adapting craft, adopting technology, expressing nature
[draft
5.5.05]
"The
coral reef of culture was built by short-lived and weak human beings, but its
growth is a fact, not a myth." - E.H. Gombrich
This
Master's Statement is respectfully submitted to Cranbrook
Academy of Art as Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Fine Arts
Richard Nelipovich
Gary Griffin
Head, Metals Department
Artist-in-Residence
The Remix: an introduction
"'…[W]hen
you're really bearing down, and you're thinking two things at once – ideas
bleed over. They mix. They flavor each other. They cook down real rich and fine. That's inspiration. It's the finest mental sensation you'll ever
have.'" (Bruce Sterling in Shaviro 8)
"Databases
in themselves are essentially a fairly dull affair, consisting of discrete
units that are not necessarily meaningful.
The power of databases consists in their relational potential, the
possibility of establishing multiple connections between different sets of data
and constructing narratives about culture." (Paul 178)
The mix of design and
craft, of digital and analog tools, is about cross-fertilization. It's about the interconnections, crossing
wires of old and new, of different fields, of different cultures/subcultures,
of different media, materials, and processes.
It is sexual reproduction rather than cloning, and has the potential to
create new potential. Working within an
isolated tradition (if there is such a thing), options are limited. However, where two related fields have a
dynamic cross-pollinating effect, new things emerge. This project is an investigation within the
space between craft and design, co-inhabited by digital and analog processes
for visualization and making.
In his rhizomatic
book Connected: or what it means to live
in a network society, Steven Shaviro writes about
the recombinations in hip-hop culture as a parallel
to digital processes. "Hip-hop is
an art of recombination; its materials are not words and sounds newly made, but
already-existing fragments of commodity culture, wrenched violently out of
their previous contexts. Or as Walter
Benjamin puts it, 'blasted out of the continuum of history'…Hip-hop is a kind
of linguistic and cultural hacking. Its
experiments are, at one and the same time, interventions in digital code, and
analog movements in and through physical space." (Shaviro
45) DJ Spooky, a.k.a. Paul Miller writes
about this as the contemporary cultural phenomenon of the 'remix',
re-interpreting the familiar via contemporary means. In his book Rhythm Science, he discusses the
changing nature of our digital co-existence, elaborating on the digital
processing of what Amiri Baraka
called 'the changing same'.
"But what happens
when the memories filter through the machines we use to process culture and
become software – a constantly updated, always turbulent terrain more powerful
than the machine through which it runs?...And the software that runs the
machines is the text that flows through the conduits like a flaneur of the unconscious. These are tales told over and over so many
times and in so many ways that the texts undergo rigor mortis while they hum
with the speed of a thousand and one nights.
Murmur to yourself and hear the voices in you head whisper back. That's the logic. Press 'return'. Process. It's a tale of constant change unto
itself. The circuitry of the machines is
the constant in this picture; the software is the embodiment of infinite
adaptability…" (Miller 12)
the natural evolution of craft
With opposable thumbs and capacity
for abstract thought, we primates have the ability to hold and manipulate tools
to achieve imagined ends. Through
symbolic representation, man has the added capacity to use tools to manipulate
symbols, further abstracting our unique abilities as homo faber. Through our conscious evolution, we continue
to develop new tools - cheaper, faster, better, and more enjoyable ways of
doing whatever it is that we do. Over
centuries of accumulated knowledge, we have added enormous capacity in power
and precision to these 5-fingered extensions of ourselves.
With this ubiquitous use of tools,
trying to define what is 'hand made' is a slippery slope and one of the
shortest paths to an argument among craftsman.
Technical arguments are used to prove what are
essentially moralistic positions.
In an attempt to clarify the argument, David Pye
supplants the term 'hand-made' with 'the workmanship of risk' contrasted with
'the workmanship of certainty'. 'Workmanship
of risk' is associated with human-centered processes dependent on judgment and
dexterity, while the 'workmanship of certainty' depends on 'determining-based'
methods of manufacturing using mechanical or computer control. Yet Pye states that,
"In fact the workmanship of risk in most trades is hardly ever seen, and
has hardly ever been known, in a pure form, considering the ancient use of
templates, jigs, machines and other shape-determining systems, which reduce
risk."(Workmanship 10) He goes on
to explain:
"'Handcraft'
and 'Hand-made' are historical or social terms, not technical ones. Their ordinary usage nowadays seems to refer
to workmanship of any kind which could have been found before the Industrial
Revolution…
Now the current idea of handicraft and the
hand-made has been deeply colored by the Arts and Crafts movement; and that
became a movement of protest against the workmanship and aesthetics of the
Industrial Revolution, which it contrasted with handicraft. As a result, I think, the idea has become
accepted that before the Industrial Revolution everything was made without
machines. This was certainly not William
Morris's idea…
It seems fairly clear that to Morris himself
handicraft meant primarily work without division of labour... During the medieval period, [Morris] says,
'there was little or no division of labour, and what
machinery was used was simply of the nature of a multiplied tool, a help to the
workmans' hand-labour and not a supplanter of
it…'" (Pye, Workmanship 10-12)
It is, therefore, a
question of autonomy, not technology, which defines the boundaries of craft. Humans have always worked to extend their
capacity with tools. Gombrich
writes, "To be sure mechanical aids have come to the assistance of
craftsmen at least since the invention of the potter's wheel. Decorators have long used stencils and moulds
and weavers' devices for pattern-making, which as early as 1725 included that
modern tool of automation, the punched card.
They prepared the way for the famous Jacquard loom of 1805. But however important these developments
were, they were not felt to undermine the whole edifice of craft
ethics."(33) It wasn't until separation
by specialization in industrial manufacturing isolated the individual from the whole
of the process that we experienced our loss of participation. The romantic term 'hand-craft' is more about
a level of autonomy that existed at a time when manufacturing was done by an
individual. In Abstracting Craft: the Practiced
Digital Hand, Malcolm McCullough writes, "The degree of personal
participation, more than any degree of independence from machine technology,
influences perceptions of craft in work." (69)
If craft is thus defined by breadth of participation
rather than historical technique, then the technical argument is
irrelevant. The goal is no longer
moralistic preservation but optimistic evolution. Before the reaction to mass-production which
pushed craft into romantic historicism, the crafts were the source of
innovation, product development and new means of manufacturing. Continuing in that tradition today, the
craftsman has the capacity to borrow from industry in the same way that
industry borrows from craft. Technical and
industrial processes are not the enemy; they are an option (an option that can
be recombined with other methods to engender something new). And the maker is free to use any technology
at his fingertips to materialize his vision.
the natural evolution of technology
As science supplants
religion with more convincing explanations of our experience, our vision is
transformed. And as calculus emerged in
the 17th Century to explain concepts for rate of change, the rate of
evolutionary change of technology became exponential. Through an evolutionary process, each successive
technology builds on the knowledge base that preceded it, complementing the
accumulated knowledge in society. And
with each new development evolves new possibilities for application and
expression. Pye
writes:
"In
its early days the Modern Movement… held that machine tools and mechanical
processes, i.e. determining-systems, ought not to be used to reproduce forms
which originated in hand work, but that The
Machine should be used so as to evolve its own characteristic forms."
(Design 60)
Much of modernism worked
to develop characteristic forms for the technology of the time. But for most of the 20th Century
machines followed Euclidean geometry, isolating movement and form development
into arcs and lines. Most books currently
available on the geometry of design reflect the same Euclidean perspective. Today, however, computer-aided design and
manufacturing allows the Machine to
generate objects composed of complex curves and surfaces. And beyond the processes of material removal
and deformation, additive processes have been included in the repertoire of The Machine: SLS,
growth structures in nature
Consider that the Machine
and our 'man-made' reality are not outside of nature, but a continuation of its
evolution, subject to the same physical and mathematical laws. Owen Jones and Gottfried Semper
believed, "…that the designer should follow nature not by imitating
appearances but by applying its inherent laws."(Gombrich
54)
Historically, the applied arts have looked to nature for
inspiration in structure and aesthetics; and today we can look more
deeply. By mapping the human genome, we engender an understanding of the world as
the developmental expression of underlying encoded structure. Through our understanding of chaos and other
complex mathematics, we believe that the world is an expression of emergent
systems. In his book, Emergence: the Connected Lives of Ant,
Brains, Cities and Software, Steven Johnson describes how trees, lungs
and ant colonies emerge through an accumulation of discreet responses based on
a series of simple rules. The study of Fractals, Chaos,
Complex Systems, and Adaptation have changed our understanding of
the development of the form world. What
were mathematical monsters, the 'pathological' exceptions to Platonic and
Euclidean ideal forms, have become natural expressions
of universal systems; clouds and coastlines are not what they used to be. Fractal geometry provides a means of
deconstructing the forms of nature into primitive elements for more complex
compositions based on self-similar, repeating patterns. (Pietgen 256)
As our understanding of nature
changes, so does our interpretive expression of it. Ross Lovegrove calls
this 'Organomics' and explains that:
"As
the boundaries blur, this world will become stranger and less predictable... The irony of all this is that ultimately,
creativity generated by such freedom will lead humankind full circle back to
nature, its organic composition, its purpose, and with it, to forms that will
no longer be limited by our imagination… So far we have only been guessing, but
the beauty of the results from
Biophilia – the nature of our nature
"Yet
man, whatever else he be, is a part of nature. So his artistic world cannot be one of
sharply demarcated opposition to his natural world, but rather must be viewed
as a fluid and continuous extension of his domain as ordinary member of animate
nature, subject to all the limitation of biological reality, into a realm of irreality of his own making, stripped of those
limitations." (Pepes
181)
"Matter,
whether living or dead, when left to itself adjusts its resonances on all
scales, and the resulting structures seem to be based upon much the same
relationships as those which give, or perhaps which actually constitute,
aesthetic satisfaction in the mind of the human observer." (Smith 368)
Man is a product of, as
well as an integral part of, nature. We
tend towards the natural. Edward O. Wilson
"…proposed the existence of a genetic basis for the human predilection
towards the natural world. This concept,
which
Paul Weiss detailed some
of the structure of our biophilic proclivity:
"(1)
The pleasing aspects of organic forms stem from their
high degree of general regularity combined with an infinite variety of
detail. (2) The order expressed in the
developed form, however, is but the result of the orderliness of the underlying
formative processes which have led to the formed product and have left their
imprint on it: what we read in the finished form is the historic record of it
formation. (3) Even if two organic
systems were to start out in absolute identity, the fact that in their
subsequent developmental histories they would be faced with non-identical
incidents and environmental contingencies would necessarily make for divergence
in the details of their final products.
(4) Yet, since their over-all results still turn out to be reasonably
similar, we realize that capricious and unpredictable deviations form the
standard course must have been kept, if not strictly in line, certainly within
a safe margin by the governing action of their respective systems, which resist
disruption; a system owes its orderly self-realization and self-preservation to
its very capacity to moderate or compensate the excesses of its members. (5) The over-all result thus gives us the
satisfying impression of a collective task well accomplished by the harmonious
cooperation under mutual control of members of a group which, but for these
restraints, would yield blind chaos. (6)
The viability of an organic form depends on the precarious balance between
rigidity of overall design on the one hand and flexibility of adjustment left
to its execution on the other; too much aberrance on one side or the other
would jeopardize survival. This is the
biological foundation of what we call 'sense of proportions.'" (188-9)
I would like to focus on
the third point from Weiss' list: organic systems that may start from an
identical position, inevitably diverge into unique
outcomes. This is the biophilic explanation for variance. Nothing in our biological surroundings is a
direct duplication – nature is very efficient that way. Reproduction in nature,
whether the splitting of an amoeba or the replication of DNA, inevitably
results in slight mutations, which, over time, translate into significant
changes. [It is interesting that a culture that is morally opposed to
human cloning (the neo-conservative
In evolutionary terms, nature creates variety to ensure
survival – multiple mutations are generated, and only some will thrive and
survive. There is no one answer to
continuously changing environmental conditions, no way of predicting the
future. So the best answer at any given
moment is the greatest number of answers possible, some of which will succeed
and propogate.
In capitalist terms, the market decides – not the designer. But 'the market' is lulled into a simulation
of choice giving limited variations on at theme – Coke or Pepsi, Republican or
Democrat, Verizon or Cingular. Agreeing to choose, one has already chosen to
participate in a system that limits choices.
What if designers mimicked nature, and designed greater and greater
varieties of things, letting individual choice decide what goes forward? What if the options generated are an offshoot
the individual himself? Why not design for variety, for distinction, for
individual nuance, as nature does?
The perception of difference
Our biophilic
draw to the natural includes an acute awareness of the subtleties of variance
in nature. In Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Christopher Alexander writes that
it is "…departures from the norm which stand out in our minds, rather than
the norm itself. Their wrongness is
somehow more immediate than the rightness of less peculiar behavior, and
therefore more compelling." (22)
Similarly, Gombrich wrote of our attention to
difference, saying "…it is the break in visual continuities which is
noticed most easily, a contrast in colour, texture,
form, or, most of all, movement which suggests the presence of a separate
object or an event meriting attention.
In following such indications and shifting our eye we will inevitably
look for confirmation of our confused impression: sometimes a mere sampling
glance will suffice, while other situations will demand prolonged
scrutiny." (Gombrich 100)
This awareness by difference then keys in our scrutiny in
perception, moving from Gombrich's idea of 'seeing'
to 'attending', or from an unnoticed equilibrium in the dynamic of 'seeing,
knowing, and expecting' to a more actively engaged investigation. This scalar interaction is the dynamic at
play in nature as well as in ornament – giving the viewer a range of
experiences at varying distances and intensities of engaged perception. It is a fractal notion of perception, that
complexity exists at a macro or micro scale, at each level of magnification or
proximity, the viewer has a distinct arrangement of parts to entertain and
observe through a system of 'seeing, knowing, and expecting', developing a
familiarity with the language of elements in a given syntax.
For instance, observe a
tree. To define the object as a tree, it
must be separated/singled out of its environment – the
tree is a thing distinct from its surroundings.
This thing has an overall shape, filled by its various components: the
leaves, branches, trunk, and roots. In
order to observe those components, they too must be categorically distinguished
from their surroundings by their overall form.
The leaves shift from being a mass to a collection of individual
elements, each leaf its own shape filled by it's own
branching structure and chlorophyll-laden cell structure. Moving in or moving away, there is a
perceived order based on the resolution of what is observed. The mind deconstructs the components as much
as necessary to assess the scene, and goes on to looking for exceptions to the
system established. It's how we are able
to drive while talking on the phone, changing the radio station, and eating a
cheeseburger at the same time – we are observing overall consistency and
scanning for unexpected changes. This
works in space and in space-time – sitting still or in-motion, our perceptual
systems establish a norm of activity, and then scan for changes.
Our attention to difference is based in the ability to
establish a 'norm' from which the scrutinized will be differentiated. "We could not function if we were not
attuned to certain regularities. This
tuning, moreover, could never have come about by learning; on the contrary, we
could never have gathered any experience of the world if we lacked that sense
of order which allows us to categorize our surroundings according to degrees of
regularity, and its obverse." (Gombrich 113)
What is important here is the idea of the 'changing
same'. Subtle changes over time create a
'motion picture' – each frame is almost identical, yet slightly different, from
the next, creating a dynamic that is perceived as motion. Imagine trying to watch a movie that was a
series of non-sequential snap-shots – thirty-two frames per second or
randomness: continuity is lost and the mind searches for associations (if it
can distinguish individual images at all!).
Similarly, in fashion each season evolves the previous into something
'new'. But it cannot be altogether new –
a human faced with completely unfamiliar surroundings goes into psychological
shock. It must be familiar enough to be
accepted into the greater cultural context, but different enough to be
distinguished from the preceding season.
"In
art…[t]he requirement is simply that parts of some
kind be perceptible and relatable to each other by the operations of the mind
as the eye scans and compares, noting connections, invariances,
symmetries, deletions, and modifications while mentally changing scale and
orientation, and relating the current sensual input to other forms and concepts
from recent experience or from more deeply embedded memory. Aesthetic pleasure seems to come as a kind of
moire' pattern emerging on a higher level from the
superposition of sensed and remembered images, somewhat as the experience of
the third dimension arises from binocular vision. It is what is left over when what is expected
has been canceled out. It seems always
to involve some interaction between what is immediately visible and features on
scales both above and below this… The eye is repulsed by complexity if no order
is detected, but it can be delighted by repetition, translation, rotation,
reflection, magnification, and other simple variations of the parts. As more levels of hierarchy can be
constructed from the simple initial components, the richer becomes the experience."
(Smith 385)
Variance
It is impossible for
Western man to think 'outside of the box':
his entire manufactured world is based on 90-degree relationships of
perpendicular planes. But what if the
natural laws responsible for variance were used to generate the forms of our
man-made manufactured world? Aaron Betsky has stated that, "the nature of how form
emerges out of chaos or data itself can…create form." Modernism
and the Industrial Revolution standardized production. Prioritizing consistency over variety,
quantity over quality, industry took the lowest cost approach to serially
produce identical multiples. The Craft
Revival fought to sustain the unique object through more autonomous, human-centered
means of production. Walter Benjamin
wrote of the loss of 'aura' through mechanical reproduction, and David Pye described determining-systems creating products,
"pouring out in an absolutely predetermined form with no possibility of
variation between them." (Workmanship 5)
These laments are based in duplication, on methods of manufacture that
create copies of an original prototype.
In an essay titled 'The
Technologies of Self-Fashioning', Tufan Orel explains that the model-series relationship of
duplication is not the only possible format.
He describes another option, that of theme and
variation, where each reproduction in the series is a unique application of the
model with changes. In this type of
system, the outcome varies rather than duplicates the model. (
This is a significant part of nature
typically overlooked by mass production. Pye writes that, "In
every natural organism we see a dichotomy between idiosyncrasy and conformity
to the pattern of the species. No two
leaves of the same tree are precisely alike, each is individual: yet every one
of them conforms to a recognizable pattern characteristic of the species."
(Workmanship 30) As a part of this
natural order, our perceptual skills are tuned to change, and we are drawn to
such variation. Karim
Rashid writes, "By nature, our evanescent imaginations thirst for
constantly changing stimuli. Drawn into
the realm of discovery, we seek out alternatives and search for new
possibilities." (29)
Pleasure in perception exists somewhere between monotony
and confusion, where there is a level of order that keeps the eye moving
without overwhelming the mind. (Owen Jones in Gombrich
54) Identical elements are quickly rendered into
pattern as the mind searches for peculiarities and differences. Gombrich explains
that, "The perception of regularity, of repetition and redundancy,
presents a great economy. Faced with an
array of identical objects, whether they are the beads of a necklace, the
paving stones of a street, or the columns of a building, we rapidly form the
preliminary hypothesis that we are confronted with a lawful assembly, and we
need only sample the elements for redundancies by sweeping our eye along the
whole series and just taking in one repeating component."(151)
If, however, one perceives complexity through variety,
self-similar rather than self-replicating elements, then the eye can continue
searching for relationships. Twins are
intriguing because of the challenge to distinguish their differences. A bouquet of flowers provides a different
perceptual engagement than a blender.
Towards a new system of production and a new
aesthetic
If
Part of the beauty of nature is constant flux. If it's true that our cultural cravings and
perceptual systems evolved in-tandem with nature, then it is no wonder that we
find pleasure in variety! How can we
re-establish that sense of variety in the products we surround ourselves with
in our man-made world? The leaders of
the Craft Revival advocated 'the hand' as the savior against the machine,
returning to individual making as a social resistance to the homogenization of
machine culture. The craft world has long
heralded the individual object as a metaphor for humanity. Ruskin, Morris, and Ashbee
sought the value of individual expression as a social force against the
dominance of machine monotony. But they
lost the war, and the mighty Bic pen won out over the
hand-made fountain-pen, in a large part because of cost. The middle class wanted [and even the lower
class later attained] what only the upper class could previously afford because
of mass-production.
However, "Even C.R. Ashbee,
founder of the Guild of Handcraft in
The Craft Revival failed to achieve the goal of
individuation in mass production. But
new means of flexible manufacturing could attain what an earlier generation sought
to accomplish. Ruskin might turn in his
grave at this suggestion, as it does not share the same romanticism for the
pleasure of autonomous work and individual production via handwork. But it does share the goal of individual
production for the masses, personal objects for every-day use.
As digital manufacturing processes open up new means of
making, they will also afford new aesthetic formats. Peter Fuller, in his insightful essay 'The
Search for a Postmodern Aesthetic, advocates a rejection of modernist machine
aesthetics and looks to the emergence of a new aesthetic rooted in nature via
digital processes. He explains that,
"…the problem for a new aesthetics based on an imaginative response to
nature, on the recovery of biophilia, has been our
inability to 'read' and make sense of these 'natural languages', or to find any
affective symbolic equivalents for them.
But it may be that it is just here that the higher mathematics, physics
and new information processing procedures associated with advances in computer
technology, can help. Of course, a new
aesthetic will spring out of new beliefs, not out of a new technology; but like
Modernism itself, the postmodern structures and patterns will be informed and
shaped by new technologies. I hope,
however, they will be expressive of very different sorts of values … which
emphasize our sense of belonging to and unity with the Nature of which we are a
part." (Fuller 130) , 'The Search for a Postmodern Aesthetic, Peter Fuller, in
Design After Modernism
Organic Programming
Utilizing natural
simulations in programming, we can create generative systems for the design and
manufacture of objects of use. By integrating
the mathematical structures of nature responsible for such variety, along with
the continuous changeability of computer-controlled manufacturing systems, each
object produced has the potential to be an original, sharing characteristics and
evolutionary history with its sibling (same genetic code, different expression). In music, the score is only the
description that must be interpreted through the performance. But how does one notate improvisational
jazz? There must be room for the
unexpected and unpredictable, the evolutionary and unfolding.
What if objects are
generated like trees; if the object is the expression of the entelechy, or
intention, not in an absolute way, but more through methods of suggestion
rather than command, evolutionary rather than deterministic. In writing code to generate objects, elements
of organic growth can be included.
Describing such generative systems, McCullough explains:
"The
individual parameters shape the kinds of variational
excursions that may be made. Moreover,
the initial establishment of all parameters frames exactly one design world,
and nothing the variational process can do will
change that. Thus the design process
really occurs in two stages: composing a structure, and then exploring the
consequences of that structure." (229)
Negotiating the space
between control and chaos, allowing the affordances of unpredictability to be a
significant part of the process of form generation is akin to the 'happy
accident' of craft. One cannot know the
outcome until the process is complete. Describing
similarities in software development, Steven Johnson writes, "The first
few decades of software were essentially creationist in philosophy – an
almighty power wills the program into being.
But the next generation is profoundly Darwinian."(Johnson 169)
From hand to machine and back again
In this enhanced cyborg reality, as we reprocess cultural content, the
'digital' enhances our man-made reality.
But because we are physical, sentient beings processing our empirical
experience through multi-sensory input, it is important to acknowledge the need
for the digital to cycle back to the analog for our apprehension. We do not think, see, or feel in binary. Sound, image, and touch are the major inputs,
followed by synaesthetic experiences of taste and
smell. Even for the DJ, the input
involves human physical interaction, whether pushing a button or scratching a record, and the output resonates in a roomful of writhing
bodies through the drums in our ears.
The digital exists as a
product of the analog. "…[A]s Brian Massumi insists,
the digital is never autonomous or complete unto itself; it is always
'sandwiched between an analog disappearance in code…and an analog appearance
out of code.'" (45 Shaviro) Whether considered as a process that takes
place in a manufactured physical chip, an action executed through an interface
(be it a light-sensor or keyboard), or a virtual object made through a series
of mouse clicks – digital processes are a manifestation of analog inputs. The development of the digital is dependent
on a feedback loop through the analog.
The most immediate example of this is the hand-eye coordination of the
mouse interface (McCullough). The hand
moves the mouse moves the cursor, the eye sees the cursor, tracks the motion;
the brain redirects the hand to redirect the mouse… It is a cyclical feedback loop through physical+artificial intelligence, executed dynamically,
on-the-fly.
Expand this model to the processes of computer aided
design and manufacturing. Just as one
follows the signs and feedback of moving a knife through a loaf of brad, the
process of moving from physical to virtual to physical is an informative feedback
cycle of input and output. At each step
there are affordances and limitations of the tools being used. Consider a virtual cad model executed through
a series of mouse clicks and menu choices then output to a 3D prototyping
machine to manifest a physical representation of the virtual model. That step requires a translation resulting in
changes to the form (like the old game of 'telephone', where an idea is
whispered from one person to the next resulting in a radical transformation via
sequential shifts in translation creating an informational butterfly
effect). Most 3D prototyping processes
divide a model into a stack of layers to varying degrees of resolution,
resulting in tiny visible steps in the model.
The grainy, opaque, stepped, slightly warped object result from a Z-corp prototyping machine is surprisingly far from the
digital rendering of the virtual model.
This can be supremely disappointing, or 'happy accident' resulting from
the process.
Tightening the loop
With the tools of
industrial design and production becoming more accessible, both technically and
financially, the divisions of labor decried by Morris are being reversed. Just as a single individual using desktop
publishing technology can now run a publishing house or recording studio from
their living room, so they will soon be able to build their own integrated
manufacturing plant and design office. William
Gibson said, "The Future is already here, it's just unevenly
distributed." Desktop manufacturing
systems are being designed to not only manifest a form, but to manufacture a
product replete with internal circuitry and user-interface. In his book, I Want to Change the World,
Karim Rashid writes:
"Desktop
manufacturing allows a consumer to build a three-dimensional object using a
device such as a 3-D printer…Products, fashion, and accessories, interior
space, sports equipment and much more will all be highly customizable, highly
personalized, and possibly designed by any individual…Manufacturers will
greatly expand their use of new 4-D computer numeric machinery, tooless production, and other sophisticated production
methods to make individually specified products in mass-production cycles."
(27)
Through the process of
making, by whatever means chosen, one must negotiate the space between vision
and actualization. Whether drawing or
drilling, there is a feedback loop between action and reaction that informs
process. By tightening the loop,
speeding the circuit of communication between visualization and tangible
production, the process of design and making becomes a more direct manipulation
of material. Reading the prototype is
like reading the saw cut or hammer-mark – action, affect, adjustment,
action… It's a conversation with the
medium through process. Discussing how
this applies in the digital context, McCullough writes:
"The
essence of this coupling is that the input to physical fabrication operations
is symbolic, and the output from geometric deviations is tangible. Tightening this loop between conception and
execution has the potential to reconcile some of the separation of design and
fabrication that industrialization had previously imposed on craft. Thus, after two centuries of separation, the
conception and execution of everyday objects are once again in the same
hands…"(178-179)
"Perhaps
this has less in common with traditional craft than with industrial
design. Perhaps the reunion of
intellectual and mechanical activities enabled by design computing, however,
may create a condition that combines some of the individuality and
responsiveness of craft with the process control of industry to create
something new." (185)
Returning to the idea of
craft as breadth of participation, we now have a new model of something between
craft and design, more akin to a throwback to when craftsmen made the products
of a society. Something between mass
production and the 'hand-made', a way of applying the rules of nature to the
processes of making to engender individual functional objects on a
mass-production scale.
Designer as Programmer
"Digital code is a
universal medium of exchange, like money: it makes any given object
commensurate with any other. The ideal
of modernist aesthetics is thus ironically realized: in the digital realm, form
and content are one. It is no longer
possible to make the old distinction between ideas (which cannot be
copyrighted) and specific expressions of those ideas (which can)." (47 Shaviro)
Code is currency,
it is an equalizing environment that is text as object. In this case - rule structures are the basis
of form evolution. The specific outcome
is an emergent result of the execution of the program – the idea is scripted,
the result is experienced. What is the
designer responsible for – what is the designer's product? In this case, the designer is a
programmer. The designer determines the
parameters, established the structure and the basis of form generation. The user then executes the process (possibly
with selective interactive stages of input) and generates the final digital
virtual form. The manufacturer (or
computer-aided manufacturing system) then creates the physical object based on
the digital information, adhering as best as possible (what are the
tolerances?) to the virtual model, adding another step of human decision-making
affecting the outcome.
John Frazer of the Architectural Association in
In a sense, this structure democratizes the design
process. Instead of a catalog of
options, there is an emergent catalog of variants, the trajectory of which is
determined by the user. The foundation
of options is determined by the designer/programmer, but depending on the
degree of freedom for the elements to intermix and create new possibilities,
the range of options can grow exponentially, leaving the initial format far
behind. This is seen in Carl Simms
evolutionary systems, where re-combinations of generative mutations create
unexpected complex developments. Carl Chu is another architect working with these digital
emergent processes, creating algorithms that interact to create space and
structure, "electronically induced ethereal space", rather than the
more direct where codes create an architecture to fit
an environment. (Steele 141)
"Far
more fundamental changes take place with virtual art objects that are
open-ended 'information narratives' with a fluctuating structure, logic, and
closure, where control over content, context and time is shifted to the
respective recipient through interaction.
These types of works can take numerous forms with varying degrees of
control over their visual appearance by the artist or the audience." (Paul
67-68)
How much control does the
designer/programmer maintain or how much is permitted to the process? How much control does the user have in this
'democratized' environment? Consider
that any software environment is a collection of options: for example, do you allow Microsoft Word to
auto-format a document? Yes, if you are
working in that software, you have no choice; it is just a matter of
degree. Try writing surrealist poetry in
Word, and you will quickly find how much your expression is controlled by the
tools being used. In object design, a
well-trained eye can determine which CAD software was used to generate a virtual
model, based on the nuance of the tools used (similar to reading hammer-marks
on a hand-raised vessel: did the smith use a planishing
hammer or a ball-pein, or maybe a cross-pein?) "[T]echnology and the tools it provides reshape the tasks it is
used for, as well as the meaning of those tasks and the characteristics of its
users." (Steele, 16)
So the tool affords a limited range of possibilities to
the user. What about customizing the
tools? As Mike Cooley explains in an
essay titled From Brunelleschi to CAD-CAM, "The
computer excels in analysis and numerical computation, the human mind in
pattern recognition, the assessment of complicated situations and the intuitive
leap to new solutions. If these
different abilities can be combined, they amount to something much more
powerful and effective than anything we have had before." (Cooley 205) Hybridizing the human-computer skillsets, the designer/programmer can maximize the symbiotic
potential of digital tools by climbing behind the GUI (graphical user
interface) and making changes. By including
flexibility and interactive development in the digital environment, the tools
can grow and change, departing from, but still a product of, the original
intention. Interestingly, programming is
done in a language with its own limitations (whether it is Visual Basic or
C++). In Rhino, a derivation of Visual
Basic, VBScript, is used to drive the command structure of Rhino3D – it ends up
being like using sign language to a direct a crane operator; the communication is
very limited, but effective.
One of the departures here is that the designer is making
the tools he uses. This is similar to
the tradition of the blacksmith – for whom, if a project warrants a tool that
is not at-hand, such as a chisel or particular tongs, then the smith makes it
[interestingly from the same material (or medium) that he will then be
affecting with the tool: in this case, steel].
The designer/programmer creates his own toolbars, buttons, and icons,
tailored to the job at hand – fulfilling the evolutionary role as homo-faber, or tool maker, using the medium to affect the
medium. By customizing tools, one learns
more about how they work, and opens up new possibilities for what they might
do. By getting behind the scenes of the
virtual stage of digital design, a new level of control and exploration is
exposed.
Summary of the process:
A synopsis:
Inspiration, simulation,
optimization, generation, materialization
An expanded synopsis:
The process starts with an
observed structure in nature, a formal motif found in organic systems. Identify the underlying elements of the
structure – deconstruct it into curves, forms, volumes, shapes… and their
formal relationships. Create a visual
representation of a similar structure in CAD in as few steps as possible. Write a program to generate that visual
structure. Add randomness to the program
and see where it leads. Identify a
function for the form generated. Tweak
the parameters of the program so that the form generated fulfills the function.
The randomizers in the
code create the variance in the individual forms generated. Introducing randomness is
simple – most programming languages have a random number generator built
in; it's just a matter of building that into the code with useful parameters.
Through small changes of a
few variables, radically different forms and patterns can emerge. Think of a code as a systematic execution of
a series of actions - the 'butterfly effect' from chaos thinking means that a
small change early on results in unpredictably large changes over time. Thus, the resulting forms exist as a function
of change feeding back into itself to create unpredictable outcomes. Simple rules iterated over thousands of times
create complex behavior – this is the basis of emergent systems in nature.
In the cycle of analog to digital and back to analog, the
process moves from an observation of the physical world (analog) into a virtual
simulation (digital) via keyboard as physical interface - text begets actions
in software, which begets three-dimensional forms in a CAD environment. The ultimate goal of the process, however, is
to create functional objects, not visual representations. Therefore, the virtual forms must be
materialized into a durable, functional form – in this case, the silverware
must be made in a material that allows the forms to function. Certainly there is value to pure formal and
visual exploration in the virtual environment, but that exploration can only be
taken to a level of synaesthetic haptic
interaction with a physical material object.
There is a wealth of experience in the moment a spoonful of honey
touches the tongue that just cannot be conveyed on a screen.
Evolution in thinking, technology, and culture happens in
incremental stages, connecting tradition to change, moving to the new by
melding it with the known. Because of
this, the final material and overall functional format were kept rather
conservative, allowing the unique elements to be carried on a familiar format: the generative organic aesthetic, the
variance in form, the textures resulting from process, and the hollow
construction (of ornament as structure) – are apprehended within a familiar
archetype. The final pieces are made in sterling silver, the traditional alloy
for silverware in the
Prototyping
In order to materialize
these forms, I used a prototyping process that builds in wax and acrylic. Specifically, the models were built using a 3-D Systems Envision Multi-jet Modeler. This particular process was chosen over
All RP process I am familiar with operate
by building the model in layers. An
otherwise continuous solid is divided into slices as thin as each pass of the
machine (generally about .003", or about the thickness of a piece of
paper, though processes can range from .0001 to .1" in layer
thickness). All rapid prototyping
processes have resolution limitations – this means that at some level of
magnification, one can see the steps between the layers. Typically, RP parts are sanded and painted to
regain the smooth contours of the CAD model.
Because of the interior spaces and high level of detail in these models,
a fairly high-resolution process was required.
And because, in this case, the model was to be later burned out of an
investment mold, it had to be made of combustable
material. In order to reduce the visual
impact of the steps in the Envision models, the process imbeds a small amount
of wax in the models – when heated, the wax fills the
steps and smoothes the surface.
Additionally, these models were coated with a natural shellac that was
buffed to create smooth surfaces where desired.
In some areas, such as the bowls of the spoons and blades of the knives,
the wax was dissolved away to reveal the layers of the build process, creating
a visible texture that resembles Damascus steel or weathered/sand-blasted wood,
though the pattern is broken by faceted angular lines. The texture was kept in these select areas as
a continuation of the intention to embrace the process of generation, allowing
the unpredictable to emerge through process, and to simulate the processes of
nature. Additionally, the resulting
aesthetic parallels the organic forms of the work.
Once the models were selectively finished with the wax
and shellac, they were cast in sterling using traditional lost-wax investment
casting processes. To briefly summarize
that process: the model is put into a
steel flask and surrounded with a high-temperature plaster, leaving a single
opening to the model at the top of the flask.
The flask is placed in a furnace for several hours while the model is
burned away through the opening, leaving an open cavity. Then, molten metal is poured into the opening,
filling the cavity left by the model.
The plaster is broken away, and the metal piece is ready for finishing.
This process goes back to
ancient Greek and Chinese bronze casting (though we have made a few technical
changes over the years). The silver
pieces are finished using a variety of metalsmithing
techniques, from filing and sanding to sand-blasting and tumbling. Each piece is oxidized and tumbled for the
final finish.
A bit more about the form
The silverware is inspired
by systems in nature, specifically branching structures and aquatic
tentacles. The overall structure of the
handle is composed of six ascending sine curves, three on each side wrapping
around the overall form of the handle, mirrored to create
bilateral-symmetry. The sine curves
define the path of tapered surfaces with a circular cross section – so each one is a sort of tapered wire,
thickest at the far end of the handle (terminating in a small sphere), and
thinnest at the neck of the utensil (terminating in a small ellipsoid). The overall structural effect is of a
perforated tapered tube, creating a hollow structure that is light and
strong. The ellipsoid shapes cluster
together to create a robust transition to the utility end of the utensil,
mimicking transition points in nature such as joints.
The spoons are inspired by leaf forms, with structural
veins along the center and perimeter where tapered vines blend into the
surface. The randomness of the program
generates a variety of shapes and depths for the spoon bowls, and the surface
is textured by the layers of the prototyping build.
The knife blade parallels forms in nature such as seaweed
or aquatic fins (ie tadpole tail) with a rippling
spine and thin undulating surface. Here
again, the aesthetic forms are also functional structures – the thick spine
supports the thin blade, and the ripples act as ribs that support forces
perpendicular to the blade edge.
The fork tines are a continuation of the ascending sine
curves of the handle. The number of
tines, as with the number of veins on the spoon and knife, follow the Fibonnocci sequence prevalent in nature (1,2, 3, 5…). [It is
more common to find elements in nature that split into 2, 3, or 5 directions
than it is to find those that split into 4, thus the rarity of the four-leaf
clover…] The randomness of the code
causes the tines to overlap in unpredictable ways, though generally the outside
tines are of mirrored symmetry around the center tine. Each tine tapers from the neck of the handle
down to the tip, again a structural consideration – a tapered beam, like a flag
pole or cantilevered bridge.
I have described the
process of 'Programmer-As-Designer' as defining the parameters and letting the
program execute within those parameters, similar to defining a Product Design
Specification (or PDS) and asking a group of designers to ideate within the
parameters. And there are structural,
aesthetic, and manufacturing considerations at every stage of the process, from
programming to polishing.
About the aesthetic of the finished silverware
It has been noted by
numerous individuals that the silverware that came out of this process looks
baroque or gothic, and I would like to explain that
this is a byproduct of the process more than a direct aesthetic intention. Ornament throughout history, from cave
painting to Islamic pattern-making, has been influenced by nature. In gothic work, and objects from the Craft
Revival, the value of variance is viewed as a reflection of nature, as well as
a reflection of the nature of man, his work, and in his pleasure in the
perception of variety.
Though I was studying historical
ornament while designing these pieces, there are very strong systems
establishing the parameters of the ornamentation of those periods which this
work does not follow.
Additionally, there are elements that are wholly digital (such as the
linear faceting of the grain pattern in the surfaces of the spoon and knife),
which may at first appear to be a 'natural' pattern, but at closer inspection
are digital. If anything, I would
categorize this work as digital-baroque, or fractal-rococo.
It is interesting that when trying to simulate nature via
digital processes, and allowing the systems established in the program to guide
the overall aesthetic, that the end result so immediately reflects historical
ornament that grew from the same inspiration via different means. Something as simple as a sine wave, our
notation for the transfer of sound and light, when used as the foundation of an
emergent structure, results in a form that reflects natural structures and
historical ornament.
This work is not historical, it is contemporary. In the same way that the process of its
development is an integration of old and new
technology, the appearance and format is also a reflection of the past in the
present, all of which exists in the work in a way that could only exist today.
Future Evolution
The future intention for
this project is to further simulate processes in nature and to incorporate
multiple generations of recombinations of variants in
order to magnify the generative power of the system and bring it closer to the
processes of evolution/natural selection.
As it is, this silverware represents a single generation of mutations. What, then, are the conditions to determine
which individuals will propagate the species and their code 'DNA'? Because the goal of this system is to
generate functional aesthetic objects, their ability to function and
aesthetically please the user are the determining criteria; the user will be
the filter or the 'natural' selection in this system. The hope is to develop a system of
progressive evolution based on generations of mutations, where the user chooses
which variants become the basis for the next generation, until a set of
satisfactory parameters are reached.
Those parameters then define the final generation of models.
An early investigation of
this is a vase generation program. The
program generates 5 variations of a tall cylindrical form. The user is prompted to select one of those
forms, which subsequently becomes the basis for the next generation of 5
variations. However, this next
generation has less variation, and all of the parameters are within a smaller
range of the chosen model. This goes on
for 5 cycles, with each one the models become less and
less varied. At the last round, the
overall height is varied so the user can choose the scale of the output. The user is then given several organic
textures to choose for the surface – one or more of these textures will grow
over the final surface to create a three-dimensional surface texture.
This is a form of progressive evolution via interactive
design. Unlike the typical process of
custom design or product design models, where a designer generates a few
variants to choose from – here random recombinations
create unpredictable outcomes which, over several generations, can create
radically different and unforeseeable forms.
It is a process of infinite potential rather than finite optimization.
Tele-manufacturing
The possibility exists to
move more thoroughly into a forum of tele-manufacturing:
"'telemanufacturing',
the possibilities of digitally 'teleporting' forms, which can then be created
at a specific site on an 'as needed, where needed' basis. Through telemanufacturing,
virtual 3D forms can be remotely translated into a haptic
experience – an idea and form, conceived anywhere, can literally be at your
fingertips. Affordable 3D printers will
probably be introduced to the mass market in the not too distant future,
establishing another level of physicality for digitally transmitted
information." (65 Paul)
This type of interactive design development and formal
output could be done on-line, from your local Starbucks, with the physical
output Fed-Ex'ed to you home the next day. Mass customization via
personalization and flexible manufacturing, with a little help from Fed-Ex.
Conclusion
If the atelier includes
desktop manufacturing, what are the characteristic forms that The Machine should now be used to
evolve? Additionally, what is the
expression of our understanding of the world of which we are a part, including developments
in fractals, chaos theory and emergent systems?
This understanding of
technology is an evolutionary growth ring on the accumulated knowledge of
mankind, and that ring will have an expression determined by its unique
environmental conditions. My goal is to
be part of the evolutionary process as we find new ways of expressing our
understanding through objects. I am a
designer and maker of functional decorative objects and intend to participate optimistically in the current
context of design and manufacturing. The question for me is, what is the expression
of this worldview in the overlapping area of metalsmithing
and product design, what is the next
piece of hollowware or tableware?
My interest is in utilizing natural growth references
while being careful not to duplicate earlier interpretations (i.e. neoclassical
acanthus leaves, vine scrolls, etc). Instead,
I am working to find an expression of those ideas fitting to the processes
involved. What is Fractal Rococo? Somewhere between the acanthus leaf and the fractal
Julia set is an aesthetic that is both natural and digital. I am working with familiar typologies and
developing their forms through application of self-similar, repeating, and
continuously varying elements, attempting to develop an impossibly organic
overall appearance.
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