xncroft's explorations in Spatial Design 2005
View the quicktime movie here.
In order to explore the potentials of light, I set up an environment in a box filled with curved forms. Using red, blue, and white lights, I became fascinated by how the directionality and intensity of the light combinations managed to change the mood and scale of the space in the box. The positions of the lights also altered my perception of plane relationships between structures. When I was videotaping the movement of the lights, the character of the light suggested certain sounds to come to mind, and although I am not a sound artist, I tried to portray this perception in my video clip. The sounds give the light a tangible personality and volume.
Unfortunately, my model for this project disappeared off of the project shelf before I managed to get any photos of it. ITP lesson well learned, I suppose. At any rate, I chose to study this view along the Williamsburg bridge that has become so familiar to me in my daily bike commute to and from school. The view attracted me for its repetitious structures and intersecting joints. The perspective of the shot almost allows you to believe that this series of shapes could continue along forever. Before I presented my model, I had previously thought of bridges as extremely sturdy, solid masses. During my critique, however, Jean-Marc pointed out the complexity of bridges. He talked about their continual movement and flexibility and how if the wind somehow gets in phase with the bridge it will collapse. He pointed me towards the study of Raemanian geometry to understand these sorts of natural occurences that cannot be explained by Euclidean geometry.
Drawing upon the works of Muybridge,
I tagged a fellow ITP student's joints with orange tape and videotaped her performing a cartwheel. I traced the points of her movement through time on 12 sheets of acetate. Performing this exercise forced me to realize the complexity of the human body's mechanics. It also proved to me how compelling new forms for sculpture can be developed by examining a body's motion through space.
After observing the motion of a cartwheel, I really wanted to make a model that would fan open and close much like that motion. So, I bent a series of 6 wires (scaling back from my original 12 frames) to cross the points in each frame that I had traced on my sheets of acetate. Since the hips rotate in relation to the ground in this motion, however, my wires ended up crossing in such a way as to make the fanning functionality I was imagining impossible. I could have recovered it by modifying the location of the hips in my model, but I felt it was important in my first try to stay accurate to the position of the joints in the actual movement. Although this aspect of it wasn't successful, I was satisfied with the solution I found with my base. The wires wrapping around a central post recall the thrust of the cartwheel's dynamic very accurately.
I called upon the powers of the laser cutter in the Advanced Media Studio to cut out the plexiglas hexagons and triangular rubber connectors that I used to build my dome. Some of the pieces have holes in the center where I intend to distribute small speakers that will eventually be played by videotracking a person's hand movement around the dome.
For the labyrinth assignment, I decided to observe the nodes and pathways that Philip K. Dick constructs in his novel,
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I became particularly interested in the variable nature of the colonists' hallucinatory experiences.
You can view the full Flash illustration and read a more in depth summary of the assignment here.
In physicalizing the labyrinth I observed in the Philip K. Dick novel, I chose to focus primarily on the form of the colonists' hallucination. I imagined a sort of cone structure of infinite variability for their fantasy exploits. By shining two lights on this form, I hoped to suggest the power that the entities of the UN and the mega corporation, P.P. Layouts, held over the colonists' whole sphere of existence, both physical and fantastic.
the_postmodern_planetarium
Elevator pitch: I would like to create a series of dome-style habitats constructed from discarded cell phone components (i.e. adapters, skincases, beltcases, phoneclips, earpieces, batteries, SIM cards, phone bodies, etc.) These habitats would have small entrances that one or two people could crawl into and sit inside. Inside the fabric of the dome, the viewer would encounter a planetarium-like display of blinking displays, LEDs, and vibrating motors. There is also a possibility for expansion into other recorded elements as well.
Keywords: Technological Detritus, Cellphones, Urban habitats
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From Danwen Xing's disCONNEXION series, 2003 |
Left: Electroland's Urban Nomad Shelter Right: Jörg Student's Ha-Ori Shelter
In today's society of communications technology, the speed of advancement and commerce have left a heap of discarded physical materials that have been used and quickly abandoned by our culture of rapid obsolescence. Much of this waste ends up being deposited in parts of the world such as China's Guandong Province, as evidenced here in Danwen Xing's disCONNEXION series of photographs. There are also more and more people considering creative ways to afford people shelter in urban spaces. While this project would not be practically fit for such actual use, I believe it could recall the need for such environments by underscoring how much material gets devoted to eventual waste while people still lack suitable shelter.
- What is the intent for your project? The intent of this projcct is to create an intimate sculpural space for people to travel into that will force a dialogue about the use of physical materials for technology and the possibility of diverting this waste. Simultaneously, by using old cell phone parts to create light and sound, a sort of synaesthetic experience would result.
- Describe the starting point for someone experiencing your project? The viewer would first be confronted with the exterior texture of the habitat. The overlapping cords and plastics would provide a visceral visual experience that would force the viewer to contemplate the contemporary problem of technological obsolescence and waste. Then the viewer will notice the opening in the habitat and crawl into it to watch the flickering of lights and hear the buzzing of motors. Ideally, two or three people would occupy this space for a while, allowing conversation between people to make the space truly come alive.
- What does your project provide that other similar projects do not provide
or provide differently? - This project addresses simultaneously the need for new types of urban shelters and the problem of our communication technologies leaving negative traces on our environment. I think it could be interesting to include a piece like this in the ITP show to remind us that as we continue to advance in technology, we should strive for socially-wise and eco-friendly ways of production and design.
- What are the resources available to you today for this project? The resources necessary for this project could be found in bulk from sidewalk salesman and junk shops on Canal Street as well as by sending a call to the ITP community and our friends for unused cellphone components. A space along a wall on the 4th floor would be ideal for placement of the dome. The project would thrive with a group of 5 or more people. Estimated budget is around $100.
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