You have followed me here.

Abstract

You have followed me here so that I can show you this picture. How does this phrase read in the context of this thesis? On the one hand it's simply a quote, from Lost Year at Marienbad . Yet, I am leading you through another narrative of sorts and showing you picture after picture. In this sense, the picture is the one that I have created but also that of Alan Weiss, Robbe-Grillet, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, or perhaps it was someone else, then. Perhaps it was somewhere else then, Karlstadt, Marienbad, or Baden Salsa. Or even here... at the tree-lined path of Entrance One, perhaps resembling the gardens of Marienbad, which are actually the gardens of four villas in Munich filmed to read as one. Here the history of the project and that of my own history collapse as this is the point where my entrance into the university occurred in 1998. I have entered through this path many times only to have both my entrance and exit delayed as well as redirected, the way that the path of Entrance One is redirected into Hermann Park, which is reflected across Main Street from Rice. Here we are led through a series of paths, of pictures, of lines of sight that continually shift, as our desires shift and our ability to grasp the real of the project always is unattainable. Rice is re-inscribed on Hermann Park, which is in turn re-inscribed on Rice, and reflects across, through, under and along Main and Fannin streets (which mirror each other). As well, the conditions of the other authors and participants, including myself and the project itself reflect upon this process