Fabrique – the prototype

Fabrique is designed as a responsive garden folly. In its space, it accommodates visions and ideas emerging from the Renaissance garden tradition, landscape theory, and machine structures. In the Renaissance, fabriques (follies) were structures, aimed at staging human interaction in the garden. Narrative was their main means and was born out of classical ideals. It was structured through architectural typology and strategic positioning in the garden. People entered a certain mood and enacted possibilities, such as solitary contemplation, romance, artistic endeavours, or festivities. By using simulation techniques and mechanical tricks, narrative was overlaid with interaction, explicitly designed to engage visitors in a conceptual play between true and fake, natural wonders and manmade achievements.

While the Renaissance folly uses the reproduction of classical myths to talk about man and his (superim)position in the garden, Fabrique uses the garden itself to talk about man and his relationship with landscape. Landscape is the scenario, an end in itself. In Fabrique, landscape constitutes an experiential, procedural space rather than a visual one. It emerges through a cycle of engagement and disengagement with the garden through a hybrid interface, the watering can and the virtual act of watering. Fabrique departs on investigating co-emergent relationships with landscape through participation and collectivity. Only through collaboration and co-orchestration does landscape manifest within the garden, as choreographed bike chains, a form of mechanical plants. Moreover, Fabrique is inspired by early machines appearing in the Renaissance garden. By merging boundaries between the mechanical and the natural through digital technologies, Fabrique attempts to interpret landscape as a result of engagement, and not of nature. In Fabrique, landscape is a state of acting.

general view

hardware side of thesis

I am posting here a couple of images showing the hardware part of the system I designed. In the first pic you can see the mechanism which will be embedded inside the watering can. On the right, an RFID reader which recognises tags, and a button (which will be replaced by a tilt sensor) which recognises whether the can is tilted or not. The third system is the RFlink transmitter which sends wirelessly the data: whether the tilt is activated while the tag is recognised, to another arduino which controls the motors. In the second pic you can see the Arduino connected to one of the stepper motors which via shift registers (for multiplying the output pins) and darlington arrays (necessary for stepper motors). On the right there is also the RFlink receiver which receives the data (on or off signal basically) which activate or deactivate the motors and blink an LED. And the final pic, yes its my little messed corner in the lab. more pics to come with bike chains…

Theory & Practice (ideally)

thesis sketches :: on experience economy & sustainable systems

Jacques Lacarrière inspiration for thesis

Jacques Lacarrière at the Benaki Museum, Athens

Lacarrière captures the Greek rural life during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s in the villages, the islands, the mountains, and the fields. He focuses on everyday activities and occupations which demonstrate the character of Greek traditions. The mapping of these activities reveals the process of those tasks in an almost religious testimony. The cleaning and laying of the fishing nets in the sun, the unraveling of the sails on the boat deck, the gathering of the people in the central square of the village under the tree, the line of donkeys descending on narrow paths, the hanging of the lavender upside down to dry and keep its smell, the accordion, the fishing at the edge of the dock, the boat-yard (careenage), the island isolation, the kids gracefully walking on white pavement hand by hand, the pergola etc etc. These acts’ repetitive force has shaped part of the modern Greek cultural and natural landscape. I am wondering about the possibilities of exploring these processes through the re-invention of their narrative, a re-iterative mapping, a system.

E(k)soterikotites – Art, Politics and Society in times of crisis

in Antonas’ talk:

Viktor Shlovsky’s idea that art should devise techniques of un-familiarization, and render form difficult. Από τον ποιητικό περνάμε στον πεζό λόγο μέσω του ζωντανού λόγου και χρόνου. Μέσα από την επιστράτευση του ζωντανού χρόνου η τέχνη γίνεται στρατηγική, περισσότερο από τελικό προϊόν. Antagonism introduces the structure to define what is art; through the conflict of groups and ideas. Who creates the flexibility-rigidness of alive time within society? Is there freedom within the staging of a protest, without the predetermination of the theatricality?

in Theodoropoulou ’s talk:

Reference to Rancière, and also to the Internationale Situationniste and the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Define the relation between the spectacle and the spectator regarding the Athens riots. Are we passive subjects or is the state of the spectator a normal state, when everything has turned into a spectacle? Ανάγκη για απενοχοποίηση. The situationist dérive is a state that allows the taking of aesthetic action in this case.

in Stafylakis’ talk:

Το Συμβάν = Ρήξη με την κρατούσα τάξη. Negativity was the GENERIC truth in the riots. The expression of the ultimate “enough is enough”. Ο καλλιτεχνικός τους στόχος η πρόκληση αμηχανίας. πολιτικές της αισθητικής = 1. ΕΥΘΡΑΥΣΤΟ 2. ΕΙΣΒΟΛΗ- ΣΑΜΠΟΤΑΖ ΚΟΥΛΤΟΥΡΑΣ 3.ΠΟΛΙΟΡΚΙΑ. politics of the aesthetics = 1.FRAGILE 2. INVASION- SABOTAGE OF CULTURE 3.SIEGE. Narcissistic demonstartion of fragility.

The politics of the aesthetics is found in three expressions through the riots: 1.the meaning of verbal demonstrations and offering flowers to cops wanted to convey the meaning that WE the people are fragile 2.the activist act of interrupting theatrical premieres and news broadcasting to bring everyone on the streets aimed at questioning the status quo of the mainstream culture 3.the burning down of the tree, its consequent siege by cops, its decoration by garbage, and its partial re-burning has become a performance and the tree a sculpture.

in Kotionis’ talk:

Το Πέταγμα της Πέτρας. Εμψύχωση της πέτρας, μετατροπή της σε πολιτικό ον. Το σώμα που εκκινεί την πέτρα, από σημαινόμενον μετατρέπεται σε σημαίνον γιατί δε φέρει το ίδιο νόημα, αλλά δίνει νόημα στην πέτρα. Το πρόσωπο που δεν φαίνεται πίσω από την κουκούλα τονίζει την απόσυρση του προσώπου και τη φορά της πράξης στο προσκήνιο. Ο λαός ως σωματικό πράττειν. Αποτελείται από ένα σύνολο μοναδικοτήτων (όχι ατομικοτήτων) που συμπράττουν ως ένα. Όπως η πέτρα ερμητική όσο και αν τη διασπάσεις σε κομμάτια, έτσι και το καλυμμένο σώμα του διαμαρτυρόμενου αποτελεί τμήμα του συνολικού πυρήνα του λαού. Ετυμολογία αρχαίας λέξης λαός = πλήθος λίγο πριν μετατραπεί σε δήμο, σε ρευστή από άποψη θεσμών, κατάσταση. Στο σημείο αυτό μπορεί να υπάρξει ο ανταγωνισμός, το πεδίο δράσης του αισθητικού. Στις ρωγμές της καθημερινής έκφρασης.

in Panagiotopoulos’ talk:

There is little sociological research conducted for the middle zones in the social scale because sociologists are mainly concerned with the social extremes (the less or the very favored, the marginalized, the immigrants). In these riots the people on the street, apart from the poorer social groups and the immigrants, were mostly middle class people, people who have always been the core of the system, with the least rebellious acts in history. The middle class, which has always been considered the most conventional, which has normal or high living standards and doesn’t want to change the order of things. So why this time the middle class went on the streets? 1.hyper-modernity lifestyle in conflict with traditional social structures 2.young people (in their late twenties) with an immense background of studies and creativity have been expecting opportunities to influence the political and social debate and have come to realize that there is no democratic stand to speak openly, and take action in the political scene. No way to acquire the power that they thought could be easily granted to them.

in Bishop’s talk:

spectacle & participation. two examples and how the one was successful in its political activism and the other one unsuccessful and why. Projects 1. 2. ++

mention of OVERIDENTIFICATION: “The concept of ‘overidentification’ is a concept drawn from the armoury of psychoanalysis but forged by cultural activists in the Neue Slowenische Kunst into a weapon against Tito Stalinism and contemporary neo-liberalism. Overidentification works because it draws attention to the way the overt message in art, ideology and day-dreaming is supplemented by an obscene element, the hidden reverse of the message that contains the illicit charge of enjoyment. When overidentification brings that double-sided ambivalent aspect of the message to light it can be a more subversive strategy than simple avoidance. However, Žižek’s particular path from psychoanalysis to politics entails some more dubious overidentification tactics that entangle him all the more closely in the ideological apparatus he claims to dismantle.”1

OMIO: http://www.omio.org

PPC_T/Farkadona : http://www.ppc-t.gr/

Reconstruction Community: http://www.reconstruction.gr/

Δίκτυο Νομαδική Αρχιτεκτονική: http://www.nomadikiarxitektoniki.net/homegr.htm

Sarcha: http://www.sarcha-architecture.blogspot.com/

Ομάδα Φιλοπάππου: http://filopapou.blogspot.com/

thesis notes :: 4 | thoughts

AESTHETICS

In the history of philosophy the ‘beautiful’ and the ’sublime’ are two concepts related to the distanced relationship between the individual and the landscape.

beautiful > observation, belongs to understanding, formal, pleasure | admiration

sublime > immersion, belongs to reason, boundlessness, pleasure | but also awe = distance

According to Kant there are two types of the sublime. The mathematical sublime related to the feeling of absolute greatness and the dynamical sublime which can be fearful but doesnt make the subject fear (see wikipedia: the sublime in nature).

How can I use the concepts to produce the inverse effect? I do not wish to induce awe, fear, or the feeling of greatness. An anti-monumental gesture giving way for the small, non-formal, ephemeral expressions/representations of landscape. Move to non-aesthetics, to practical practices which let landscape dissolve into space, and space dissolve into a tangible and personal trace. The creation of a personal trace and a personal mapping of the future becomes a more and more difficult task nowadays, in the context of the commercialization of urban life. Achieving an insight into a systematic approach is essential for expanding people’s understanding of interrelations, without the system being ‘totalitarian’. Moreover, being aware of your personal, unbiased course renders the systematic approach important as well as the overlooked details on a map with hidden turning points. This feeling of elegantly mapping a jumbled ball of thread is what I am trying to infuse in this project.

LAND(scape) PRACTICES:

From Land Art, to Sustainable Architectural Design there has been a multitude of creative practices dealing with landscape in a representational, utilitarian, ecological, sociological or abstract level. I would like to address the physiological act of collecting, because thats where landscape begins; in the selection, the subconscious archiving of elements that are important to the subject. So, there are the Mnemotechnics of the City -archiving through mapping your memory according to narratives- which is more of a psychological/ mental process… And then there is the actual act of collecting, reminding us of the agricultural term harvesting. Now, since collecting is the primary act of ‘landscaping’ then through a metaphor, dropping, or its agricultural equivalent seeding, should signify the process of immersing the subject into the land. I want to investigate land related practices and from there decide upon the final interaction design etc etc.

a nice link: http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/monitoring_guide/land_practice/

thesis notes :: 3 | re-definition

:: re-definition ::

Lands(p)a(c)e is an installation based on the notion of landscape as a generator of spatial experience. Landscape, as a construct, derives from nature with the emergence of the subject, which stands ‘outside’ nature and selects he set of the elements which orchestrate landscape. On the contrary, Lands(p)a(c)e suggests that the subject re-immerses in landscape, through a system of interaction, which in turn creates ‘space’, or put in computational terms, there is a feedback loop underneath the structure of what we call space and landscape and the subject affects it and is affected by it. Lands(p)a(c)e consists of four objects, the ‘landscape agents’ each representing an entity usually identified as part of nature, ie. rocks which will respond to the visitors’ behaviour by moving and making the other agents move, in order to create spatial formations, based on a generative algorithm. The installation will be using a motion tracking system, and will include four kinetic objects within a set grid approximately 3×3 m. It might also involve visual projections and sound.

thesis notes :: 2

> Landscape agents ‘carry’ the message that landscape can shape space within a feedback-loop system of interaction between the subject and landscape.

Landscape appears as the formation of individuality, emerging inside another system of thought and then creating its own set of rules, which distinguish it from its parent principle, Nature. There is an element, which distinguishes landscape from nature, similar to the one distinguishing religion from religiousness. It is a cultural element which signifies the selection of specific signs among others, according to the affect, the ‘visual occupancy’ in this case, of the individual over nature. The spectator selects according to personal criteria the elements that form a unity, systematizes them inside nature and frames them into a principle of thought, the landscape.

Since landscape is formed via the emergence of a one-directional generative cultural system involving the individual and the more ‘universal’ construct of nature, why cant we introduce different types of landscapes or even define landscape as a system that follows the same processes? Similarly, urban landscape forms an entity deriving from systematic organization of cultural processes interacting with the individual. These processes can be schematized (through a computational system in the case of this project) and manifest in different cultural domains. Another suggestion is the inversion of this one-directional cultural process [space -> (via subject) -> landscape] and the attempt to show that landscape through the participation (and not only speculation) of the subject can return space.

> Tools:

Four landscape agents (in the form of sculptural objects- undefined form yet) will be placed in a space. When one is used (touched, squeezed, sat on) it will instigate the reaction of the other agents which will form ephemeral micro-landscapes, by shaping the space around the visitors. I am now looking at Max/MSP/Jitter and motion tracking with the cv.jit package, considering about tracking people’s movements and relating them to a cellular automata matrix which will define the -unpredictable- position of the agents.