Architecture transforming into behavior

In an increasingly informational environment, our understanding of space is more intuitively understood through the multitude of invisible and intangible forces that surround us daily than through what we already clearly perceive as walls and other boundaries. But what if our spaces were increasingly imbued with the ability to embrace the influx of these forces, and rather than merely function as shelter, become ever more intelligent and dynamic.

Radical Everything is an installation that would be a means to provoke these insights on a deeper more emotional level, and contributes to a larger discussion as to how our actions can now affect the environment we live in, rather than to have ourselves be simply affected by it. Incorporating several overlaid systems, Radical Everything grows crystals as the byproduct of our inert behaviors within a space, reflecting how our physical presence and actions are tied to the very forces that exist around us from the nano-to-the macro scale.

PROCESS:

What happens when you manipulate a traditionally hard surface so that it behaves like fabric? Vito Acconci studio’s installation in the Bronx museum, “LOBBY-FOR-THE-TIME-BEING,” is a wrapping, and twisting installation that coerced Corian—a typically hard, flat surface—to behave in ways otherwise expected.  In response to their call for an interactive projection in conjunction with their installation, my partner Mike Kelberman and I created “Skin Tight,” orchestrating a series of abstract gestural movements to be projected onto the Corian surface to render what was once inflexible as malleable.

Cut it open & slit it into strips (it can be pulled now & stretched to one-&-a-half times its length): pit it & gouge it, pock-mark it (it’s become malleable now, flexible): roll it & curve it, fold it, braid & knot it (it functions now as its own structure). Let’s take slick sleek Corian & turn it into lace: let’s take the surface of lace & mold it into structure…-Vito Acconci

The creation process involved a number of experiments with shape, form, and movement on a stretched spandex frame which were than later edited to fit specific, physical locations on the installation. The control and interaction of the video was done through Max MSP.

The installation has four phases that are activated by cameras placed in strategic locations within the lobby. The installation’s default state, opening, is a calming, playful movement, like someone absentmindedly playing with his or her hair. The next phase, activated by someone entering the lobby, is more focused and stylized, drawing more attention to the space. The third phase, lobby, is activated when the visitor is at the desk area, and temporarily preoccupied with activity away from the installation. Like a child trying to draw its parent’s attention, this phase is cloying and persistent. Finally, the last phase, sustain, is one that becomes initialized after the viewer has spent some time in the lobby. The video undergoes a metamorphosis into a more formalized, geometric state, acting at once mysterious and concrete.

Our initial test run of the footage on a dress body.

This current iteration is dependent on the number of objects used as well as the object’s specific placement in the overall configuration so that as users place a pod onto the surface, the camera will track the object’s rotation and location in space and direct the video projector accordingly.  Moreover, rotating the object will move the video forwards or backwards thus enabling the user to control the visuals through a more intuitive interface.  And lastly, the virtual objects will multiply depending on the number of objects that the camera sees, thus two objects placed on the surface will create a mirrored effect while subsequent objects can create a kaleidoscopic one.  Currently Deathstar Automata was prototyped using a camera tracking library called Trackmate, an open source project started by the Tangible Media Group in the MIT Media Lab.

Click to load sketch

A processing sketch developed with Filippo Vanucci as part of Visualizing Data.  We designed an algorithmic drawing tool that used voronoi geometry to draw a series of cells based on data gathered from the National Earthquake Information Center.  Each voronoi cell was drawn according to a corresponding x-y-position based on the epicenter’s latitude and longitude coordinates.

This Processing sketch was a remake of an existing pie chart visualization showing military expenditures of the top 16 nations. My reinvention was to revamp it with a retro video game skin in which the “player,” in order to see the amount of money spent (in millions of dollars), would have to blow-up each country with each mouse press.

My usual, trusty weather gauge is me looking out a window and taking an educated guess. Therefore, I created a Processing sketch that moved “window blinds” in a manner similar to a weather vane. Pulling the data from the Yahoo RSS feed, it visualizes in real time both temperature and wind speed by mapping the blinds’ color from blue (coldest) to red (hottest) using an HSB color mode, and the blinds’ rotational speed to actual wind speed.

The video shows weather data for New York City and Anchorage, AK.

A Processing sketch inspired by graphic designer Saul Bass, exploring levels of theme + variation. Constraints: (1) can only be in black and white; (2) one variable must be a string; (3) one variable must be an integer.
Click to launch.

Walter Benjamin, in his exposition on the arcades—fluid-like places which strike us “like realities in a dream,”—tells us of a dream world that is the harbinger of our freedoms, holding the promise of utopia. It is through interpretation and reconstruction, that we can begin to understand its meaning and implement its lessons in the modern world by remaining sensitive to its past. A building’s ruins, Benjamin believed, was not so far removed form a solid structure; it was possible to discern more about a great building from its plans or ruins than from the completed structure itself. The value of the ruin, was the fact that it had passed through a history, bearing the marks of process.

Explorations was shown as part of Conflux Festival, an art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space, with the generous donation of exhibition space from Two Trees Management Inc.

Collaborators: Jelani John
Additional assistance: Jason Rosado

SKETCHES:

More details about GO4RLO from the class blog:
Over three sessions, the students gathered material, organized it and represented their proposition.

Specific roles to introduce the design process
In pairs, students each took on specific roles, to focus on and explore particular tasks at key stages in the design process: Investigative reporters, City clients, typical NYC new jobless, design strategists, interface designers, typical subscribers of the Go4 services – jobless people’s outlooks transformed, and historians from tomorrow looking back from the future.This way, each pair focused on a stage of the design lifecycle: from discovering, defining, designing, detailing, deploying through documenting the outcomes and next phase.

Guest critics
The students presented twice, first to service designer, Ben Fullerton of IDEO (San Francisco), formerly of Live | Work, London, then to public space advocates, Raj Kottamasu (NYC Parks Department, Arts Program Manager for Freshkills Park) and Cassim Shepard (Editor, Urban Omnibus.net)

The Outcomes:
In a concept document of single slides for each stage in the process, the project is summarized as a slideshow. Some highlights below, from the full presentation (which you can download from the top of this post).

The slides tell the story of a proposition worth responding to, and a plausible design process towards an effective, context-appropriate outcome.
It is both attractive and topical, timely and collaborative document of their proposed intervention;
It reflects the design methods that the students had been exploring all semester.

We’ve decided to publish the results not only to attract attention to the skills, process, values and experiences that these ITP students draw on to tackle real-world issues, but also to articulate what could be done to smooth out the bumpy time many people are navigating adapting to right now.

Participating students:
Karla Calderon, Angela Chen, Derek Chung, Cynthia Hilmoe, Sara Huong, Madeline Jannotta, Ari Joseph, Gloria Kim, Sonaar Luthra, Jeehyun Moon, Nobuyuki Nakaguchi, Kristin OFriel, Nahanaeli Schelling, Jonathan Ystad.