The Insignificant: Curating "Everyday" Lights in Bangkok

บทคัดย่อ

The “insignificant” in this article is not meant unimportant, but a neutral state of the subject waiting to be acknowledged by the observer. This concept is based on the theories of “everyday life,” proposed by Charles Baudelaire and Maurice Blanchot. In “The Painter of Modern Life” (1863), Baudelaire redefined art as the object of everyday, while Blanchot’s “Everyday Speech” (1959) described the everyday as something difficult to grasp, yet existed along the urban streets.

This article is the exploration into everyday lights and darkness in different architectural scales and cultural contexts. The exploration is classified through scholarly texts from Electric Light: An Architectural History by Sandy Isenstadt in Urban Night, “Silence and Light” - Louis Kahn: Essential Texts by Robert Twombly and In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki in Architecture of Light and Shadow, and The Room of One’s Own by DOGMA in Light in Domestic Space.

The findings suggest that the flâneur, as a process of work, can be thought of as a study of urban life. “Splendid moments,” as Blanchot suggested, are curated to represent the everyday of Bangkok’s streets, architecture and domestic spaces. The significance is to exhibit the perception of lights in the mind of Bangkok’s inhabitants in a more sentient way.