IVIV rooms, buildings, vehicles bigger inside than outside

[Richard Romeo]

There were these infinity boxes made in the 60's which gave illusion  
of infinite space
There's an exhibit at milwaukee art museum
Wonderful

Sent from my iPod

On Nov 30, 2009, at 6:18 AM, James Kyllo <jkyllo at gmail.com> wrote:

> See also the Heinlein story "And He Built a Crooked House"
>
> J
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>
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> On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 2:17 AM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
>> House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski plays with this idea as well,  
>> but very
>> differently.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dougmillison at comcast.net
>> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Sun, Nov 29, 2009 8:28 pm
>> Subject: IVIV  rooms, buildings, vehicles bigger inside than outside
>>
>>
>> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/quadraturin.html A Soviet-era,
>> Polish-born, Ukrainian-raised writer named Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky  
>> was the
>> subject of a short profile and review over at The Nation last week.  
>> The
>> article focuses on one of Krzhizhanovsky's stories called  
>> "Quadraturin"
>> (which you can read in full online). The basic gist is that a man  
>> named
>> Situlin, a "Soviet city dweller" who owns an impossibly cramped  
>> apartment,
>> is convinced by a stranger who comes to his door one day to "take a  
>> free
>> sample of an experimental substance that is supposed to make rooms  
>> bigger."
>> This "substance" is Quadraturin. "Sutulin begins to apply the  
>> Quadraturin to
>> his walls," The Nation explains, "as the instructions on the tube  
>> advise,
>> but he accidentally spills the entire contents of the tube on his  
>> floor." He
>> wakes up the next morning in a "faintly familiar, large, but  
>> ungainly room,"
>> where his furniture looks awkward and the angles of the walls are  
>> uneven. He
>> enjoys the novel pleasure of strolling from one end of his room to  
>> the
>> other, but he must enjoy it in secret, for like other citizens he  
>> is legally
>> allotted only ninety-seven square feet of living space, and owning  
>> more than
>> his share could mean losing his apartment. After he stands there  
>> for a
>> moment, in awe of his apartment's new, slightly bulbous  
>> dimensionality, he
>> begins "rearranging the furniture to fit the new space," as  
>> Krzhizhanovsky
>> himself puts it. "…But nothing worked: the abbreviated rug, when m 
>> oved back
>> beside the bed, exposed worn, bare floorboards; the table and the  
>> stool,
>> pushed by habit against the head of the bed, had disencumbered an  
>> empty
>> corner latticed with cobwebs and littered with shreds and tatters,  
>> once
>> artfully masked by the corner's own crowdedness and the shadow of  
>> the table.
>> With a triumphant, but slightly frightened smile, Sutulin went all  
>> round his
>> new, practically squared square, scrutinizing every detail. He  
>> noted with
>> displeasure that the room had grown more in some places than in  
>> others: an
>> external corner, the angle of which was now obtuse, had made the  
>> wall askew;
>> Quadraturin, apparently, did not work as well on internal corners;  
>> carefully
>> as Sutulin had applied the essence, the experiment had produced  
>> somewhat
>> uneven results.…"Sensing that something has gone horribly wrong an 
>> d that he
>> might soon face the wrath of his building superintendent, he  
>> "realizes he
>> has to buy curtains to hide his apartment from the eyes of passers- 
>> by." And
>> "it only gets worse from there," The Nation adds: "every time  
>> Sutulin leaves
>> the room, he returns to find that his apartment has grown still  
>> bigger." …He
>> realizes that he forgot to apply Quadraturin to the ceiling, so his
>> apartment is only growing outward, not upward, the dimensions  
>> increasingly
>> oppressive even as the room becomes larger. It outgrows its electric
>> circuitry and Sutulin is trapped in the darkness. "He knew that  
>> there,
>> behind his back, the dead, Quadraturinized space with its black  
>> corners was
>> still spreading."…It's an amazing image—I'm particularly struck  
>> by the idea
>> of a space outgrowing its electric circuitry , like a body grown so
>> monstrous it leaves behind its old ……
>>
>>
>
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