in my first reading of the warner piece, i read the comparison of the jellyfish as a metamorphosis of Medusa, something transfigured physically but remaining true to its essence. what is interesting, then, is that the jellyfish is so insubstantial it becomes a sort of "emanation" of the seas "currents and eddies". in this sense it is almost so essentialized (metamorphosized?) that it is not even conscious -- it is not intentionally poisonous or murderous, it just is poison. the 'unknowability' of the jellyfish is partially its seductiveness, but also its danger.
frazer is excited by this 'resilient strangeness' as a way to bring architecture into new territory, by using computing power as an opportunity to iterate and generate thousands of varieties, morphing buildings to hopefully find an unexpected optimization. there are dynamic systems that have been cropping up -- the unseen video, a dynamic flash video that changes based on your weather and location, is one that pops into my mind -- but frazer seems to be excited specifically about the chance of a better among the dynamic mutations. it reminds me a lot of the idea of cultivating crops, pairing or attempting to isolate a mutation.
my housemate actually found himself in a similar situation last semester. the assignment was to create a pacman game, and code the ai for the pacman. his pacman was driven by a set of priorities that changed based upon the current situation (i have to eat a dot, i have to eat a capsule, i have to avoid a ghost, i have to eat a ghost because i just ate a capsule, i have to turn as little as possible, etc...). frustrated by his intuitive attempts to place priority (avoiding ghosts is a priority highest, eating dots is high, eating capsules is incidental), he wrote a program to evolve his pacman -- gradually changing each parameter, brute force, and logging which pacman did the best. eventually his pacman was extremely streamlined, and its priorities were completely unexpected (turns out his pacman became a hunter with almost absurdly risky behavior, constantly letting ghosts get close, then finding a capsule and eating all the ghosts). what he found, though, to his disappointment, was that his pacman became unintentionally site specific. his pacman had become so optimized for the test map, that when a random map was loaded, his pacman would do poorly.
it is precisely that specificity that would make frazer's idea of cultivating architecture so interesting. it would be very exciting to test and generate a building -- iterating through a 'large number of evolutionary steps', then sifting through the results for unexpected, emergent forms.
(though it seems like you could essentially pass a building through a series of wind, sun, noise, etc... simulators and come up with variations that optimize or maximize building efficiency, i'm not sure if frazer is completely content with using building parameters as metrics for evolutionary vigor. he first describes computers as tireless slaves, then later as an electronic muse -- but he holds that the initial creative spark is still our own. where does the design stop and the algorithm take over? is the design process simply choosing the right parameters and metrics?)
( www.theunseenvideo.com )
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis or maybe Transmigration
Marina Warner takes us far back in history from the greek era leading to build a description of metamorphosis as a complex transmigration of the soul and body. She talks at length about metamorphosis being a transmigration defining metamorphoses as “all souls are deathless, and migrate from one form to another.” Again heavily grounded in Platonic thought and even unabashedly referencing so many of his descriptions in the Republic. It is clear that she thinks positively of these historic figures as a source of authority and even as a sort of spirituality in her “sage Pythagorus.” The form on the outside is described as a “pliant wax stamped with new designs.” These are also principles behind most eastern philosophy and seems to be one that she likens to. She implies that it is only now that society is embracing the souls relationship to the body as a metamorphosis of nature by citing the De larf (The Larva) example. The discussions tend to be spiritually all encompassing or perhaps a unified theory/philosophy. She does this by piggybacking plato’s allegory of the cave, and describing life through a flux of a “time-bound dimension” and “the way we imagine the world” as being truer to reality than life itself. Finally this metamorphosis can be achieved through imagination and new scientific developments where formally it was only in the hands of the “gods.”
The dialectics of entropic change are the concern of Robert Smithson in his interview with Alison Sky. He starts the conversation with many well know fictional and factional stories such as Humpty Dumpty and water gate to ground a complex issue into common knowledge. He continues to build his sources as well by mentioning well known figures such as Buckminister Fuller and Norbert Weiner to establish a authority and legitimate framework for his discussion. His conversation goes into what seems like tangents moving rapidly from strip mines raping the earth to architecture and economics sharing the same paradigm. This may of course be a salute to his very notion of entropy existing through far extremes somewhere between “wasteland” and “tranquility,” so the discussion should exist through a multiplicity of differing topics.
John Frazer builds a case for an evolutionary morphology through a set of commentaries on the nature, science and architecture. Interestingly in the forward, Gordan Pask starts by saying that the book “records” the present state and future “research,” binding the book into a scientific model. As with the other two readings, Frazer embraces the state of flux that the descriptions of morphology creates. For example he praises unity as being a state of “coherence and diversity admixed in collusion” never to be mistaken for uniformity. Nature also plays a huge role for the future of architecture and therefore the principles for design should be thought as an instantiation rather than case specific. By that I mean that he wants the architect to create “instructions” for all design rather than a “blueprint” for a specific set of plans. His conclusions are not about a specific formal morphology, but rather a series of commentaries on nature and science, and how they can inspire the inner logic of architecture.
Marina Warner takes us far back in history from the greek era leading to build a description of metamorphosis as a complex transmigration of the soul and body. She talks at length about metamorphosis being a transmigration defining metamorphoses as “all souls are deathless, and migrate from one form to another.” Again heavily grounded in Platonic thought and even unabashedly referencing so many of his descriptions in the Republic. It is clear that she thinks positively of these historic figures as a source of authority and even as a sort of spirituality in her “sage Pythagorus.” The form on the outside is described as a “pliant wax stamped with new designs.” These are also principles behind most eastern philosophy and seems to be one that she likens to. She implies that it is only now that society is embracing the souls relationship to the body as a metamorphosis of nature by citing the De larf (The Larva) example. The discussions tend to be spiritually all encompassing or perhaps a unified theory/philosophy. She does this by piggybacking plato’s allegory of the cave, and describing life through a flux of a “time-bound dimension” and “the way we imagine the world” as being truer to reality than life itself. Finally this metamorphosis can be achieved through imagination and new scientific developments where formally it was only in the hands of the “gods.”
The dialectics of entropic change are the concern of Robert Smithson in his interview with Alison Sky. He starts the conversation with many well know fictional and factional stories such as Humpty Dumpty and water gate to ground a complex issue into common knowledge. He continues to build his sources as well by mentioning well known figures such as Buckminister Fuller and Norbert Weiner to establish a authority and legitimate framework for his discussion. His conversation goes into what seems like tangents moving rapidly from strip mines raping the earth to architecture and economics sharing the same paradigm. This may of course be a salute to his very notion of entropy existing through far extremes somewhere between “wasteland” and “tranquility,” so the discussion should exist through a multiplicity of differing topics.
John Frazer builds a case for an evolutionary morphology through a set of commentaries on the nature, science and architecture. Interestingly in the forward, Gordan Pask starts by saying that the book “records” the present state and future “research,” binding the book into a scientific model. As with the other two readings, Frazer embraces the state of flux that the descriptions of morphology creates. For example he praises unity as being a state of “coherence and diversity admixed in collusion” never to be mistaken for uniformity. Nature also plays a huge role for the future of architecture and therefore the principles for design should be thought as an instantiation rather than case specific. By that I mean that he wants the architect to create “instructions” for all design rather than a “blueprint” for a specific set of plans. His conclusions are not about a specific formal morphology, but rather a series of commentaries on nature and science, and how they can inspire the inner logic of architecture.
Why is Architecture so profoundly ashamed with formalism. Our profession is full of people in the formalist closet. I find it absurd that architects need to justify every move they present with some deep and resonant ideology or purpose. John Frazer does a wonderful job of this. Reading his writing was like staring at a moth eaten shirt; holes everywhere. He begins his writing with “An evolutionary architecture investigates fundamental form-generating processes in architecture, paralleling a wider scientific search for a theory of morphogenesis in the natural world. It proposes the model of nature as the generating force for architectural form. The profligate prototyping and awesome creative power of natural evolution are emulated by creating virtual architectural models which respond to changing environments” (pg. 9). Something right there about natural and virtual carrying the same weight doesn’t settle well. Later in writing he proceeds with “A clear distinction is intended between sources of inspiration and sources of explanation. When natural science is used for explanation or illustration, it is essential that the science is correct and that the analogy is valid. But when it is used for inspiration and as a take off point for thought experiments, it matters less, and misunderstood or even heretical ideas can provide much imaginative stimulus” (pg. 12). For most of his writing Frazer is justifying the analogy of natural process to that of design process by saying that his architecture can emulate nature but yet he makes this distinction that really all he is doing is using these natural processes to simply generate form. He’s animate about the analogy and its “awesome power” to create architecture of evolution capable of coping with society’s complexities and chaos. In one of his closing statements he writes that the demise of society is man’s “self conscious obsession with uniqueness”. It seems to me that Frazer is suffering from such a case by emulating nature.
Unlike Frazer, Robert Smithson claims that trying to emulate natural is a huge feat to take on. He writes “there’s a need to try to transcend one’s position. I’m not a transcendentalist, so I just see things as going towards a … well it’s very hard to predict anything; anyway all predictions tend to be wrong. I mean even planning, I mean planning and chance almost seem to be the same thing”.
So where does this leave us in the profession of architecture, where are days are spent planning for society that is ever changing? Perhaps our ideas of architecture should not be so much geared towards this ideal view of nature as some awesome vital force but instead view nature as being the all encompassing world around us; “our spaceship earth”.
In this sense looking at Warner’s writing could be helpful. She states “the work of metamorphosis performed by artists today in every medium often aim at transvaluing their subject, and raising the esteem of the mode through which they are taking form. They offer reformulations of ethical value, and in attempting this refashioning of traditions, re-assess the inherent character of change and mutability themselves” (pg. 27). I can’t help but think back to our discussions of slums and their emergent qualities. How can architecture learn from such real life processes of the built environment to create architecture capable of the evolution that Frazer strives for?
Metamorphosis
In the Marina Warner reading the myth of Er is used as an example to describe the meaning of the word. In the myth heroes choose their fate for their next life. The heroes future metamorphoses in some ways to correspond to their past character. The souls are deathless and migrate from one form to another. The idea of changing from one form to another is described by Marina Warner as metamorphosis.
“Metamorphosis now evokes a vision of endless, creative energy and movement, ranging from chaos and degeneration to the possibility of almost infinite refinement and transfiguration.” It sounds like the route towards utopia. (Week four.)
The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century botanists used the word metamorphosis as the vital principle of natural processes of generation, growth, evolution and decay. Metamorphosis is now taking place all around us. It governs the organic development of all living things, and the individual transformations that take place in everyone’s life, Warner writes. She further suggests that the word has metamorphosed itself through history. Partly as it has encountered with science and the theory of evolution. “It now evokes images of not just of shape shifting but of a smooth, organic unfolding of forms in time and space – a process imitated in the computer technique ‘morphing’.”
With all the advanced technologies of the 21st century there is a potential extent of metamorphosis. Cloning, stem cell research, cyborg prostheses, transplantation of animal organs, genetic modifications of both foods and ultimately of ourselves. As the reading points out, these are very complex issues. Are we heading towards dystopia?
“Metamorphosis now evokes a vision of endless, creative energy and movement, ranging from chaos and degeneration to the possibility of almost infinite refinement and transfiguration.” It sounds like the route towards utopia. (Week four.)
The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century botanists used the word metamorphosis as the vital principle of natural processes of generation, growth, evolution and decay. Metamorphosis is now taking place all around us. It governs the organic development of all living things, and the individual transformations that take place in everyone’s life, Warner writes. She further suggests that the word has metamorphosed itself through history. Partly as it has encountered with science and the theory of evolution. “It now evokes images of not just of shape shifting but of a smooth, organic unfolding of forms in time and space – a process imitated in the computer technique ‘morphing’.”
With all the advanced technologies of the 21st century there is a potential extent of metamorphosis. Cloning, stem cell research, cyborg prostheses, transplantation of animal organs, genetic modifications of both foods and ultimately of ourselves. As the reading points out, these are very complex issues. Are we heading towards dystopia?
Metamorphosis vs. statics
Marina Warner opens her discussion of metamorphosis by proceeding in a historical fashion to explain the origins of metamorphosis as a concept in mythology and its etymological roots in the physical sciences. Warner goes on to say that our understanding of the word itself continued to change as it interacted with the physical sciences, especially with the case of evolutionary theory. What began in the realm of supernatural and spiritual trickled into theories of natural order, slowly increasing its ‘breadth and depth’ as more and more modes of physical metamorphosis become available. The variable applications of the word are exemplified as Warner articulates:
“Oddly enough, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career, from Pumping Iron to the Terminator to Governor of California, typifies one trajectory of metamorphosis in contemporary culture, in its most menacing form” (p.21)
“An ancient ambivalence still governs any blurring of boundaries between human and beast. Yet this fantastical merging of categories is increasingly becoming a reality as the arts of cloning and genetic modification advance.” (p.21)
What becomes evident is how embedded the concept of metamorphosis is in culture of the human race. There has been a keen awareness of it in literature, philosophy, science, spirituality, and more recently graphical/experiential representation & architecture. However, simultaneously there is also a consistent fear of metamorphosis in culture. Change, in the form of metamorphosis is oft perceived as unnatural and undesired. Hybrid entities are often frowned upon and outcasted, whether it’s the The Golden Ass or someone with a xyy chromosome mutation leading to hermaphroditism.
In many cases people prefer stability over metamorphosis – views of life that eliminate unpredictability. Religion is one such way to impose regularity and absolutism. As a species we have been obsessed over the course of history, and especially in the last century, with models of prediction and organizing randomness – the pre-entropic concept of a ‘mechanistic world view’. As Robert Smithson points out, architects, with “this attitude of set design solutions throughout the world” (p.2) fit nicely in that category: “Architects tend to be idealists, and not dialecticians. I propose a dialectics of entrophic change.” (p.2)
That brings us to John Frazer’s attempt to frame architecture from an evolutionary/ metamorphic stance. In this natural model, “Architectural concepts are expressed as generative rules so that their evolution may be accelerated and tested. The rules are described in a genetic language which produces a code-script of instructions for form-generation.” (p.9). This stands in direct opposition to the result & product oriented view of architecture currently so prevalent. In this proposed model, we as designers would be less concerned with a final form (output) of a building, but much more concerned with the instruction set (inputs) that begin to generate and influence the output. This puts architecture more along the lines of hardware and software design. A processor may have millions of transistors but only a few hundred instructions. But it can dynamically adapt to almost infinite variables so that you can render an image or encode a video without being aware of the inner workings. But the nature of the instruction – how the core communicates with the memory controller or how it allocates cache, will drastically affect how the resultant experience is for the end user.
Architects have the tools available to begin exploring new morphological typologies but the real problem lies in the mode of thought of society as a whole (incl. construction industry). As a society we are very much “goal-directed” in our approach. In any given profession the bottom line is the result, the end product, a static finale. Architecture is much more readily understood and appreciated as an image, an icon, than an endless series of permutations. But just as true we are beginning to realize that static modes of analysis (in all fields of study) are incapable of accounting for entropic change. Shifting programs, the morphing fabric of the city, could be better understood through the dynamic model. Such is the draw of the great unified theory.
Metamorphosis
Architecture 209X, Spring 2007
Words and Cities: The rhetoric and meaning of statistically improbable phrases
Nicholas De Monchaux
Qing Wang
Metamorphosis
The definition of metamorphosis is quite clear. According to the article, it comes from Greek and means cross-form, namely, transformation from one form to another form. Now we deal with the controversial topic like form and transformation. It is not issue only architects concerns. It almost involved all the visual creative activities. It has been discussed for centuries by the philosophers. A static form is hard to understand in terms of that it only shows the results of the forming not process. Transformation gives the opportunities for us to witness the changing form. It shows the magic how form has been generated or evolved. The invisible force which shapes the form has been seen by this process. It is so intriguing that numerous films and paintings try to capture as much detail as they can to anatomize, unfold and expose to the viewers. Unfortunately, these slowing down images are never true enough to represent the natural transformation. People are familiar with
metamorphosis_cindy moon
Metamorphosis could understand as a changing moment or responsive situation or environment. Theses articles are talking about how architecture deals with volatile contemporary circumstance momentary experience.
Metamorphosis comes from Greek and it means changing from one form to another. The meaning of changing brings so many interpretations and it includes layer of self-reference (1, Marina Warner) In this concept, everything changes and nothing dies. So it could expend and self-modified to adjust the environment. Because of transformation concept, it also used in philosophy to understand personal identity. As KAFKA wrote about metamorphosis, it couldn’t need to be transformation of appearance. It also contains transformation of self consciousness; it’s more about potential extent of metamorphosis.
In the article ‘A natural model for architecture’, the author mentions responsive environment and soft architecture. To adjust evolutionary environment, flexible approach is requested. And some kind of possibility of alteration enables because the development of technology could apply to architecture and it helps to create self-organizing system.
In other hand, entropy could be or not be metamorphosis. In Robert Smithson’s opinion, on going aspect of things be a kind of entropic architecture or de-architecturalization. Because architecture try to manifest it and architect seems to be idealists and not dialecticians. But certain mistakes cause entropy and people could experience marvelous and energetic juxtaposition occur.
Metamorphosis comes from Greek and it means changing from one form to another. The meaning of changing brings so many interpretations and it includes layer of self-reference (1, Marina Warner) In this concept, everything changes and nothing dies. So it could expend and self-modified to adjust the environment. Because of transformation concept, it also used in philosophy to understand personal identity. As KAFKA wrote about metamorphosis, it couldn’t need to be transformation of appearance. It also contains transformation of self consciousness; it’s more about potential extent of metamorphosis.
In the article ‘A natural model for architecture’, the author mentions responsive environment and soft architecture. To adjust evolutionary environment, flexible approach is requested. And some kind of possibility of alteration enables because the development of technology could apply to architecture and it helps to create self-organizing system.
In other hand, entropy could be or not be metamorphosis. In Robert Smithson’s opinion, on going aspect of things be a kind of entropic architecture or de-architecturalization. Because architecture try to manifest it and architect seems to be idealists and not dialecticians. But certain mistakes cause entropy and people could experience marvelous and energetic juxtaposition occur.
Matter and Change
“The beautiful is a manifestation of natural laws that otherwise had remained hidden forever.” - Goethe
Two views of metamorphosis are presented in these articles. One is that of the shape shifting discrete change, and the other of a continuous, organic presence of change. The concept of metamorphosis is traced by Warner from Ovid to Darwin. “The concept has itself metamorphosed through history, partly as a result of its encounter with science – expecially with the theory of evolution. It now evokes images not just of shape shifting but of a smooth organic unfolding of forms in time and space.” (Warner, 18)
Frazer talks of an evolutionary architecture whose content is not in expression, but in a code-script. Analogous to DNA building blocks. It is not the expression that evolves, but the coding. The expression is a result. ‘genetic language of architecture’ is an evolving continuous phenomena - metamorphic. “Our architectural model, considered as a form of artificial life, also contains coded manufacturing which are environmentally dependent, but as in the real world model it is only the code-script which evolves.”( Frazer, 14) Frazer uses the computer to test a simple rule to its evolution into form. “Very large numbers of evolutionary steps can be generated in a short space of time, and the emergent forms are often unexpected.” (Frazer, 9) These forms may very well be the type of beauty Goethe was speaking of. While the intense computation in Frazers method has come under scrutiny, he assures us that the seed, the Cotyledon, if you will, is human, sublime. “The prototyping, modeling, testing, evaluation and evolution all use the formidable power of the computer, but the initial spark comes from human creativity.” (Frazer, 19)
In an alternative presentation of metamorphosis, we see a less idealized vision of change is presented in the idea of entropy. Like Humpty Dumpty, entropy represents a “…closed system which eventually deteriorates and starts to break apart and there’s no way that you can really piece it back together again… T]he irreversible process will be in a sense metamorphosed, it is evolutionary, but it is not evolutionary in terms of any idealism.” (Smithson, 1-2)
Smithson echoes sentiments similar to Gould’s non-idealistic view of evolution. “I don’t think things go in cycles. I think things just change from one situation to the next, there’s really no return.” (Smithson, 4)
Warner’s sentiments in recalling the shape-shifting metamorphoses of myth (Greek not Russian) are a stark contrast. “The core of this strange and ghostly myth offers the promise of another chance at happiness… [Metamorphosis] governs personal fate and identity that in some profound way, you are what you make yourself.” (Warner, 15) But given recent development in thinking, Warner even admits the conflicts now apparent in the ‘story of the unified integral self’ (ibid. 29)
I’m fascinated how computational evolutionary theory leads a tortuous path to Heraclitus. Really the first dialectic philosopher, he is famous for allegedly claiming you can’t cross the same river twice. In an evolutionary view, surely one can’t cross the same river twice because one is not the same, and the river is not the same, though both participate in a continuous identity. One is the same one but one is always changing. In it’s most basic form, there is matter and there is change. Smithson accepts this notion of change as constant, unavoidable, irreparable. So as our cites go through irreparable changes, so to must the code-script for those cites change and respond to the also changing needs. Our cites too could benefit from the metaphor of digital genetics.
Two views of metamorphosis are presented in these articles. One is that of the shape shifting discrete change, and the other of a continuous, organic presence of change. The concept of metamorphosis is traced by Warner from Ovid to Darwin. “The concept has itself metamorphosed through history, partly as a result of its encounter with science – expecially with the theory of evolution. It now evokes images not just of shape shifting but of a smooth organic unfolding of forms in time and space.” (Warner, 18)
Frazer talks of an evolutionary architecture whose content is not in expression, but in a code-script. Analogous to DNA building blocks. It is not the expression that evolves, but the coding. The expression is a result. ‘genetic language of architecture’ is an evolving continuous phenomena - metamorphic. “Our architectural model, considered as a form of artificial life, also contains coded manufacturing which are environmentally dependent, but as in the real world model it is only the code-script which evolves.”( Frazer, 14) Frazer uses the computer to test a simple rule to its evolution into form. “Very large numbers of evolutionary steps can be generated in a short space of time, and the emergent forms are often unexpected.” (Frazer, 9) These forms may very well be the type of beauty Goethe was speaking of. While the intense computation in Frazers method has come under scrutiny, he assures us that the seed, the Cotyledon, if you will, is human, sublime. “The prototyping, modeling, testing, evaluation and evolution all use the formidable power of the computer, but the initial spark comes from human creativity.” (Frazer, 19)
In an alternative presentation of metamorphosis, we see a less idealized vision of change is presented in the idea of entropy. Like Humpty Dumpty, entropy represents a “…closed system which eventually deteriorates and starts to break apart and there’s no way that you can really piece it back together again… T]he irreversible process will be in a sense metamorphosed, it is evolutionary, but it is not evolutionary in terms of any idealism.” (Smithson, 1-2)
Smithson echoes sentiments similar to Gould’s non-idealistic view of evolution. “I don’t think things go in cycles. I think things just change from one situation to the next, there’s really no return.” (Smithson, 4)
Warner’s sentiments in recalling the shape-shifting metamorphoses of myth (Greek not Russian) are a stark contrast. “The core of this strange and ghostly myth offers the promise of another chance at happiness… [Metamorphosis] governs personal fate and identity that in some profound way, you are what you make yourself.” (Warner, 15) But given recent development in thinking, Warner even admits the conflicts now apparent in the ‘story of the unified integral self’ (ibid. 29)
I’m fascinated how computational evolutionary theory leads a tortuous path to Heraclitus. Really the first dialectic philosopher, he is famous for allegedly claiming you can’t cross the same river twice. In an evolutionary view, surely one can’t cross the same river twice because one is not the same, and the river is not the same, though both participate in a continuous identity. One is the same one but one is always changing. In it’s most basic form, there is matter and there is change. Smithson accepts this notion of change as constant, unavoidable, irreparable. So as our cites go through irreparable changes, so to must the code-script for those cites change and respond to the also changing needs. Our cites too could benefit from the metaphor of digital genetics.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Metamorphosis_liwen
Metamorphosis_idealized process in architecture
Liwen Zhang
Throughout John Frazer’s work, An Evolutionary Architecture, I’ve felt an urge to continually question his statements. This is fundamentally attributed to that fact that Frazer’s work relies heavily upon the assumption that evolution is a natural “self-organizing intelligent” process upon which the end result is optimal. However, after having read Gould’s article in class a few weeks back, we come to realize that this is not always the case, Gould have proved that evolution is not always intelligent and purposeful.
Frazer’s work is framed around the idea that “architecture as a living, evolving thing” as Gordon Pask puts it in his introduction of Frazer’s work. This statement is perhaps not so hard to digest and even provocative as we have learned to see our cities in that way. Much of what Frazer advocates has been promoted by my previous studio instructors – in 100B we were told to come up with ‘generative rules”’ which is then applied to an ‘operational logic’ that is eventually creates a building, somehow. In Greg Lynn’s work we read for the word ‘Hybrid’, we learn of an architect’s insecurities with techniques that are so heavily reliant on the use of the computer. Not only is the authenticity of the designer’s creations questioned, but also the process is considered to be superficial because it may be purely formally driven. The need here calls for differentiation, yes emergent forms are “often unexpected” as Frazer puts it, but is this on a purely formal level or can it be performative? Furthermore, how is the ‘performative-ness’ measured anyway?
Frazer is quick to address the former issue regarding the authenticity of the designer. He thinks that the design process is ultimately reliant on “human skill and for the essential first step of forming the concept”, what he deems as the “initial spark”. I agree with his comments but nonetheless I question if the “initial spark” is all that is needed on our behalf, as implied by Frazer, since then the computer as a “slave [with] infinite power and patience” will do the rest of the work for you. I cannot help that feel that he is idealizing the computational process in design, especially in calling it the “the electronic muse”. The word muse, aside from the convention meaning, in the classical mythology sense means a “goddess presiding over a particular art” (taken from dictionary.com). Thus Frazer is indirectly elevating the role of computer-aided design to that of a goddess.
Liwen Zhang
Throughout John Frazer’s work, An Evolutionary Architecture, I’ve felt an urge to continually question his statements. This is fundamentally attributed to that fact that Frazer’s work relies heavily upon the assumption that evolution is a natural “self-organizing intelligent” process upon which the end result is optimal. However, after having read Gould’s article in class a few weeks back, we come to realize that this is not always the case, Gould have proved that evolution is not always intelligent and purposeful.
Frazer’s work is framed around the idea that “architecture as a living, evolving thing” as Gordon Pask puts it in his introduction of Frazer’s work. This statement is perhaps not so hard to digest and even provocative as we have learned to see our cities in that way. Much of what Frazer advocates has been promoted by my previous studio instructors – in 100B we were told to come up with ‘generative rules”’ which is then applied to an ‘operational logic’ that is eventually creates a building, somehow. In Greg Lynn’s work we read for the word ‘Hybrid’, we learn of an architect’s insecurities with techniques that are so heavily reliant on the use of the computer. Not only is the authenticity of the designer’s creations questioned, but also the process is considered to be superficial because it may be purely formally driven. The need here calls for differentiation, yes emergent forms are “often unexpected” as Frazer puts it, but is this on a purely formal level or can it be performative? Furthermore, how is the ‘performative-ness’ measured anyway?
Frazer is quick to address the former issue regarding the authenticity of the designer. He thinks that the design process is ultimately reliant on “human skill and for the essential first step of forming the concept”, what he deems as the “initial spark”. I agree with his comments but nonetheless I question if the “initial spark” is all that is needed on our behalf, as implied by Frazer, since then the computer as a “slave [with] infinite power and patience” will do the rest of the work for you. I cannot help that feel that he is idealizing the computational process in design, especially in calling it the “the electronic muse”. The word muse, aside from the convention meaning, in the classical mythology sense means a “goddess presiding over a particular art” (taken from dictionary.com). Thus Frazer is indirectly elevating the role of computer-aided design to that of a goddess.
metamorphosis
Metamorphosis/Bin
I am very interested in the term of “entropy”. It means moving towards a gradual equilibrium and it’s suggested in many ways. However, entropy also has been associated with disorder and chaos. Robert Smithson had mentioned that “planning and chance almost seem to be the same thing.” In some degree, architecture practice can be seen as a chaotic system which appears to be random. He then argued, “Geology has its entropy too…so that the irreversible process will be in a sense metamorphosed, it is evolutionary, but it’s not evolutionary in terms of any idealism”. Based on my experience, I feel it has more possibilities for architects to make the system chaotic rather than equilibrium, very much because architects turn to be so “ideal” and “creative”. For example, among this year’s thesis projects in our department, most students intend to solve a certain social chaos by insert another system, most of which have impressive forms. The result is that we add one more system in the chaos. Although we may solve the problem by now, we can hardly predict the problems coming soon. The city is evolutionary. Hence the new system can be a new chaos. We are making more and more architecture debris for the planet. The entropy theory does suggest that the cosmos will die because of unsolvable chaos. Before that the cities may already reach an end. We cherish the pureness of ancient cities because “things just change from one situation to the next, there’s really no return.”
The judgment to great architecture is usually described as “solve the problem in a creative way.” To creative something new is human’s instinct. I haven’t seen any wrong with it. However, to create something new doesn’t necessarily to add something new. If we think reversely, reducing the existing forms may also be something new. Metamorphosis can be a useful term not only for architects to create new forms but also to reduce forms. In that case, architects may design some “returns”. The question is, do we have the courage to say “I haven’t added anything new”? At least I don’t. That may be a weak point of the profession of architecture design.
Despite of the chaos we make, whether architecture should have a stable or metamorphosed form is not the point. What of most significance is that one part of architecture, as an intellectual and creative thinking, should have the sensibility to reflect the changing of the world we are living in. From Newton to Darwin, Leibniz, or whoever it is, their theories can be the catalysts of architecture. As result, the concept of “architecture” changes. As Marina Warner said in the article, “The concept (metamorphosis) has itself metamorphosed through history, partly as a result of its encounter with science. It now evokes images not just of shape-shifting but of a smooth, organic unfolding of forms in time and space.” In this circumstance, architecture itself is a metamorphosis.
I am very interested in the term of “entropy”. It means moving towards a gradual equilibrium and it’s suggested in many ways. However, entropy also has been associated with disorder and chaos. Robert Smithson had mentioned that “planning and chance almost seem to be the same thing.” In some degree, architecture practice can be seen as a chaotic system which appears to be random. He then argued, “Geology has its entropy too…so that the irreversible process will be in a sense metamorphosed, it is evolutionary, but it’s not evolutionary in terms of any idealism”. Based on my experience, I feel it has more possibilities for architects to make the system chaotic rather than equilibrium, very much because architects turn to be so “ideal” and “creative”. For example, among this year’s thesis projects in our department, most students intend to solve a certain social chaos by insert another system, most of which have impressive forms. The result is that we add one more system in the chaos. Although we may solve the problem by now, we can hardly predict the problems coming soon. The city is evolutionary. Hence the new system can be a new chaos. We are making more and more architecture debris for the planet. The entropy theory does suggest that the cosmos will die because of unsolvable chaos. Before that the cities may already reach an end. We cherish the pureness of ancient cities because “things just change from one situation to the next, there’s really no return.”
The judgment to great architecture is usually described as “solve the problem in a creative way.” To creative something new is human’s instinct. I haven’t seen any wrong with it. However, to create something new doesn’t necessarily to add something new. If we think reversely, reducing the existing forms may also be something new. Metamorphosis can be a useful term not only for architects to create new forms but also to reduce forms. In that case, architects may design some “returns”. The question is, do we have the courage to say “I haven’t added anything new”? At least I don’t. That may be a weak point of the profession of architecture design.
Despite of the chaos we make, whether architecture should have a stable or metamorphosed form is not the point. What of most significance is that one part of architecture, as an intellectual and creative thinking, should have the sensibility to reflect the changing of the world we are living in. From Newton to Darwin, Leibniz, or whoever it is, their theories can be the catalysts of architecture. As result, the concept of “architecture” changes. As Marina Warner said in the article, “The concept (metamorphosis) has itself metamorphosed through history, partly as a result of its encounter with science. It now evokes images not just of shape-shifting but of a smooth, organic unfolding of forms in time and space.” In this circumstance, architecture itself is a metamorphosis.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)