The Bowery Presents
Not today Justin
titsay
taylor price
The Stonewall Inn
noise dept.
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Doug Jones
macklin celebrini has autism
EXPECTATIONS
roma★
shark vs the universe
almost home
RMH
Noah Kahan
Mike Driver
$LAYYYTER
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
todays bird
seen from Lithuania
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@ethandavisumich-blog
For this assignment we made two different cuts, and then used one side from each cut to (attempt to) make two different casts our intention was to have them be able to fit together to explore wholeness. We were interested in thinness and perceived materiality in our casts, so we attempted to cast as thin a block as we could. Pictures to come!
Haraway
Objectivity, as a concept, is one that bears massive consequences in the complicated political times we live in. In an age of fake news and alternative facts, to find objectivity seems to be the equivalent of salvation, and consequentially, the truth will set you free. But even how objectivity is defined is in itself not objective. To the dominant male patriarchy, objectivity belongs not to the truth, but to a certain group of people who decide what that truth is. Objectivity is not a point of view; its a place to stand to make your opinion heard as fact. Not only is this notion dangerous, it proves that the truth does not belong to the masses and objectivity, it instead belongs to special interest groups and those who seek to swerve public opinion in their favor. Haraway’s theory on situated knowledge largely solves this issue, and lends credence to objectivity that may not be recognized by the mainstream. And it is this theory that relates to craft and the situated position that craft takes in the eye of the craftsmen. Craft is nothing without careful context, and by situating objectivity within context, this is achieved.
Today we attempted to create a Kuka program which would investigate the relationship between a curved spline and a straight line. We are super excited to see what sort of surface will be created from the rigid wire cutting through the foam! We expect the surface to look similar to the rendering, however, also different because of the straight line of the foam cutter.
Crawford
To Crawford, the jig is the ultimate shortcut; a cheat code to advance those smart enough to recognize the opportunity for repetitive action that simplifies some of fabrication’s more mundane tasks. This marks the standardization of practice; an individual can now use less brain power to achieve more work in a reduced amount of time. In his book, Matthew B. Crawford writes:
The jig as it is used in a skilled practice is located somewhere between the over determination of the assembly line and the ideal of autonomy. In the tension between freedom and structure, which shows itself with special clarity in skilled practices, there is some-thing important to be learned about human agency in general (Crawford 34).
This tension is one that is grappled with not only in fabrication, but in all forms of assembly and craft. Craft naturally fights against structure in the name of autonomy; to be independent of rigor and structure is a romantic goal of the crafts, but one which is contradictory to itself. It is within the concept of the jig that this conflict exists. How can the craftsmen reconcile his/her need to be independent with his/her need to be efficient?
Keramas
Automation as a process is one that has revolutionized both the field of fabrication as well as the American industrial complex as a whole. And robotics have been a huge part of automation, making way for the concept of automation to seep its way into production and industry. Industrial automation can be broken up into three categories: fixed, flexible, and programmable. Fixed automation primarily deals with high volume production on the mass industrial scale. Flexible automation focuses on medium volume production controlled from an external computer. And programmable automation is the process of low volume production focusing on one action at a time. The robot must be reprogrammed to perform its next function. These robots have not only allowed manufacturing companies to cut costs on labor, but they have filled positions that are both dangerous and boring to the human. Automation makes American industry competitive and allows for humane conditions in factories where historically that has not been the case.
Exercise 7
Our group chose the America curve to use for the second part of exercise six. Originally, we chose the red light to conduct the actual exercise, and then altered the colors in Photoshop to produce a red, white, and blue effect. While conducting the exercise, our group experimented with different speeds of the robot as well as shutter speeds to alter the line weight of the curve being drawn.
Carr, Smith
Work independent of the machine is a rare commodity in the field of applied arts. The automated response is a result of this shift towards automated work. By putting the brain on autopilot and allowing the machine to take control, the brain itself has lost its ability to perform the menial task as it once could. But the value of manual work still holds true, which was proven by the Smith reading with its intricate metal work done completely by hand. Beautiful production is alive and well, it has just been specialized and even commoditized. The unrelenting trust that humanity has given the machine to create the products we once created has become detrimental both to the creative process as well as the intellectual process. Overall, humanity has unlocked vast capabilities through the machine revolution, but we have lost the craft and understanding which once went into the process that has been phased out.
By creating a new curve for the robot to follow, our group now has four choices to choose from for our lighting exercise. I traced a map of the continental United States as my curve.
Exercise 4: Part 1 Milling a Triangulated Mesh Surface
In this exercise we fabricated our Grasshopper iterations from the previous week’s exercise. It was interesting to see how a digital design can be printed out from a machine as the actual, physical model.
Exercise 4, Part 2: Wrapping a Folded Surface
Using the ZUND Cutter, we were able to create a skin to wrap our previous molded surface produced on the CNC Router. It was interesting to see how the same form could be created and recognized even though the once very three dimensional surface became flattened by being wrapped in a two dimensional skin.
Kolarevic
In Branko Kolarevic’s “Manufacturing Material Effects,” he writes of the new and improved design philosophies that dictate the digital craftsman in today’s world of technology. In a world where technology is the driving force behind design, it is tempting to fall into the typical mindset that the arts need to get back to the basics: blood, sweat, and paint. But it is in these technological advancements that new ways of design are born. The iterative design method is one that has made way for unexpected design and discovery in the creative world. The ability to go back and forth on a design, trying out every option under the Sun allows designers to create what they often could not before: controlled accidents. In design, we have unprecedented amounts of control, but this control has made way for discovery through iteration. As we iterate, we discover. And that discovery is almost never what was expected.
Exercise 5.1
In exercise 5.1, we first created a surface from a series of curves. This surface was then fit into a 12″ x 24″ x 3″ box. This surface was then converted into a collection of chunks through the manipulation of a grasshopper file. In this grasshopper file, certain variables determined the outcome of the chunky surface, and by adjusting these accordingly we were able to create a few options for surfaces to mill. My group has decided to cut the above surface.
Iwamoto
Fabrication as a tool for the realization of design has been an invaluable introduction into the field of architecture. The act of physically realizing a form or design is a kind of communication, and a language that architects live by. As the field of fabrication advances, along with the softwares that power the means of fabrication, methods for more easily creating new and exciting forms have emerged that have opened a realm of possibilities for what is possible in the field of fabrication today. Sectioning is a main focus of the excerpt taken from Lisa Iwamoto’s book, “Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Techniques.” Taking a series of sections is not a new concept, the construction method was famously used by Le Corbusier in his Ronchamp Chapel. But in fabrication today, the concept of sections has evolved as a means to create new forms that would otherwise be impossible through more traditional means of modeling. Iwamoto brings up a few great examples of the sectional method, but one that sticks out is Greg Lynn’s Animate Form. As Iwamoto explains it, “Lynn formulates an architectural approach out of the emergence of dynamic forces, flows, and organizations. By harnessing the computer's potential as a generative medium for design, he asserts, there are ‘distinct formal and visual consequences of the use of computer animation…’” (Iwamoto 11). Lynn uses generative forms that have only recently become possible to create on the computer, much less fabricate in real life. But through a sectional method of modelling, Lynn is not only able to fabricate these forms accurate to their original conception, but he is also able to preserve the dynamic component that makes the form so interesting to begin with.
In this exercise we discovered and learned ways of creating and sculpting forms from the use of an algorithm. We had control over the number of side, tab design, curve design, and much more, yet the computer was still doing it for us in a way. This was interesting because although the computer was doing the hard work we still had free control to create in any way possible.
Carpo and Delanda
Form is a concept which has whole heartedly dominated the profession of architecture for centuries. The form is a bare-bones skeletal design for what a structure will become or what it will fail to be. And in this modern era of digital fabrication and BIM, the form as we know it has taken on a new meaning, both in how form is created and how it is produced. Delanda and Carpo see the form in its modern iterations, and more importantly understand where these iterations have come from. In his book “The Alphabet and the Algorithm,” Mario Carpo says, “...that in most cases what can be built is determined by what can be drawn and measured in drawings... it also follows that the potency of some geometrical tools determines the universe of forms that may or may not be built at any given point in time” (Carpo 31). Theoretically, there are an infinite number of forms to be derived and produced. However, Carpo argues that these forms are only accessible based on how advanced the tools which we use to visualize these forms are. In the past, tools meants a t-square and a pencil. But in the digital era, the computer is the singular tool which can unlock new forms, and even create more advanced tools which can further the development of new forms. Delanda writes of genetic algorithms created within the computer which can produce forms based on evolutionary principles. This begs the question: if humanity has created the most advanced tools possible in which to invent form, is all form accessible to us? Are we living in a golden age of form because of the computer and the digital world we live in? Or is this simply another step in the advancement of technology, only to be followed by the next big development?
Photo Source: pinterest.com
Unrolling a Developable Surface
In the first part of exercise four, we experimented with different variables within a grasshopper file. These variables manipulated a vase-like structure in Rhino which took on different forms based on the variables and the curve it was attached to. The form was then split into pieces with tabs that can eventually be attached. From these designs, my group will select two which we will then fabricate using the zund.
In The Projective Cast, Robin Evans writes of the different ways in which geometry, both in the Euclidean and projective sense, works within architecture as a means of visualization and understanding of concepts. According to Evans, and architect does not actually produce geometry. Instead, the architect consumes it as a means of visualizing and understanding complex forms and ideas that cannot simply be fabricated into some object. The object cannot fully convey what lies behind the cerebral idea, the strong and steady driving force behind architecture which dictates what the model or the picture cannot. Evans believes that it is in this sense that geometry, when used as a projection, becomes a language or a translation for a larger construct. The translation is imperfect and complex, and therefore not whole. But, although geometry does not exist in the ways we thought it might, it maintains a representational function that is vital to the visualization process, and eventually the fabrication process as well.
