Our final project was not as “pretty” as it might have been, but we successfully managed to tie together sound and form.

Here’s our project statement and some images:

Dialogue

The project attempts to stimulate and heighten our perceptual sensibility of spatial qualities through interplay of objects and sound within a designated environment.

We gather the quantified sound data of one environment representing its spatial information, which is embodied as an object in a second environment. The character of the quantified sound data determines the scale, density and shape of the object. Then we extract from it the sound data of our most noticeable everyday life, human footsteps and human vocal, to trigger the choreographing process of a sound piece from different sound layers of our daily live. There are three sound layers simulating events, movement and space in the piece. The spatial information of this piece is then embodied as a second object.  It is in the second environment where people experience the different spatial quality from the sound piece; the differentiated affect and interplaying relationship of the two objects.

When the building façade was flattened  by the advent of modernism into a extremely thin typically blank surface, the communicative face of the building (eyes, mouth, etc) was replaced by a generic sameness that likened the building into a mute tattooed body part.

By re-uniting contemporary form (depth) and ornament (drawing, pattern, texture, & imagery) this thesis will attempt to regain the complex and communicative “face”  of architecture without losing the technological advances of the last 50 years.

Notes from the reviewers:

Peter Macapia:  felt like the opening references to Deleuze and the face of Architecture would have led to a more complex and refined research project, and that there is an inherent semiotic nature to this idea that cannot be ignored.

Peter Testa: The thesis relates back to a humanistic idea of architecture which has been heavily criticized.  Proposed the idea of exploring the communicative ability of architecture beyond the ocular sense.  Challenged my simplification of modernism as guilty of flattening the face of architecture.

Coy Howard: Problematic elements which I’ll need to clarify and address: a) the difference between looking at and looking in, b) symmetry vs. asymmetry, c) the difference between providing for a street facade vs. a site facade.  Also referenced the tripartide division of classical architecture (it’s more than a face, there’s a body and a base as well), the depth both vertically and horizontally of classical facades verses the scalelessness of modern facades.  Surprised that I didn’t mention Rowe & Slutzky’s Transparency essays.  Suggested some consideration of the difference between the sublime & the beautiful – the beautiful being something controllable and of which possession might be desired, the sublime being something larger, uncontrollable, and therefore incapable of being possessed.

Elena Manferdini: Questioned what methodology I might use to recreate depth in the façade and connect back to the soul of Architecture?  How might the openings etc. which used to denote the face change in the context of the current technological advances in architecture that have made the thinning of the façade possible?  Proposes that it won’t be windows and ornament in the way that they’ve been used in the past.

Looking for inspiration for how to design the micro/macro connection between  the particle component and overall surface (think skin cell = macro, skin and all it’s potential variations = macro), I remembered this project from Sonja Baumel which attempts to use the environmental conditions to inform the performance and aesthetic of fashion.  Note that the extremities, likely to be the coldest, have the densest weave, and as the sleeve progresses up, warmer portions of the body receive less coverage.

While a part of me is intrigued by the application of the stitch as the particle, a larger part of me thinks that this should just be a spring board to the next idea, but I don’t have an answer for what the next thing is yet.

For more information about the Crocheted Membrane project, visit Sonja Baumel’s site.

We are interested in this process of memory and how it might affect and inform surfaces.  And transversely, we are interested in how that affected surface then informs new memories and changes perception.  The network of interchange between them is both tangible, like the mark in stone, and ethereal, like the idea of the past.

In order to further illustrate this relationship, we propose to explore architecturally the relevance of memory and the network that exists in the interchange between the two by taking advantage of perceived projected boundaries in addition to the physical boundaries that inform our understanding of space.  We will record the network between memory and the understanding of space and document its influence.

Click here for more information about the technical aspects of the project…diagrams_midterm

Terrain 2003, John Klima

(click on link for video)

Principles of Geometry, AntiVJ

"Wispy Bits at the End"

On a quest to find ways in which virtual surfaces have been represented and materialized…

This is environmental in nature, but I particularly like the wispy bits at the very end.

(A special thanks to Sebastian for sending this link.  Anyone else have a suggestion? )

AntiVJ – Principles of Geometry

2 points of “critique” here:

FORESIGHT:

If for no other reason, this movie deserves its acclaim for the foresight it took to make it happen now –  dreaming of the potential and striving towards the impossible long before the technology was available.

We shot this movie as if we were looking out a window into the world.” – Richard Baneham, Avatar Animation Supervisor

and a little technical info…

SURFACE:

From a purely personal interest perspective, this movie completely transforms our notion of “surface.”   First, because the surface of the film itself is no longer trapped on the screen.  And second, because the surfaces we’re seeing on the mythical world of Pandora are also novel.  Everything feels familiar but just slightly less mundane – little sparkles of magic – on the skin, in the whoosh of a plant closing in on itself, and floating in the air.

Solar rework from flight404 on Vimeo.

I have been working on a real-time version of the Solar piece from a couple years ago. Since it is going to be responding to people’s voices and ambient noise instead of music, I started listening to podcasts while I was developing it. I made this video to commemorate my new found love for WNYC’s RadioLab podcast. Thanks to Branden Hall and Bill Lindmeier for introducing me to it.

Table3 – Friendly Fire, Woody Vasulka, early 90s

I’m avidly and desperately looking for “successful”  intersections between virtual and real space.

During the course of this research, I’ve found the work of Woody Vasulka.  And though I find the work frustratingly difficult to get into via photographs and textual descriptions, I have come to agree with the writings of Dennis Dollens, who insists that though Vasulka, the artist, may have not intended for them to be architectural, “I see them as architecture because the extend architecture’s traditional boundaries the same way game space does.  I think that architecture should take a lead from Vasulka and should see how the Tables shape real space, how they sculpt vision, and how they can serve as landmarks or guides to the bridge between art, architecture, video games, and digital worlds.”

A mix of human interaction, sound, stored and live digital imagery – the tables are an experiment in creating a new topology.

Table3 – Friendly Fire

The Brotherhood