by: admin
Event: Oculus Book Talk: Tony Hiss, In Motion
Location: Center for Architecture, 03.14.11
Speaker: Tony Hiss — Author, In Motion (Knopf, 2010)
Organizer: AIANY Oculus Committee
Courtesy Knopf
Geography, whether it is a street in Greenwich Village, or a mountain road in Dharmasala, have physical coordinates and characteristics we could all intellectually agree upon. Our individual experience and perception of these places would not be as predictable. Let’s take that seed of thought further, to where a walk around the block has as much a story curled inside of it as a trip to Gabon. This is where our adventure with Tony Hiss begins, in a place that is familiar, tucked within a world not previously experienced.
Written with the intellect and vision of a highly accomplished cartographer, Hiss’ In Motion: The Experience of Travel takes the reader on the journey of “Deep Travel, a wider awareness in which nothing is taken for granted and everything we encounter seems fresh and new and awaiting discovery. It is like waking up while we’re already awake,” Hiss writes. As for “Shallow Travel,” one can relate that to being perceptually disengaged while moving through a series of sequential events, which I can personally relate to as moving from deadline to deadline.
In Motion: The Experience of Travel is filled with insight, humor, and teachable moments on the study and practice of living, architecture, urban design, landscape design, and transportation planning — places where being visually alive and engaged is critical to making a rich contribution to the human experience within the built environment. Yes, this is also a book that is fun… it is, after all, about travel… and so the joy of the unexpected is very much in play.
Maxinne Rhea Leighton, Assoc. AIA, is a member of the AIANY Oculus Committee. She is a business development, public relations, and marketing professional in NYC and Washington, DC. Her expanded project base includes cause-related marketing, and the integration of social media with traditional-based forms of communication for non-profit and cultural institutions.
Note about Oculus Book Talks: Each month, the AIANY Oculus Committee hosts a Book Talk at the Center for Architecture. Each talk highlights a recent publication on architecture, design, or the built environment — presented by the author. The Book Talks are a forum for dialogue and discussion, and copies of the publications are available for purchase and signing. This article is a preview for Tony Hiss’s upcoming talk on 03.14.11. Click here to RSVP.