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A group consisting of Emily Delius, Mitchell Curtiss, Kyle Rossetti, and myself.

When choosing the line work to foam cut, I really wanted to experiment with the possibilities of achieving smoothness with curvature and transition. Though the curves are not the same, they are of a similar language and mesh quite cohesively. One is made up of more radical curves, while the other is not as sloped.

When wire cutting, we decided to cut into both sides to create a sort of wave wall. Unfortunately, it was not as smooth it was originally intended, however it still captures the essence of a “wave wall”. Increasing the speed might make the foam cutting more smooth, however the foam was too dense to do that, therefore they are a little rocky.

We were able to play with manual controls, as shown in the last photo of the foam, where we manually moved the kuka to interact with our programmed curved. The results were quite beautiful and the intersection of the rotational linear with our curvature provided for thin intersection points and powerful overlap. This exercise went very smoothly and was very enjoyable to experiment with both in the programming and designing stage with being able to anticipate results, and the mesh with manual controls.

Casting was a good experience, as we got to experience both the form as a lightweight foam object and as a solid concrete form. Now we have both, of contrasting materiality.

Haraway Response

Donna Haraway begins by identifying the “inescapable term [of] objectivity”. To her, it is when objects, things, or people embody the characteristics imposed upon them by others, not by what they actually are. Throughout history, science has had a masculine outlook on objectivity, one where the scientists determine what is knowledge and what is deemed to be correct due to historical social construction.

The theory of “situated knowledge” is proposed in tandem with the existence of feminist objectivity. The basis is that situated knowledge can be accepted by anyone within the realm in which the information is being portrayed. It emerges from the concept defined as “successor science” and gives agency to the knowledge producer around the studied subject.

Vision is particularly present and relevant to Haraway’s identification of situated knowledge. The objective gaze is, in fact, feminist objectivity and “means quite simply situated knowledge” (581). Eyes are used to signify and disembodiment emerged from the advancing postmodernist culture, which is entirely overstimulated by technological alteration. Vision is no longer regulated, especially in contemporary society, as there are so many methods of alteration that the truth is rarely ever the reality anymore. As Haraway puts it, “like the god trick, this eye fucks the world to make techno-monsters” (581). Vision is therefore an illusion that has completely shifted throughout history to become a dishonest reality. If embodiment can separate from objectivity, this problem would diminish in society.

The problem with perspective in society is that “partial perspectives promise objective vision” (583). Western culture and ideologies only offer the partial perspectives of those associated with positions of power (for example scientists), therefore bringing a limited amount of situated knowledge to the public. Current feminist attempts “theorize grounds for trusting”, which is really powerful in terms of being complacent with projected knowledge (584). Objectivity to Haraway is about “mutual and usually unequal structuring” where final and distinct ideas do not exist. The intersection points and boundaries are blurred within the ideology of feminist embodiment and hope, as “science, science fantasy, and science fiction converge” in order to create a more overall objectivity (596).

Both science and digital craft can benefit from expanding their horizons and overlapping boundaries between different discourses. This allows for intersections with other mediums (in respect to digital craft) that could influence and be integrated into digital craft so that it is not so stagnant and predictable. Digital craft should be viewed in a feminist embodiment, because that way the computer is not autonomous and subjective, but rather a broader tool in the realm of science and technology.

kdfab-blog

Playing with robots and light paths

We took photos from front and side view using 2 different colors.

The robot light path exercise was generally smooth. The only problem we encountered was arriving to a dead LED battery twice. Our final attempt we just quickly ran out for a replacement - problem solved. The robot itself is fairly easy to navigate once you locate the files and commands on the controller.

Our group chose a Josef Albers geometry study drawing which we then brought into rhino. We tried to pull the lines into separate dimensions to generate a more 3D light path but this wasn’t quite as successful as we hoped. Regardless, the drawing was very clear and accurate and we had some fun with photos/videos. We’ve spoken about perhaps trying again with other path explorations.

What if we produced one image from the front view and a different image from another view - all from the same coded light path? Could be an interesting experiment. Safe to say we are kuka fans - excited to do some more work with it.

#bots #nerds

Crawford Response

In Crawford’s chapter on Agency the distinction between agency and autonomy is defined with a shift between man’s physical interactivity with machine to man’s control of the machine. It is almost suggested that the machine is an object of convenience to consumerist society. People are always buying new things for their own convenience rather than sticking with something form the past and fixing or operating upon it to improve or sustain it.

The adaptive outlook of autonomy over new machinery is giving a false experience of agency, which is could be potentially counteractive to human flourishing. The experience of agency comes from learning. It is described well with the example of learning a language or learning music, it takes the the student out of their normative instinctual behavior and forces them to think in a way outside of their known limits.

A sort of fake or false agency is perpetuated in contemporary society all the time. A prime example is Betty Crocker’s cake mix, as described by Crawford. The baker always feels better about their cake when they have to add an egg to it. The idea of a process made convenient, yet left incomplete is the epitome of contemporary culture. The false agency yet autonomy completely captures it. However, it does result in a jumbled perception of consumerist reality. As Crawford puts it, “we are narcissist, but not proud enough.”

In respect to the jig and the repetitive process as a tool for mankind, it highlights the human as a schematic being of sorts. Though the processes Crawford examples are hands on, like the craftsman with the jig, bartender with drink glasses, or the chef with a line of ingredients, the intent is similar. A desire for schematic order brings the human close to the mentality of a machine, repetition for consistency and efficiency. It is a sort of “advanced cognition” and allows workflow to be achieved to a maximum. Human capacities are extended, to a sort, because of the increased ability in task execution.

Keramas Response

One of the most institutionalized processes of robot technology is the term defined as “programmable automation”. This is because it is drven by the consumerist society of “high production and low demand”. While the history of robotic technology was striving for efficiency, “flexible automation” seems to be more relevant in contemporary society, a bit after this reading was developed. What would be interesting ins the mesh of these two– a robotic process that mass produces high variety and many options.

It is interesting that the robotic process are divided based on the volume of what is produced. The flexibility is focused around mass production and the cost of production. Even with the interest of technological progression, it is still driven by the need to produce more or produce specifically. Robots are extremely useful in this way, because they perform tasks that are “boring, repetitive, or dangerous” for humans to execute, so they definitely are an extremely useful tool.

This reading was written way before the knowledge that we have today about robotics and automation, therefore it was a bit redundant and expected for the level of learning of the course– however nice to know basics.

Carr and Smith

Nicholas Carr’s acknowledgement of the outlook that the machine is a tool that “frees ourselves to climb into a higher pursuit or a broader perspective” is interesting in terms of proliferation and production. Whitehead’s perspective that the rationalization of time being made more efficient with technology is not one that is false. It allows designers to make more decisions in order to produce more work over the course of time. When working digitally, however, it has to be taken into consideration that the machine “alters the character of the entire task” (Carr 67). The input into the machine is changed based on who made it and who prepared it for the machine. There is a feel to digitally fabricated work that feels a little bit automatic and sterile, so in a sense the objective of reaching a resolution with technology that still feels genuine and impressive should be strived for.

To that point, it is extremely debilitating to the designer when they become victim to “automation complacency”, as Carr puts it. This brings a society and culture that is way too dependent on technology. Even the examples used, like man trusting the GPS or radiologists trusting automated scanning technologies is extremely destructive to ability and practice. It makes people ignorant when they are complacent with only the digital because machines are not superior. This ties in to the loss of attention to detail that architects have inhabited. When the machine started to surpass human ability (in a timely manner, not skillfully) the user does not take the time to double check the machine always because they trust it.

Taking one of Frederic Forest’s famous gestural line drawings, I wanted to turn it into a line drawing where depth is amplified. In the side view, the linear shift in the third dimension is evident.

With the curving of the Kuka, the drawing could turn into something quite beautiful.

The group consisted of myself, Kristina Dittrich, Alex Rossetti, and Henry Peters.

This project explores the making of both surface and space through a process of subtraction. The subtracting tool is indexed in the produced object, as the bit diameter is inscribed in the curvature of turn angles.

Milling this project on the CNC was an interesting process because of the way that it removed in layers, allowing us to really get a sense of how the surface is brought into the physical world. It is interesting to see it in reality because shape simplification and surface manipulation that was achieved with the sliders in grasshopper really come into effect on the real thing. Transitioning between the digital and scaleless to the physical object in reality really showed the subtleness and simplicity of the surface we chose, that almost looked more intricate digitally. Looking back, the curves could have had a more radical transition after realizing it as a pretty large scaled object in space.

Kolarevic and Klinger

Kolarevic and Klinger quote Renzo Piano’s idea that the architect is still a craftsman, with just a contemporary set of tools. This is completely true in modern day. Digital fabrication has completely restructured how architects build and create their designs. Digital methods of building and crafting overpower as the primary means of production.

Malcolm McCullough’s ideas about craft in the digital age are referenced to provide the outlook that at this point in history, the craftsman “need not touch the material directly” and that constructing digital means “unanticipated or indescribable ends”. That is the reality of today, the tools that craftspeople use no longer require manual intervention. However, Kolarevic and Kinger bring up these notions in a section of their text titled “The Craftsmanship of Risk”. It seems unjust to classify digital fabrication as something of risk because there is so much security that comes with making. Every file is backed up and can be recovered to some degree. The possibilities of copy/past and undo as functions of digital fabrication create for infinite possibilities. How is this determined to be risk? It is more along the lines of not being able to anticipate results. In parametric design, a “context of forces or actions” dictate results that are unknown, precisely how Malcolm himself has mentioned. That does not necessarily constitute as risk. Things can be repeated differently in other iterations and eventually caused to succeed. When things were all constructed by hand, the risk of error almost seems greater.

Kolarevic and Klinger constitute that “designers are becoming much more directly involved in the fabrication process” since they know exactly how the fabrication works digitally. While this is true in the sense that there is a greater understanding of crafting and construction, there is still a large disconnect between the designer and ability. Not even in a bad way, it’s just that today’s designs are beyond humanly possible, or simply just not as efficient as humans desire them to be. Digital fabrication does require less time, less material, and less waste, that much is true. But it also requires a machine to do the work of the craftsman with instruction input by the craftsman. It is a weird concept that has not been completely resolved yet. Where is the disconnect between the knowledge of the designer and ability of the machine? How can the machine be trusted to follow the input?

Iwamoto

In the introduction to her publication, Lisa Iwamoto states that digital production is generative and has the potential to narrow the gap between representation and building. While I believe that digital production provides a means of efficient drawing, visualizing, and editing, there is something unnatural about projects that exist only in the digital world up until construction. A successful example of implementation that Iwamoto points out is Frank Gehry's firm's early flickering between digital technology and physical iteration. In that case, the physical model was edited for aesthetic purposes, while technology was used to engineer the actual fit. Though this was in 1989, when this was probably the most that architects could do with digital technology, this is seemingly a creatively constructive way to give authority to the designer's intuition and ability to create physical aesthetic relationships, yet allow the design to exist physically via technology. The parts of the models that were digitally fabricated also played into the larger scale construction and helped the architects understand the system. The idea of sectioning as an innovative means of designing architecture makes complete sense in the historical progression of architecture. Before modernism, the plan was the most important orthographic projection of an architecture. After architects like le Corbusier and his prime example of sectioning a ribcage-like design, the section proves itself to be the most important orthographic projection to modern day architects.

collapsing and assembling a transparent form

collaboration with Kristina Dittrich, Henry Peters, and Kyle Rossetti

Carpo & DeLanda

In Carpo’s section on Allography and Notations, he asks the question: “When did architecture evolve from its pristine autographic status as a craft to its modern allographic definition as an art” (16). This is seemingly the progression of architectural profession. Once a craft that was conceived and made by artisan builders in history has now transitioned to split roles of the designer and the builder, which in most cases are extremely disconnected. In the more modern definition of architecture, the most indispensable product of the architect are then the scaled and detailed architectural drawings. In an essence, they are the artistic result of the architect.

In terms of representation, orthographic plans, elevations, and sections are informative on a constructive level, however when it comes to experience they do not provide an indication of the practice of theory (19). In modern architecture, in order for a project to be understood there is an underlying concept that has to either be read about, indicated in diagram or rendering, or simply experienced. There may not be this essence of experience with more historic types of architecture like medieval or gothic since the intent of the architecture was not to be experiential or conceptual. Conceptual and experiential architecture is a contemporary idea and that is why in modern day architects need to go above and beyond the production of general orthographic projections. There was a time when architecture was all about geometry and math. We are no longer in that time.

In terms of DeLanda, thinking about technology in a biological way in which an algorithm can be viewed as a spawn that dictates a certain generative population is an interesting notion that is not often discussed. A genetic algorithm an be used to solve problems in a particular field of art once the process is already discovered. A path to the solution is conceived creatively, then a digital algorithm simply executes the commands. DeLanda brings up the idea of “population thinking” which is a concept derived from the synthesized theories of Darwin and Mendel, yet is somehow still highly relevant in our digital society.

Evans

Evans opens by describing Bishop Berkley’s description of vision as a painting on the retina that could never divulge depth. In the realm of artwork, a BBC interview with Marcel Duchamp recognizes a similar outlook. Duchamp mentions that the paintings and work that he had done before DADA were all just “retinal art”, a term that he has coined for artwork that is only in the realm of the beautiful and picturesque. There is no further knowledge that it holds beyond that.

It is interesting to compare this to projective geometry as the geometry of vision and euclidean geometry as the geometry of touch. Euclidean space can only correspond with the space of touch when the ideal system of the rigid measuring rod is enabled. The two different words can only be understood as overlapping when a schematic system is applied to to the space of touch. The space of touch needs to be understood and categorized in order to be anything more than that. If that is the case, where does the projective space stand? There is the non-Euclidean and of course the Euclidean. The projective lies somewhere in between. Is the projective a true systematized version of touch?

In the realm of dimensions, two dimensions are substituted for three and activities of measuring and occupying are split apart. We measure the globe and occupy the plane. When we perceive the whole it is something that we measure, yet when we perceive the plane it is so zoomed in that we only understand the world around us as flat. The world is flat but we still understand it as 3D. Since occupation is deemed to be more flat, is projection the only way that we can portray visual experiences?

Neither pictures nor projections are fundamental to the visual experience, but they become essential to sharing. Imagination is potentially active in all the areas of transitions from persons to objects, operating in the same zones as projection and its metaphors. The perception of space is crucial to getting ideas across as architects. What is in our mind or what we understand is nothing if its representation doesn’t provide the same read that is prescribed and planned for. Maybe this space is the projective.

Manipulating curves and seeing a result instantly before your eyes gives me only a glimpse of experimentation and iteration possibilities.

Descartes & Burry

The writing of philosopher Rene Descartes offered a new rationalist approach to mathematics and geometries in 1637. First, it is interesting that in the age of digital fabrication and by the nature of this class that we are reading so deeply into the origins of geometry as to go back to the 17th century. He states that geometries have systems and that they are gradually built up through repetitions of elements incrementally. The text references a lot of knowledge that has been taught in elementary education and most people are aware of regarding geometry, unless they are uneducated. It’s interesting to think that this knowledge was once not common and that people were shocked by learning these facts.

Jane Burry, on the other hand, explores modern geometry and the challenges manifested through three different spheres (ha ha sphere): the conceptual, operational, and constructional. After Descartes geometry started embodying more exploratory human activity and virtuosity. This is the shift from the more rational to the more emotional that is exampled in 20th century art, architecture, and literature movements. In this day and age we work between the system and the result. The system is built intricately and results in a greater geometric complexity. It is similar to the way Descartes recognizes that geometries are just collections of simple things that then turn complex. This system is made to produce a certain result that captures the conceptual quality that we are loading it with. The modern mathematics of the natural system are interesting to me because organic elements are created in reality through analysis using a certain digital process. Because of technology, these processes are now easily tested. In the example of Gaudi’s La Segrada Familia, the engineers and architects were easily able to mock up the interior pattern to understand its construction. This experiment was one that may have not been so easy throughout other instances in history. Technical geometries as research make the world around us easier and possible.

Being able to manipulate the size of squares on a grid based on reaction of a curve is pretty amazing. It is almost like the rippling of water- yet a lot colder and more distant due to technological disconnection. These are some frames.

Euclid’s Elements

The definitions and postulates give a basic understanding of different attributes of geometries. Most of these geometries and attributes (such as points, lines, surfaces, angles, etc.) are things that are encountered in elementary education and understood sufficiently well by the time people grow up. The postulates accompany the definitions and are collections of statements that are all deemed as true without a proof.

Knowing these things is essential to digital fabrication because the computer works in a systematic way in which it needs to understand mathematical and geometric definitions in order to make movements and create a graphic representation of input commands. They are definitions that we may know intuitively from being familiar to them for so long, but the computer has no memory beyond what it is told then saved, so every time a new creation is made the computer’s knowledge is refreshed or restarted. Luckily, computers are easy learners.

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