

It’s the author desire to try and to be drawing with light, as many moments his own life permits him to offer attention to all these kinds of citadel descriptions.

Yours, Moizen

2023, June

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