The last set of SEA interviews for its management seats were conducted through a drawing test, where applicants were asked to submit a drawing of a "Secret Space". While some attempted to draw physical spaces, many attempted to submit ideas more imaginative. To our surprise, more than 40% of the applicants submitted drawings of heart and the brain as secret spaces.
The "heart" as a secret space manifested in multiple forms. Two of the most dominant expressions were in the ideographic and the scientific drawing showing biological details of the pumping organ. Both such representations, essentially abstract, were seen as spaces, more specifically, places (for candidates spoke of them to be their own hearts). However, instead of the organ being inside us, this time humans were introduced within the organ - within the leaf-like boundary, or the arteries and veins of the heart. Both such drawing types suggested a navigation towards finding the secret space.
The "secret" found dimension in the supposition of heart as an irrational, unreasonable organ. Secrets are kept because they may not find acceptance within the normative everyday. While legitimate to oneself, secrets struggle to find place outside the self and hence remain close to the heart. The heart was clearly posed against the brain, represented as a maze (coinciding with its biological representation), or a fortress or closed and complicated entity. Nevertheless, one wonders how the imagination of heart as a place, as if it holds, contains, receives emotions became available so easily.
The Heart and The Secret
It is clear the the popular media became the agency to manifest the keywords "secret" and "space" together into the figure of the heart. After all, numerous Bollywood songs articulating expressions of love and emotion use heart as an recurring ingredient. Song like "Zara si dil mein de jagah tu", "kabhi kahi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai", "dil ke jharokhe mein tujhko bithaakar" or those using phrases like "dil ki girah", "dil ki tijori", "dil ki khidki", "dil ka darwaza", "dil mein mere" -- and the numerous eternalized compositions clearly became an easy material for candidates to dwell upon for their drawings. Some of the above phrases frequently used in hindi songs clearly equate "dil" (heart) as "jagah" (place). Others songs imagine the heart as a space too in more metaphorical ways, within which you can call, allow, bring, host, rest or keep some one. The heart is even personified to experience emotions, feel situations and so on. Further, it also is understood as an assemblage of architectural elements like doors, windows, etc. that encapsulate a space.
That the heart is a "tijori" (locker), or parts of it can be closed "khidki" (window), "Darwaza" (door) hint at its domestic nature. It is clearly imagined as an entity that is more personal. It is here that the idea of secret manifests within the space of the heart. In their explanations, for applicants, the immediate categorisation was the mood of the drawing to be happy or sad. This also concluded in the fact that such emotions are often to be kept to oneself - further that being sad is not a socially accepted emotion, that one (must) like to be alone when sad, and those feelings are only known by the heart...Such belief is sufficient to firmly link the heart with secret. And we now know clearly how the heart becomes a mediating diagram for secret space. If that is not enough, even some of the hindu deities are popularly depicted as such. The picture of Hanuman with Ram (and sometimes Sita) seen in his heart are quite accessible.
The Importance of Heart
Perhaps for the living body, heart is the force of life - it pulsates the body with rhythm and thus a sensation. It is the organ that physically makes us experience the life wave from within. In some sense, it orients the disposition for experiencing a phenomenon. In such perspective, the heart creates an environment. It prepares the condition for registering an event around us. However, does it itself become one?
In several media theories, the heart could probably become a conduit of emotions. Philosopher Marshall McLuhan in his sociological understanding of "hot" and "cold" media says that any media that signals out more data or information creates a sense of excitement and anxiousness which makes our heartbeat go faster, hence increasing the temperatures of our body. Such information is understood as "hot" (think of hot news, more popularly, news that sells like "hot cakes"). On the other hand media that slows down processes and takes you closer to observe your own sensation, in a phenomenological sense is "cold" - implied in the way in which your body eases out, relaxes due to the pacifying heart (eg. trans music, slow silent songs, etc.). Not only information, but even people in the way they respond, create space and operate are classified as hot or cold using similar analogy. If information is brought into consciousness (as well as expressed eventually) through the body though the vehicle of the heart, then it becomes a legitimate entity that even defines people and their characters. In such a scenario, we do reside within our hearts!
Plato, in expounding upon his theory of love emphasizes upon the feeling of "lack" of something, where the individual attempts to complete it. Once again, if the heart is assumed to mediate this lack, it becomes the container for love, fullness and well being. Culturally, the heart has remained an important part of folk tales, folk songs and expressions.
The Heart in Architectural Imagination
The Location of Heart
For many modern architects and planners, the biological understanding of the body became a framework through which cities could be imagined and designed. Corbusier, in planning Chandigarh, thought of placing different functions within the city through an idea of the body. The green spaces became lungs, the secretariat and high court became the brain (hence head) - and so on. The position of the heart - in a city plan - held the symbolic as well as central position. Efficient circulation of people, like blood through the heart (and thus the body), was believed to be the essential factor for efficient cities.
On the other hand, places located in such central locations within regions often become nodes for primary development. Delhi, the capital of India is often referred to as the heart of the country. Co-incidentally, it is also located in the centre top - superimposing with the heart of the figure of Bharatmata. To cheesily add, Delhi is colloquially pronounced as "Dilli", and by-lined as "Dil-walon ki Dil-li" (Dil = Heart).
The "heart" of Mumbai has always kept shifting. Presently, Dharavi, one of the largest informal settlements in India (and South Asia) is considered to be the heart of the city. It has become a nodal region which connects the south and north of the city. It is also a key connector of the east and west of Mumbai. It's centrality is as crucial as the heart - to be dealt with careful and thoughtful understanding. Every country has a heart thus, and so does every city and smaller neighbourhoods. While most of the above explanations come from popular perception, I am sure these could be substantiated with deeper cultural and historical documentation.
I think this discussion has helped understand both, heart and place as metaphors - both inter-mutable, both that affect and inform each other. However, this is an instance where both become lived metaphors - one inside the other, and vice versa. There is a dialectic relationship between the heart and a place. The suggestion of considering heart as a place attempts a possibility of evading the physicality of surroundings. It invites to find one's home within oneself, instead of the outside. If heart was a place, however, we may want to investigate what is its ecology? How does one care for it, how does one keep it and how does one occupy it? These are questions pulled from the interplay between the metaphorical and literal understanding that emerged within the drawings of secret space. Perhaps the questions themselves frame the place of heart, which may take time to find reveal their secret expression through a more sustained inquiry.
The "heart" as a secret space manifested in multiple forms. Two of the most dominant expressions were in the ideographic and the scientific drawing showing biological details of the pumping organ. Both such representations, essentially abstract, were seen as spaces, more specifically, places (for candidates spoke of them to be their own hearts). However, instead of the organ being inside us, this time humans were introduced within the organ - within the leaf-like boundary, or the arteries and veins of the heart. Both such drawing types suggested a navigation towards finding the secret space.
The "secret" found dimension in the supposition of heart as an irrational, unreasonable organ. Secrets are kept because they may not find acceptance within the normative everyday. While legitimate to oneself, secrets struggle to find place outside the self and hence remain close to the heart. The heart was clearly posed against the brain, represented as a maze (coinciding with its biological representation), or a fortress or closed and complicated entity. Nevertheless, one wonders how the imagination of heart as a place, as if it holds, contains, receives emotions became available so easily.
The Heart and The Secret
It is clear the the popular media became the agency to manifest the keywords "secret" and "space" together into the figure of the heart. After all, numerous Bollywood songs articulating expressions of love and emotion use heart as an recurring ingredient. Song like "Zara si dil mein de jagah tu", "kabhi kahi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai", "dil ke jharokhe mein tujhko bithaakar" or those using phrases like "dil ki girah", "dil ki tijori", "dil ki khidki", "dil ka darwaza", "dil mein mere" -- and the numerous eternalized compositions clearly became an easy material for candidates to dwell upon for their drawings. Some of the above phrases frequently used in hindi songs clearly equate "dil" (heart) as "jagah" (place). Others songs imagine the heart as a space too in more metaphorical ways, within which you can call, allow, bring, host, rest or keep some one. The heart is even personified to experience emotions, feel situations and so on. Further, it also is understood as an assemblage of architectural elements like doors, windows, etc. that encapsulate a space.
That the heart is a "tijori" (locker), or parts of it can be closed "khidki" (window), "Darwaza" (door) hint at its domestic nature. It is clearly imagined as an entity that is more personal. It is here that the idea of secret manifests within the space of the heart. In their explanations, for applicants, the immediate categorisation was the mood of the drawing to be happy or sad. This also concluded in the fact that such emotions are often to be kept to oneself - further that being sad is not a socially accepted emotion, that one (must) like to be alone when sad, and those feelings are only known by the heart...Such belief is sufficient to firmly link the heart with secret. And we now know clearly how the heart becomes a mediating diagram for secret space. If that is not enough, even some of the hindu deities are popularly depicted as such. The picture of Hanuman with Ram (and sometimes Sita) seen in his heart are quite accessible.
The Importance of Heart
Perhaps for the living body, heart is the force of life - it pulsates the body with rhythm and thus a sensation. It is the organ that physically makes us experience the life wave from within. In some sense, it orients the disposition for experiencing a phenomenon. In such perspective, the heart creates an environment. It prepares the condition for registering an event around us. However, does it itself become one?
In several media theories, the heart could probably become a conduit of emotions. Philosopher Marshall McLuhan in his sociological understanding of "hot" and "cold" media says that any media that signals out more data or information creates a sense of excitement and anxiousness which makes our heartbeat go faster, hence increasing the temperatures of our body. Such information is understood as "hot" (think of hot news, more popularly, news that sells like "hot cakes"). On the other hand media that slows down processes and takes you closer to observe your own sensation, in a phenomenological sense is "cold" - implied in the way in which your body eases out, relaxes due to the pacifying heart (eg. trans music, slow silent songs, etc.). Not only information, but even people in the way they respond, create space and operate are classified as hot or cold using similar analogy. If information is brought into consciousness (as well as expressed eventually) through the body though the vehicle of the heart, then it becomes a legitimate entity that even defines people and their characters. In such a scenario, we do reside within our hearts!
Plato, in expounding upon his theory of love emphasizes upon the feeling of "lack" of something, where the individual attempts to complete it. Once again, if the heart is assumed to mediate this lack, it becomes the container for love, fullness and well being. Culturally, the heart has remained an important part of folk tales, folk songs and expressions.
The Heart in Architectural Imagination
The Location of Heart
For many modern architects and planners, the biological understanding of the body became a framework through which cities could be imagined and designed. Corbusier, in planning Chandigarh, thought of placing different functions within the city through an idea of the body. The green spaces became lungs, the secretariat and high court became the brain (hence head) - and so on. The position of the heart - in a city plan - held the symbolic as well as central position. Efficient circulation of people, like blood through the heart (and thus the body), was believed to be the essential factor for efficient cities.
On the other hand, places located in such central locations within regions often become nodes for primary development. Delhi, the capital of India is often referred to as the heart of the country. Co-incidentally, it is also located in the centre top - superimposing with the heart of the figure of Bharatmata. To cheesily add, Delhi is colloquially pronounced as "Dilli", and by-lined as "Dil-walon ki Dil-li" (Dil = Heart).
The "heart" of Mumbai has always kept shifting. Presently, Dharavi, one of the largest informal settlements in India (and South Asia) is considered to be the heart of the city. It has become a nodal region which connects the south and north of the city. It is also a key connector of the east and west of Mumbai. It's centrality is as crucial as the heart - to be dealt with careful and thoughtful understanding. Every country has a heart thus, and so does every city and smaller neighbourhoods. While most of the above explanations come from popular perception, I am sure these could be substantiated with deeper cultural and historical documentation.
I think this discussion has helped understand both, heart and place as metaphors - both inter-mutable, both that affect and inform each other. However, this is an instance where both become lived metaphors - one inside the other, and vice versa. There is a dialectic relationship between the heart and a place. The suggestion of considering heart as a place attempts a possibility of evading the physicality of surroundings. It invites to find one's home within oneself, instead of the outside. If heart was a place, however, we may want to investigate what is its ecology? How does one care for it, how does one keep it and how does one occupy it? These are questions pulled from the interplay between the metaphorical and literal understanding that emerged within the drawings of secret space. Perhaps the questions themselves frame the place of heart, which may take time to find reveal their secret expression through a more sustained inquiry.
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