Peanut Butter + Jelly

Description -
My metaform is a kinetic sculpture made with paper and/or mylar. Strands of mylar sticking out of a platform will be moving constantly based on the number of people viewing it. Mylar represents pubic spaces that shift around based on human traffic and density. When there are more people around it, the paper will be
pushed out from one side of the platform, and when there are less people, the mylar retreats into it. The platform, which will be constructed from metal wires and covered with sheets of paper and/or mylar, is double-sided so that when the mylar strands are pulled in from one side, they are being pushed out from the other. This is importance since in the future city, space is neither destroyed nor created, but constantly moved around for reuse. Small DC motors will be mounted in this middle platform, driving rubber rollers which will move the mylar strands forward and backward.

Click on links for sketches of the sculpture.

Materials -
DC Motors + Rubber Rollers - paper feed roller
Mylar
Wires - platform construction
Video Camera - map human traffic

Posted by ben chao at 03:37 AM | Permalink

Things I've been looking at for my next and final metaforms:

I took particular interest in Sophia Vyzoviti's work.

Ariel's living surface as a projection of order within chaos.

James Clar's inside/out for tracking human traffic.

Materials I've been looking at:
Lycra
Paper
Latex

Mechanics/tools I'll need:
Projection
Motors/Servo
Some way of tracking amount of people in exhibition space, or have the user trigger the changes in the form which relates to the idea of traffic.

Kind of unrelated but could be fun: Shunji Yamanaka's octopus (not sure of the name).

Posted by ben chao at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Here is Manhattan made with rubber band and sticks. You can change the shape of it by changing the sticks, which symbolizes the people of the city.

Black sticks represent the turnstiles. These are glued to the platform and can't move. In essence, each subway station is an island, and the land area around it expands and collapses as people move into and out away from the subway station.

Posted by ben chao at 04:25 PM | Permalink

The steam engine, a landmark of the industrial revolution, gave people the freedom to travel to places farther and faster. The French revolution introduced democracy, giving people the hope to be free to govern themselves. The Internet brought us freedom of information, as anybody with a computer could choose what he or she consumes and publishes. We propose that the next autonomy people will gain is the freedom of space. People will no longer be constrained by physical, immutable objects. Walls, buildings, and roads will no longer limit how we use a space. Instead, a person’s movement and thoughts will define how, when, and where these structures exist. These forms will change constantly, allowing people to change the space they live, work and play in.

We are here to explore a world where physical boundaries no longer exist.

Posted by ben chao at 09:48 PM | Permalink

This is one of the concepts we worked on for this week. The basic idea is that the turnstiles act like gates that measure the amount of traffic, or human waves, pouring into a region. If there are more people entering, then the neighborhood expands to accommodate for the greater number of people. During the day business districts such as Tribeca and mid town expand while residential areas shrink down. At night the opposite happens. Click on the flash to see a simulation.

Imagine that people are acting like waves. As they enter turnstiles to leave an area, the land area decreases, as if the tides are rising. When they leave the turnstiles and thus enter an area, the land area increases, as if the tides are receding. I think this would be interesting if we somehow made the total land area remain constant, is if land in Manhattan is shifting from low(er) density areas to high(er) density neighborhoods.

Posted by ben chao at 03:13 AM | Permalink

Catherine, Shilya and I ventured down to Lafayette and Kenmore last week to check out the storefront archtecture's ring dom. Here are a few pictures -

The structure is located in Petrosino Park. It provides a great contrast to the structures around it. Everything around the dome is has very sharp and hard edges - the buildings, the roads, the fences. The dome, on the other hand, is circular and feels "soft". I heard it is even more beautiful at night. Will definitely try to go check it out after sundown sometime.

Posted by ben chao at 01:49 AM | Permalink

The MTA workers were dumbfounded. So were the police. The only proof they had were the constant sound of the turnstiles rattling, of metro-card swipes. But nobody was ever seen around the station. It usually happened before the morning commute, sometimes hours after midnight, but always at a time when scarcely anybody was awake. The police believed it was the doing of a few elusive run-away kids. The more superstitious thought that spirits of those who had once lived in the city were entering and leaving the station. Nobody knew for sure. All they could do was listen to the jingle of the so called "turnstile melody".

Mouse over any symbol. Flash player required.

Digital analysis video is here.

Posted by ben chao at 01:54 AM | Permalink

The two sites I focused on are quit different. One is a large, massive, soul-less train yard, the other a vibrant, always busy street corner that hosts one of the busiest food carts in the city.

This train yard is just south of Javits Center and takes up about two city blocks. The above picture an aerial view from google maps. I find it interesting because it takes up this huge piece of land within the city, obviously serving an important function, yet it is completely off limits to people for security reasons. The area is completely walled off and you can only see the inside from a few entrances that are secured with wired fences.

Here are a few links for the site. MTA's official development site with specs.

Official announcement of new development plans.

The second site I researched on is located at 53rd Street and 6th Ave - it is home of the busiest street food vendor in Manhattan. During the usual weekday you can find office workers lining up for some of their gyros and a variety of halal food, but the craziest time is on weekends when line is usually a hundred people deep!! Not bad for a street vendor. There are quite a few street vendors that sell similar food right around the corner, but they don't nearly have the same number of customers as these guys have.

A few links. This is the official fan site of the street vendor.

Reviews on yelp.com.

Posted by ben chao at 01:10 AM | Permalink

site of interests
* most car crash
* most foot traffic
* racial divide

Posted by ben chao at 02:04 PM | Permalink