The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard.

I lack confidence with book reviews, but the more I read, the more I learn, the more I reflect and study, the more I will understand.

Gaston Bachelard turned from the philosophy of science to the philosophy of art aesthetics. The Poetics of Space, first published in English in 1964.

Bachelard distinguishes types of imagination, formal and material. He discusses how a reader's soul awakes from poetic images or the origins of a language of the spaces we live in or imagine. The perception of text or poetic image in whichever context you chose has a massive effect on reading and understanding. I suppose it's similar to several separated students that relate to a subject or brief. The way each student perceives the subject will always be vastly different (rather like this course).

I found the book, in a way, enchanting because of how Bachelard writes. What I mean by that is, I felt somehow guided through his or my imagined house. He inspired me to look at objects, place angles, and mystery, for example, the closed drawer or wardrobe. My daydreaming mind of memories, noises, objects and inner landscapes can take the viewer of my visual documentation to these different spaces.

I wrote notes throughout the book, and here are a few that I feel stood out for me;

• What is home to me?

• What is home to others?

• The house is a shell of stability and safety.

• The house is not a safe place for all.

• Houses harbour memories, such as creaky doors or memories of people who lived there and have died or moved away.

• I imagine myself in international hotel rooms dreaming of home calm and not transient.

• Dexter Dalwood paints scenes from written text without seeing them first.

• Seasons affect how houses or rooms are perceived light and dark, micro or macro.

• A house is a shelter from the elements.

• Your age affects the memory of place/space.

• Smell or familiarity is essential to conjure up memories.

• Unification occurs by the placement of objects from one room to another.

• I can't entirely agree with the 'housewife' part of this book where Bachelard says that women care about the home appearance.

• How I chose to decorate my house says a lot about my mental state.

• The motion, energy, noise, stillness, orderliness, cleanliness, colour palette or comfort of a place says a lot about the inhabitants.

• People chose to preserve the past by locking items/objects or memories away.

• Do we withdraw to our instinctual home at emotional times, and why?

• Are placed possessions around us like birds nests?

• I see many opposites in art and this book, in and out, withdrawal and emergence, private and public, alive and dead, rebirth and afterlife, warmth and coldness, locked and free, absence and presence, light and shadow.

I have learnt to view angles, spaces and viewpoints differently by reading this book. My mind diverted to strange and lonely corners, lit and in shadow. I have explored interiors and exteriors, the home, the collected, angles, and seen the home as a protector, a memory keeper, or simply my universe. This book has taught me to think about how I view the ordinary and fuelled my imagination. I almost feel like Alice in Wonderland when I look at my house and narrate a story from what I used to view as just a place or object. Yet, I think that this book is more than that full of hermeneutics, phenomenology and existentialism. Whilst I understand that psychology and philosophy link to my art practice, I am happy to keep that in mind as I progress. A deeper understanding will develop and become more attainable, I hope.