civilized ku # 962-63 ~ noticing / ku

Scottish Highland Cattle ~ Moon Valley Farm - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggen
Welcome Friends ~ Au Sable Forks / Moon Valley Farm - in the Adirondack PARK • click to embiggenYesterday, the wife and I went up the hill to fetch a lot of beef from Moon Valley Farm. In this case, a lot of beef is a 1/4 hunk (assorted cuts and grinds) of Scottish Highland Cattle and it's worth noting that these guys and girls are really big animals.

In any event and on to picturing things, a question comes up from time to time, this time from John Linn:

Maybe this is a stupid question but I cannot figure out what “ku” and “civilized ku” mean or represent. I guess it is irrelevant but I keep wondering.

IMO, the question is neither "stupid" nor "irrelevant".

It's not stupid because: a) given its idiomatic and idiosyncratic use, I'm the only one who can authoritatively (after all, it's my idiom and idiosyncrasy) answer the question, and, b) the answer is very relevant to my picturing MO. While I have been using ku in the title of most of my day-to-day-to-day (ad infinitum) pictures for nearly a decade, I find it very interesting that, over that time, a number of items have appeared which give added meaning to my use of ku.

As an example, at the Architecture and Phenomenology II Conference (Kyoto Seika University, Japan - June 2009), a paper - Engaging with Ku˜: from abstraction to meaning through the practice of noticing - was presented, the point of which was very closely related to my use of ku. Scary close, to be precise. In fact, if I had commissioned an academic to write an Artist Statement for my use, it might read exactly - albeit with a few self-evident changes - like the description of the aforementioned paper (FYI, in order to understand the following as an expansion of my original use of ku, it might help to first read my answer)....

This paper These pictures presents a design picture making project that exploreds the practice of “noticing”. Noticing is a way in and through which we are able to understand and create our relationship to space and place. The practice of noticing can facilitate awareness, reflection, learning and transformation (Mason 2002). Noticing is a practice that enables us to engage with the concept of Ku˜, meaning “space”, in Japanese. In this project context, Ku˜ is interpreted as a space of potentiality rather than emptiness or nothingness. Engaging with Ku˜ through the practice of noticing can enable a transition from abstraction to meaning. Ku˜ can also be an expression of the ambiguous potential of design picturing investigations: including knowing and the unknown, the limitations and the challenges. To practice design picture making in this way is to step outside of the confines of certainty and embark on an exploratory path of discovery. Just as design picturing is a way of engaging with space – to enunciate the unknown, to create meaning from the abstract – so too is noticing as a temporal practice of discovery and place making. Through the act of noticing the ambiguous openness of space is transformed into the connectedness of place. ~ Academia.edu

Those who have followed things here on The Landscapist for any length of time will notice many of the medium of photography / picturing related topics - relationship to space and place, connectedness, awareness, reflection, learning, meaning, knowing and the unknown, ambiguous, limitations and challenges - which are addressed in this paper's synopsis are part and parcel of the ongoing discussion / presentation on The Landscapist. That said, it is both interesting and affirming to note the attention of other disciplines, in this case - architecture and phenomenology - are touching upon such closely related ideas and notions.