Lesley Flanigan ITP

Gear Compositions is a series of 5 self contained, wooden gear systems that are manually operated by individual hand cranks. Users move around the suspended piece choosing to either operate the gear systems from one side or observe them in motion on the other.

gear interaction.mov

CONSTRUCTION
This piece is hand made entirely of wood. The gears were designed using SketchUp and Illustrator and laser cut at NYU's Advanced Media Studio.

CONCEPTS
Simplicity belies complexity. Themes of communication, relationships, role reversals and invisible spaces inform the content of Gear Compositions. Gears are inherently rigid and exact. They shape interiors of mechanisms, assisting the output of energy. The gears in this system take on an organic, poetic, and narrative quality. They operate for no particular purpose, designed for thought rather than goal. Ideas to consider with this piece include: What is the front and what is the back? What does it mean to make things move? What does it mean that the person controlling the operation can not see the output, and the person observing the output can not control the operation (or at least not without some degree of awkwardness)? Does anyone get a perspective of the big picture?

gear details.mov

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Mechanically, I am very pleased with the user interaction in this piece. I struggled for a long time with whether or not the gears should be human powered, weight powered, or motorized. Although I certainly will address other forms of power in future pieces, it is significant that in this particular piece people must be present in order for it to move. The required interaction of people enhances concepts involving the operations of human relationships -- the speakers and the spoken to, to the active and the passive.

Aesthetically, I would like to dig further into the blocks of wood, dive into that hidden space, creating a gear system that truly belongs inside. There should be sense that the gears were chiseled out, that they are the wood they embody.

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"Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art." -- Heidegger

I want to investigate what it means to make objects that move, especially objects that move an invisible space between people.

Completed objects can be found at seseyann.com/objects.

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I chose to continue building technically upon my "finite state machine" involving rotating cams and conceptually on my "make a random" piece involving communication between two people.

"Hi, Hello, Hey"
...marks start of conversation. Working off metaphors of sound waves/communication waves, this object requires two people turning the cranks on either side to create the sine wave motion of the wooden sticks. A rhythm is sometimes reached, and sometimes not. The physical sensation of turning the crank and watching the sticks weave a wave is a simple but fully engaging experience. The sticks are not attached to the object, but rather float on the physics of their positions in the machine.

movie

where it all came from...plus 2 cups of coffee

Future Work
There are some technical issues I need to address with this piece. One is that the ball bearings of the top cam shaft are slightly misaligned, causing the crank to stick at times. This is a perfect example of how tricky it is to work with kinetics -- one fraction of a measurement off and the whole thing falls apart! Two is that the "hinge grid" only works in one direction (ah, stupid me!). Both conceptually and aesthetically, I believe it is important to not lock down the sticks with anything permanent --they should remain loose and free floating. Of course this is tricky to design. I have a couple ideas for how to address this "loose hinging" system technically, although it will be a complicated build.

The primary conceptual issue I need to address is what will be animated. I'm not convinced that they should be sticks. After all, the poetry in the piece is very much determined by what is making the waves -- for example, there is a great difference in the narratives behind sticks vs spoons vs fishing poles. I must think about this further. I am very happy with the motion of the wave, and there is more poetry in that motion than I am may be giving credit.

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Our second assignment was to make piece that demonstrates randomness.

What is Random?

Events that appear unpredictable to us are perceived as random. Conceptually, randomness exists but the physical reality of nature is based in layers of sequences and patterns. Designing for this project, I struggled with physically representing randomness because of its inherent non-existence. I decided to take a more conceptual approach to randomness. No science or math can map out or predict the specific details of individual human minds and how we interpret information. Human perception could be considered as “cognitive randomness.”

Conversation Pieces

"Conversation Piece" is based on this concept of cognitive randomness. Two people sit on either side of the symmetrical object and simultaneously turn the knobs on their side. The center knobs control the turning of the text wheels on the inside of the box and the corner wheels control the windows through which the people can view the inside. A metaphorical conversation takes place, role playing the sending, receiving, and interpretation of layered information. Physically, the act of two different people turning the separate transparent text wheels creates a random motion and view. Conceptually, the picking and choosing of different windows in which to view the layered text creates different “random” narratives/content.

Analogy

Our class discussed the rolling of dice as a random event. The randomness of dice is a result of the physical action of throwing. The outcome of the throw can be only one of a set number of choices. In the case of a 6 sided dice, the result of a roll can be the number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. An estimated guess as to which number it will be is gambling. We can apply this event to the act of verbal communication -- constructing meaning through the use of established words. When we decide what we wish to say and choose the words to communicate our idea, we are throwing the dice and gambling on how the words will fall and be interpreted by our listener. Set words, various permutations.

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These rules are for a group of people. As director, I will be playing and stopping the sound of music and removing chairs from the circle.

1. You bring one chair to the table
2. Evenly space your chair with the other chairs brought by other people around the table in one large circle.
3. Sit in your chair
4. When music starts to play, stand up. Step away and push your chair under the table. Turn to your left.
5. Following the person to your left, begin walking in a single line with the group around the table in a circle.
6. When the music stops, pull out the chair closest to you and sit down. If there is not a chair available to you, you must leave the group.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until there is only one chair and one person left remaining.

I am spelling out the rules of a preexisting, culturally ingrained game -- musical chairs. I'm curious to see how these written rules are understood by people familiar with the game vs understood by people completely new to the game. Or if the game is known with slightly different rules across cultures, in which case, rule additions, subtractions, and interpretations may be applied subconsciously.

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Is back up and running! Updates coming soon...

www.seseyann.com

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Here are some visual/mechanical ideas I'm tossing around.

Studies for in circles

Study For leg

Study for move me

Study for steps

alone and not alone

How do we manage?

It ticks it talks

Moving you move me

Oscillate

Study for pulse

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What is a Finite State Machine?
A finite state machine is a model of behavior composed of a finite number of states, transitions between those states, and actions. A state stores information about the past (it reflects the input changes from the system start to the present moment). A transition indicates a state change and is described by a condition that would need to be fulfilled to enable the transition. An action is a description of an activity that is to be performed at a given moment. There are several action types:

Entry action
which is performed when entering the state
Exit action
which is performed when exiting the state
Input action
which is performed depending on present state and input conditions
Transition action
which is performed when performing a certain transition

Move Me (the space between)


I have not finalized a name for my finite state machine. For now, I am calling it "Move Me (the space between)." Formally, I am delighted by the simple and elegant wave formation that is created by the relatively complex mechanism. Aesthetically, it is reminiscent of a music box/piano/kalimba. The motion must be triggered with input from a person turning the knob. The wave can only last as long as the hand can turn, which is physically a maximum of one turn. Hence, the limits of the machine are reflective of the limits of the person.

This machine is a finite state machine. It has entry action (human hand rotating the knob), exit action (motion stops when hand stops rotating the knob), input action (as a result of the entry action, the three circles on the the inner rod rotate repetitively), and transition action (the rotating circles cause the planks to rise and fall accordingly).

Future Development
I intend to further develop this project. I encountered many technical difficulties, primarily with the turning crank/knob. There are also a few minor measurement issues to be addressed. In the next design, I intend for the the piece to be much longer, perhaps 30 planks.

Additional Thoughts
-One input triggers three outputs
-Different inputs imply different concepts -- hand turn vs. crank vs. motor (speed, rotation turns, timing, duration). The output reflects the input.

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I got the first batch of my laser cut gears yesterday (still waiting on more). I am so excited! Looks like they are going to work. It is great to have pretty much created my own box of blocks to play with.

7.5" diameter, 4.25" diameter, 2.5" diameter, hole 5/8"

2" diameter, 1" diameter, hole 1/4"

2" diameter, hole 5/16"

These gears were originally designed in Sketch Up and then fine tuned in Illustrator.

Next step = play. Spent a long time at the hardware store picking up nuts, washers and dowels, etc. I also rummaged up a pile of random metal components to explore integrating with the wooden gears.

First things first, make one gear move another. I plan to start by only small little gear objects before getting carried away with some of my larger scale ideas.

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Why not?

The clearest final goal I can foreshadow is that I want to build a WALL OF GEARS .. sometime this semester.

So my "plan" is to get some wooden gears cut. However the wood I had chosen is not good for the laser cutter, so now I am using masonite. This is fine. Afterall, it is really just a test. I don't know if the gears I designed will work either by shape OR material (I'm concerned about the friction of the wood -- although wooded gears do exist and function).

So what specifically do I want to make? I don't know! I have a some ideas, revolving around the concept of complexity creating simplicity and simplicity creating complexity. I want to make beautiful narrative machines. Very human-like in their existence. I'm hoping that once I get my "building blocks" I'll be in a great position to start playing with form and function so that I can start to understand my what I am able to build.

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Excerpts from our first class reading.
Book: The Pattern on the Stone
Chapter: Finite-State Machines

- The basic idea of a finite-state machine is to combine a look-up table, constructed using Boolean logic, with a memory device. The memory is used to store a summary of the past, which is the state of the finite-state machine.

-summary of the sequence

-When it reaches its maximum count -- say, 999-- the next advance will cause it to return to zero....I never knew if the cab had travelled 70,000 miles, 170,000 miles, or 270,000 miles, because the odometer had only 100,000 states; all those histories were equivalent as far as the odometer was concerned. This is why mathematicians often define a state as a "set of equivalent histories."

-The next state of the machine depends not only on the previous state but also on the signals that come from the input button.

-Once reason finite-state machines are so useful is that they can recognize sequences.

-Finite-state machines can also be made to recognize sequences that match certain patterns.

-As powerful as they are, finite-state machines are not capable of recognizing all types of patterns in a sequence.

Continue reading "Finite-State Machines" »

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