To Metaphor or not to Metaphor...

The project has arrived at a Big crossroads... the big white elephant in every room these days appears to be the recession/depression/economic crisis/tsunami due to wreak havoc on these shores and others around the globe throughout 2009 and beyond. Personally I have been morbidly drawn to observing this secenario unfold via newspapers, newsnight and BBC business editor Robert Peston's blog. I am addicted. Then one day I began to start reading a series of metaphorical parrallels between the decaying vessels strewn all over Purton Hulks, and the slow strangulation of what remains of the British or even Western economy.

The question I now ask myself, is whether I can translate the dramatic real-time episodes of the economic crisis into prescient influences or drivers for my designs..

As the project stands, I am creating my own 'Dances of Death' series using Jean Tinguely's original titles from his 1986 collection, while my own palette of materials consists of beached barges and naked spitfire anatomy. The juxtaposition between the barge and the spitifire is envisioned in order to investigate the architectural spaces manifested by the layering and intersection of differently-paced technologies.

This in itself could be enough, with other references such as chronology and seismology providing fertile technical soil in which to plant the semiotics inherent in the material palette. However the individual pieces would still lack some kind of 'raison d'etre'. It is for this reason that I am willing to take the risk possibly overloading the project by tying everything back to the economic crisis.

To do this I need a methodology, a form of [empirical] investigaion, which I belive I have eventually found, in Complexity Theory. Complexity thoery was presented as an area of Study by Doctor Rachel Armstrong, who rather conveniently has been working very closely with Prof Spiller of late, so I really can keep the project 'in-house'. Next step is to identify the key drivers within the science of complexity theory that present design questions and hint at tactics with which to navigate and choreograph the Dance of Death series within my chosen sight, Purton Hulks.

Dances of Death

So the project is now going to be set up under the various sub-titles of Jean Tinguely's 1986 Dances of Death series. My previous fears that this was simply another reclassification of a concept rather than a means by which to theorise more deeply about the works [and begin naming and detailing] seem to be somewhat unfounded... talking with Phil I finally began to understand what he was getting at by talking about the juxtaposition of beached barges with crashed aeroplanes - though I am still a little way off being able to type it up, bare with me!!

Mengele (Hoch Altar) [High Altar]

Reading deeper into the sculpture series and looking into each model allows me to relate to the design decisions made by the artist and find parrallel materials and geometries within my own site with which to construct my own pieces, under the very same titles as Tinguely's.

The Magic of Jean Tinguely

Prof Spiller has given me a great point of reference and inspiration for the Rheticulating Landscapes project - the meta-matic sculptures of Jean Tinguely. The 2-d images of the works are interesting enough in themselves, but the intellectual ambition (Bartlett Buzz-phraze) behind the direction of the work is music to my ears given the previous discussions with Phil and Neil regarding the direction work own work should take.

In 1959, Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely are quoted as saying that 'art had to pentrate reality and create a universal sensitivity. Art makes reality dissapear; it dematerialises it by making use mainly of speed, sound, light and shade'.

Tinguely's work ranges in scale from small 'Balubas' - small, feathered ironical pieces made in response to the violence surrounding the newly independent Republic of Congo in 1960, - to monumental steel pieces the size of detached houses, built over entire decades, the best example being 'The Head' .

The material common to all of these projects is scrap steel [perhaps an interesting aside to conjecture as to whether an artist operating in today's credit-crashed global economy could afford to operate with such an expensive materil on this scale - a tangible illustration of the effect of capital on the form of art]. Tinguely manages to breath new life into dead elements of previous living machines through the creation of fresh machines and systems, creating crude but elegant devices such as the drawing machine below...

More to follow...

Tutorial 19/11/08

Hmmm... a very mixed bag this week.. the possibility of some much needed direction, but possibly at the expense of relevance..

As I saw it, the main problem with my project thus far has been the lack of a fundamental design question or driving force... I know what it is that I am looking at, and it interests me, but I feel that in order for the designs to develop past a basic exploratory conceptual daliance into something that can be interrogated, calibrated and valued, a more tangible direction or aim is needed.

Phil's suggestion from [last week] to look at crashing a fighter jet into the site was made in an attempt to prompt me into looking at the juxtaposition of different-paced technologies onto the site, and investigate how they might straddle the landscape in altering manners. At this stage I was considering the cockpit as a mapping or controlling device and the boat as more of a single molten material, similar to the air surrounding a living aeroplane.

What I was not considering was the space between 2 technologies; variable reactions to time and scale based on different calibrations to speeds and materials...

'Dances of Death'

Having yawned and ruffled his hair for a few minutes, Neil interjected with some sympathy for my need to understand what it was I am seeking to investigate at more basic umbrella level... His suggestion was to loosen up my theory or need to 'justify' my thread by taking a more sculptural approach, referencing Jean Tinguely's series of sculptures entitled 'Dances of Death', comprised of burnt out wreckages from a house immediately adjacent to the sculptor's studio.

Sounded good to begin with, but after doing a half day of research, mindlessly downloading pictures of crashed or decaying aircraft and Jean Tinguely scultptures, the questions returned once more; if I am to assemble a series of sculptures then I still have to come up with some kind of rationale for their assembly; thinking of them as sculptures or designs makes little difference to my immediate situaion - by looking at death I may have been steered in the direction of a framework with which to create a thesis or narrative, but it is still a blanket concept.. the search continued for a methodology which which to name, construct, and set in motion the elements of a design at a more detailed scale..

The Cockpit: Pilot Instrumentation

After last weeks tutorial, Phil has suggested I consider the reprecussions of a Eurofighter crashing into my site. This idea is to be used as a weapon to understand the representation, mapping, detail, and paradigm shifts that occur when a fast architectural system of high intelligence is juxtaposed with a lower, or slower site such as decaying timber within a landscape... discussions so far have revolved around changing colours and densities caused by movements of the observer within the system...

I have produced one relatively simplistic line drawing superimposed above a photograph, but am as yet to begin named the parts and considering how the image might be arrived at; I think I really need an in depth inquiry into the systems architecture that will enable me to actually assemble this data in a real world scenario...

Phil also pointed me in the direction of computer systems architecture, particular 'FAST' Architecture (Flexiable Systems for Stimulation and Testing).. wherupon I found the below diagram. I think it may be helpful for me to rationalise the objectives of my data-collecting enquiries, and state some aims for the outcomes, as this would allow specificity within the design of the armatures, in turn leading to a level of detail and accountablility, and possibly even iteration. Perhaps a similar diagram naming all the components of my system would be beneficial... I just feel I need a specific enquiry to focus my research and learning regarding these somewhat complex 'FAST' Architectures...

Interstingly yesterday we had a 5th year thesis lecture from Dr Rachel Armstrong, who is also lecturing at UCL this very evening, around the topic of Complex Systems Architecture... Her 'bottom-up' approach deals with the ambition of, put simply, growing buildings. This is to be achieved by a cross-disciplinary approach appreciating the considerably more complex operative rules if living, dynamic materials, rather than reducing them to inert objects...

One thread I discussed with her after the lecture involved looking at the way bacteria operate in relation to the decay of wood - one possible aim for the 2nd part of my project (what to do with the data once collected) could involve looking at a nano-biological defence system for timber framed buildings; recording the unabated decay of timber under natural conditions in order to unlock the algorythms that could hold the key to timber regrowth and repair patterns... maybe an immortal sea-going timber vessel is the ultimate aim?

Perhaps a ship that is able to redefine itself with climate change... the 10,000 year Noah's Ark for bacteria and fauna!!!

Hopefully more on this tonight...

Archaeological Windcatcher Clocks

These renders (immediately below is a photograph) all owe considerably more to the power of Nextlimit Maxwell Render than any modest skills I may possess...fairly simple Rhino models were exported as OBJ files into Maxwell Studio, a little experimentation with a timber material ensued, after which each of the three renders took about 4 hours...

This English clock dates from about 1610 and can be found in the British Museum's Horology section, ticking away on display. To create the below design, I looked into the 5 requisites of any timepiece - Energy, Escapement, Control, Wheels, and Indication in order to rearrange the principles of time into an achaelogocial exporatory armature...

Energy is provided by the wind, stored inside a variable speed coil mechanism, and redistributed using an escapment and control system containing a horizonal weight pendulum. This motion is transfered using wheels to a cylindrical weighted brush, which rythmically rubs away at the surface of the steel structural component still attached to the decaying timber...



This last image is a render manipulated with a simple radial blur in photoshop to represent motion. Overall I am happy with the image but the top left hand corner contain some slight pixelization that I may have to do something about...

More Drawings...

This notation drawing begins to imagine the relationship between multiple members of this dying fleet, communicating with each other through the tops of their [virtual] masts, all the way from estuary to muddy grave, recording the story of their decay.

The above design owes it's basic principle to the 'leg' section pioneered by Theo Jansen and referenced previously on this blog; the leg section is extruded through it's ability to slide up and down the vertical elements, reacting to the tidal forces that turn the propeller element. In place of a 'foot' is a tool that works primarily along the horizontal plane, scratching and disturbing the surface of the sediment below in relation to the movement of the system as a whole.

This drawing looks into the possibility of disecting a rudder and making it's sections subject to the varying displacement of three seperate (interconnected) agents: sediment, water (tidal rythms) and winds.