Char Davies a visionary ahead of her time

After seeing the presentation today about Char Davies i feel that she is a visionary ahead of her time. In the middle 90s she was creating 3D worlds that would become common place in 10-15 years and beyond. The ways in which she was thinking of the compilations and space and the movement through leads me to think of my architectural training. This is the here and now and this is the technology that we are employing. Almost all studio projects and ever increasingly in the office setting, things are being conceptualized and drafted in 3-dimensions using similar technology employed by Char. 

By me saying shes a visionary i ment that in the middle 90's she had this software that very few architectural and engineering firms possessed. Thus she created something and watched the curve slowly catch up, and eventually pass her. Which had me thinking what does the future hold in store. 

Im sure within the next decade games will be played with this technology, but im wondering when rooms and worlds are created to house these games. When are moving floors and infinite rooms going to pop up on the gaming grid. Makes me wonder. 

Manson's "Posthuman"

I was just sitting here trying to write this paper when itunes throws an old song at me that fits perfectly to our class discussions. Marilyn Manson's "Posthuman". Now i let the song play through and then played it again and listened carefully. Listened to the lyrics and tried to interpret what they meant and what he was trying to say.

this isnt god

this isnt god

god is just a statistic

what does this mean, what is the underlying message to the song. The way i took it was that god is dead to modern society. God is no longer the force which governs our life, he is just a statistic. Now weve always been told the god created man in his own image, so if god is dead then what does that make us. God created "man" in his image so everyone born post downfall of religion is not truly "human" they are "posthuman".

Basic Elements of "Humanity"

We as a class have been having lots of conversations on what differentiates a person from a robot or a cyborg. Are there any differences? or has the line gotten so blurred that the two species are interchangeable and we intermingle unnoticed.

 

With modern science the possibilities are almost endless, things can be done that have never been done before and they can and are being done in the most seamless ways imaginable. Which lends the possibilities any physical or mental attributes null and void. So i was thinking on a more primitive and more basic human level. Desires, what does the "heart and soul" truly want. Sexuality, it drives the modern world, everything revolves around this simple act. Promiscuity is something that is undoubtedly human based. We may be able to program robots to have feelings for another person and/or object be we cannot program anything to truly love, for we dont even know or understand the true reason. Another attribute that separates humans from robots and cyborgs is anger, aggression and fear; "the passion for violence". Again this is something that we understand little about; we know the triggers but we dont truly understand what the tipping point is and why for no reason we can snap. 

So i have come to the conclusion that the only true way to separate a human from a robot/cyborg is through its truest and deepest emotional desires. Although we can program them to have feelings and desires we cannot program them to have these things from their own emotions and their own experiences. I do however fear that soon there will be a machine or something that will take its inherited data and background information and interrupt it to create its own true emotions and desires. 

Summer Break in Quonset RI

Break was extremely relaxing and it gave me time to catchup on the simple things but it also gave me time to go and see the Quonset Point Air Show. This was an amazing experience and something that i will remember forever.

At the show there were  the British Red Arrows, F-15, F-18, Harrier, C-17 and Blackhawks; Unreal. You pitch your seat on the tarmac just some 150-200 yards from the landing strip, and then you sit back and enjoy a phenomenal show. the F-15 and F-18s we both flying 50 yards above the landing strip, which was again 150 or so yards infront of use, and they were doing so at break neck speeds 400-500 mph+. Then one of the base reserves walked by and i stopped him and asked how fast they were flying; he told me that the F-15 was hitting .96 of mach 1, they could go faster because they wouldve broke all the windows within a 5 mile radius. Now you can only imagine the speed and the sound created by these planes. They also had a Harrier there, which is know for its vertical takoffs and landings. Now the Harrier couldnt do this at Quonset because the runway is asphalt and it wouldve melted it, so instead they had the pilot fly the plane backwards and do a hover  for about a minute. They also had several Blackhawks that would fly in formation and drop people cars and supplies from them. But the main event was the British Red Arrows, who blew my mind. They were a group of nine planes and they would be flying at 450 mph and they would be 4-6 feet, 4-6 FEET at 450 MPH, and they would break and do roles and acrobatic maneuvers that would make anyone smile and clap with amazement. 

Going down as one of the best things ive ever done or witnessed in my life has to be going to see these amazing pilots and their breathtaking acrobatics. I strongly encourage everyone, even if you done like planes, this is something everyone must see at least once. 

George Lucas and the Brave New World?

Did George Lucas derive some of the themes in his widely and extremely famous "Star Wars" from outside sources? In Star Wars Ep 2 attack of the clones there are parts that are eerily similar to those written in BNW. Now im not suggesting that Lucas wrote scenes in his books based off BNW or any other novels or books for that matter, but im also not saying that this may be a mere coincidence. Im just giving the facts and telling what ive read in BNW and what i saw in Ep 2 of the Star War series. 

Now to set a little background knowledge, a jedi that had turned on the Jedi order had placed and "order" for an army. This was done behind the Jedi order's back so that when the Sith lord took power of the congress he would have an army awaiting him. Now delving into the similarities between the two. The army that was order had two classes Clones and droids. There are extreme differences between the two mainly being the clones are humans and the droids are robots, but for all intensive purposes they are both created but an outside force to serve a specific purpose. This is much like that of BNW where there are Alphas Betas and so on who are also created to serve a specific purpose in society. 

In both Ep 2 and BNW the genetics are taking from single host and they created for all intensive purposes an entire race. In Ep 2 the genetics were given by the Jedi who had turned his back on the Jedi order. His DNA was taken and modified to create the army while keeping some DNA as is so that they could recreate him as he was. This is similar to what we read in BNW. The lower classes are of a single DNA and then they are broken and split into many thousands of individuals, which the upper levels like Alphas are not split because it could alter the perfection that is.

Furthering the mass production of humans in both the genetics are altered to give the desired affect. In Ep 2 the clone army is dumbed down and is given growth accelerants. The clone army was purposely dumbed down so that they could not use there position with the republic and possibly form a coup. Also the clones were created using growth excelerants so they were able to fight sooner. This tampering and controlling of human genetics is similar to that in BNW where we have the creators depriving oxygen  and giving alchol to the lower classes so that they are not to the same intellect of the higher classes. Also the lower classes are restricted in the things they like so that they are not questioning what they are told/programmed to do. 

These are just some interesting similarities  and correlations i found between the two stories.

Cyber Classes, Good or Bad?

Are classes being held on over the internet better or worse then those that take place in a physical classroom? Are they more convenient? Are they a better learning environment? Are the the future?

I feel that its hard to argue the fact that they are more convenient. People can take these classes wherever they choose, there is no travel or no hassle to it. You simply sit in your favorite chair sit back login and go. But is this a better way of learning. If we are sitting in our houses or apartments with distractions all around us how focused can we be. Now i know that we are a generation of multitaskers and that we can handle many operations and activities at once, but is that suitable for a learning environment. I feel that the more uncomfortable we are in an environment the more we asses and analysis that place and the information given to use there; just so we can focus our attention off the actual dullness of the place. To me typical personal meeting with a professor or professors in the optimum way of learning, second only to being at a place and experiencing it first hand. 

All this being said is this the future? People are growing more and more computer based and more antisocial as a result. This is a ever so evident with second life. People are "to shy" to go out and meet people in the real world. So instead of doing something about it and trying to alter their future, they sit back and accept that they are not social people and the lock themselves up and sit by their lonesome infront of a computer screen. I have a feeling that online class are going to be the wave of the future, but not because of their ease of use but because people are losing their personable skills. As we grow farther and farther apart from human interaction forms of communications are all going to be using this medium.

With my feelings out of this new wave of technology and the "future" to which we will be entrapped i am glad that i am towards the forefront of this revolution. Not to say that i have anything against technology, i fully endorse the pursuit of further knowledge all be it through the computer or whatever; but i am more then fine with falling behind on this fad or cultural phenomenon. 

Emergent Architecture

For those of you who remember i mentioned how last fall i volunteered for the LA Forum, well one of the best lectures of the series was by a man named Tom Wiscombe and his firm Emergent. I would there work to be simple amazing and the methods of deriving the form to be even more amazing. enjoy

Founded in 1999 by Tom Wiscombe, EMERGENT is dedicated to researching issues of structure, tectonics, and materiality through built work. EMERGENT is a platform for experimentation, leveraging techniques and logics from fields outside architecture including biology, complexity science, aerospace engineering, and computation. EMERGENT’s directive is to move beyond categorical thinking in architecture and the stratification of building systems. This involves a re-examination of heirarchies and discreetness of systems toward coherent but differentiated constructions. Ultimately, the results are understood both in terms of performance and spatial and atmospheric effects.

EMERGENT’s approach is informed by contemporary models of biology and systems theory rather than by the arts, toward an architecture based on structural pattern formation and emergent behavior. The work is part of a larger contemporary movement in architecture referred to by Detlef Mertins in 2004 as ‘Bioconstructivism’, where a bias toward material intelligence begins to produce an architecture characterized by its variability and responsiveness to local forces.

The work questions the dialectic of excess and efficiency in architecture, in favor of a more complex understanding of both through biological thinking. The recursive process of random mutation and natural selection in nature provides a model for how a dynamic feedback between excesses and efficiencies can create innovation and elegance. This feedback logic is executed in the office using both generative and analytical algorithms as well as hands-on design techniques.

Key to the work is the phenomenon of emergence which offers insight into the way apparently isolated bodies, particles, or systems exhibit group behavior in coherent, but unexpected, patterns. The animated beauty of emergent organizations, such as in swarms or hives, points to a range of real architectural potentials where components are always linked and always exchanging information, and above all, where architectural wholes exceed the sum of their parts.

Biological thinking has led EMERGENT toward the exploration of new methods of systems integration, construction documentation, and fabrication. Recent co-ventures with international engineering companies, including Buro Happold and DeSimone Consulting Engineers, have begun to reveal new working methods which establish active feedback loops between engineering and design disciplines, ultimately pointing to a redefinition of AEC territories.

www.emergentarchitecture.com