Thesis

Friday nights, three weeks from now will look entirely different.  In the midst of the battle with my thesis project, I decided to have a normal Friday -  ended up at a birthday party, and at a house warming party at my own house.  Saturday Morning, I wake up with a child in my face, bright eye, and seemingly more free the I can ever be again.

I’m being cryptic, but I think I am clear, at least to those that are capable of understanding.  There are always things that get swept under the rug.  Whether they are things that you didn’t realize matter, or even if you did, something else became more attractive.  Along the way, you manage to lie to yourself and even though it hurts, you continue because you don’t know what to do.  It’s an entirely lonely position, that even your own rational mind disappears.  Paralyze body, and a mind that won’t slow down, all you need is something to crash into.  It’s a scary proposition, because you have to trust in your own ability to put yourself back together again, and if you can’t, then you have to trust that someone will be there when you can’t.  And as bad as all this sounds, you feel like you’ve been given a bad hand in life, or you’ve lost a really great hand, either way, working out of a percieved hole, just plain sucks when the world is pushing down.

The presentation didn’t go over to  well a couple of days ago.  But I got a chance to make up for it with a more enjoyable deadline. The deadline was for Mark David Hosale’s class, I had originally enrolled but decided to drop it.  At any rate he gave me an opportunity to show my work, and that was good practice for the final deadline.  I basically decided to forgo the fudicial markers,  use touch recogition, applied a better filter on my camera, and add a compliant touch surface.

MDH was also kind of enough to photograph the table for me as well.

I was having significant trouble with the fudicial system prior to the 3rd Review.  I didn’t anticipate it being so difficult and fickle to setup.  The consequence was no time to mentally prepare an impromptu presentation.    So I more less just canned it, because my mind was mush, and I hadn’t really slept well.  Going forward, I have to be careful and make sure I allocate time for an internal discussion of the thesis.

They jurors were kind, because they had seen the project before, and Marcus wanted to push me towards articulating my thesis, and what my stance was.  Next time, I can not hesistate.

Besides the learning experience, it was good to know that I had the support of my friends/colleagues.  Bjork came in to visit, and we had a good conversation about the work.  And a few other came by to off there help.  Thesis at sci_Arc can be a singular process, but I think it is important to find as many avenues of collaboration.  It should be a fundamental design requisite.

Sometimes I enjoy working late at night.  I tend to over socialize during the day.  The outcome of the  conversations I often have, dont’ make their way into my work until, i’m all by myself and in a zone of focus.

Tonight was just one of those night where, I drop one down.

The City from Baoquoc Doan on Vimeo.

It’s really late right now, and I’ve got to structure my presentation.  I know it’s against good judgment, but I don’t want to go sleep until i have this figured out.  It would be easy to articulate my concepts if only I had kept my mind open to conceptual development while fabricating the table.  But that’s another story for another day.

So let’s begin.

What have I created?

The pencil, mouse and keyboard are prosthesis.  Extensions that allow, the handler to engage various realms of representations and realities.  The table I have created is a prosthesis for the user to engage and access a unique digitally constructed world.

This world, is a realm where individual ‘units’, in aggregation create 3D geometry.  Each unit has its own set of capabilities, and inherent dispositions. They have an intelligence, and behavioral logic that makes them cognizant of it’s environment and proximity.

To engage these individual(s), a table is crafted with a mechanism, that allows a person to alter and introduce behaviors. The idea is to allow a person to playout/introduce combination of behaviors, thereby influencing the digital world’s method of self-fabrication.  This table, in essence, provides an ominous perspective into the production of a world.

Where is the Architecture?

If architecture is driven by technique.  Then technique enables possibilities for realization.  By transferring the responsibility over to the ‘units’ to craft geometry, based on the conditions of the environment, the ‘new’ technique, is about controlling the ecology of techniques.  The architecture is no longer about solving geometrical problems, or or any post rationalization of complex form for construction, because that responsibility is transferred over to capable intelligent processes.  Instead the greater architectural question is how will we manage these processes towards our own preferences, and inherent inefficiencies.

In an overal sense, this table becomes a control deck for the management of techniques.  Though the result is the dynamic production and rationalization of geometry, it is ultimately the management of techniques that determines which of the infinite possibilities becomes palatable to our collective whims.

Why am I interested in this?

Good Question…