Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Lines | Linearity

The two articles, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge by Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louse Pelletier, and Lines and Linearity: Problems in Architectural Theory by Catherine Ingraham, found in a collection of essays entitled Drawing | Building | Text by Andrea Kahn (editor) bring to conversation the concepts of seeing and visualization. Starting with the concepts of the line and linearity, Ingrahm theorizes that what gives architecture form in the simplest context is “line”. With that being said, Ingraham states, “ as a subject, the line must be outlined – given a shape or character – and it is precisely at the moment when the line takes a shape that it eludes our grasp”(p.5) I believe that this statement looks at how form seems to take shape, and just at the moment where line defines form that, we no longer understand line but the form that is made up of many different line segments. I guess to try and communicate this a little better I will refer to one of Barnett Newman’s pieces of work entitled Concord.




















Barnett Newmann, Concord 1949

Know for his abstraction of the fundamental concept of line Barnett takes his limited palette of color and creates a highly layers yet simple composition of diluted green and yellow washed paints. What we see are the thick spatial fields that are demarked by color, the edges are the relationships to greater composition. Each spatial field’s edge is defined by a line, but is lost in the composition as a whole. These fundamental concepts are followed throughout his works. One more example is part of a series entitled Station, the reason why I bring this to attention is because here Barnett plays with achromatic colors (black & white) which represents a composition built clearly by the line showing the space in between.




















Barnett Newmann, Thirteenth Station 1965-66

Animation (project1b 1st attempt)

So clearly this animation was a little more trouble then first expected. For a first iteration not too bad. So here the viewer gets a chance to look and experience this temporal construct in a 3 dimensional virtual world. Basically now by adding animation to the project, we enter another design aspect of the project ( it is like adding another variable to the equation, or so it seems to me, adding another layer to the project ). Looking at animation as a new variable hopefully will add a complexity to the study, with hopes that the study itself does not become complicated to understand, rather easier and in the end more rewarding. See how this is the first attempt, the next few iterations should presumable build upon this animation, and clarify what these studies are looking to understand. I would like in the next few weeks be able to grasp a firm understanding of the programs used, so that it does not constrain me from trying to communicate my understanding of the projects being studied this semester.



Project 1b (Temporal Images)











For this iteration what I was trying to understand from the 3 dimensional construct was the temporal qualities that was not so apparent in the last model. So in hopes of clarifying the understanding of what a temporal construct are the following images for project 1b. Basically the approach I took in this iteration was trying to map the four point of the body, which then would represent a line, simplifying the body form into one line segment. Each one of the lines correspond to a frame taken from the motion video earlier in this study. I hope for the next iteration to start looking at how from a temporal construct, one would move forward to change and study the spacial aspects of these motions.


























Monday, February 11, 2008

Temporal Construct (1st Attempt )












Using the line segments from the diagrams below I was able to translate the two dimensional abstraction of my service/ground-stroke into a three-dimensional diagram of what I could define as a temporal construct. These images I generated, speak to me as more temporal, mainly because one can start to see how the movements that are diagrammed below are those relations to my feet, knees, upper body, and the interaction of time.
This first iteration my body movement was some what confusing at first, trying to relate the curvature of the forms I was making into a relationship with the body movements. But as I played with different types of line and model forms, I believe I was able to get to a point where I could talk about what I did and how. These were the points I was struggling with at the beginning of this part of the project. Where I was not sure what I was generating, or what I was trying to represent. Hopefully now people get a sense of where I am trying to move towards in this investigation.




Thinking......Service Motion











As I start to create these images, I am starting to understand that these diagrams are crucial when trying to create a computer model of the motion sequence. But in these last few iterations of diagramming, I found that I'm missing an important part of the analysis. That in order to create a 3D computer iteration of my motion, it would be informative to take some time before I attempt a computer model and spend some time looking at the front footage of the motion. This would then help me look at the motion in a more spatial three-dimensional aspect, that I think we as a class are trying to accomplish.
The images here are again the diagramming of vertical movement in contrast the horizontal. It is probable to state that the side view is more interesting to diagram then that of the front view of the motion. The reason for this might be that there is more movement of the body along a stretched sequence. Now at this point I have not started to diagram the front view just yet, but I am going to guess that the line segments that I create in the front view are going to be somewhat more compact.
Basically here in these images I was looking at how the movement of the service motion would differ from the motion of the ground stroke. When looking at the two one can start to understand that the two motions very much are in contrast. Where at the point of impact with the tennis ball, there is an explosion of energy and it is at that point where the body seems create a line segment that is almost straight. After the body exerts this vertical movement, the resultant is the body folding in on itself with following through, trying to control the explosion of power that was just exerted. As the body then recovers the line segments start to create a more repetitive type, leaving me to assume that it is at this point the body is fully recovered from the service motion.
Below are the series of images that where created along the way to the finial image above. These investigations I believe are as just as important to me, as the finial image, because they help me to understand how the diagram is created and how it related to the beginning of this study. Hopefully these diagrams/studies will lead me to understanding this motion a little better, both the physical environment along with the digital.


Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Ground Stroke







Here I took the stills of the video, photoshoped the images together and came up with a pretty interesting image. Instead of focusing in on just the horizontal movement, here I started to look at the vertical differences in the body and how the verticals then related to the horizontal. I choose four point that would give me a vertical line segment, the head, hip, knee, and foot. Once I was able to create the vertical diagram, I choose to connect each point those points with a horizontal line segment to better understand the motion as a whole.

The following images are the diagrams broken down, to better understand how I generated the finial image. And for some reason the uploading of these images distorted the color of the original jpgs, so forgive the really odd colors.





Motion Analysis Part I

Here I was my first attempt to try and diagram the movement of my feet, left wrist, racquet and tennis ball. What I found interesting was how in the first third of the motion the movement of my upper body all started in sequence, (left wrist, racquet head, and ball). The second third is where we start to get a see all these variables find their own path. The left wrist has folded into the body, the racquet head is at full extension, and contact with the ball has be made. During the last third of the motion, the stroke is completed by the whole sequence coming back together.






Here is the line diagram

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Motion

Here was a video splice test, were I was experimenting with overlaying video. I was trying to look at the difference between the front and side motions of the body, and the relation between the two.










Non-Static ART

After reading through Lynn’s article on Animate Form, (for the 3rd time and probably not the last) I start to get a sense that this document is his “Towards a New Architecture”. We are again experiencing a new age of enlightenment in the field of architecture. Not only with the advent of new technologies, but with the integration calculus based forms. With these new (relatively speaking) mathematical theories, the design fields find themselves looking at ways to exploit and integrate new technologies as Le Corbusier did during the middle 20th century, and combine that with complex and rigorous mathematical computation. This way of “looking” at architecture is not new, the rules may have changed but basically Lynn is referencing patterning and ratios, which have made up the fundamentals of architecture since man could theorize about the built world.
Now I’m not an expert in math, (you will have to look to Luc for that) but my understanding is that before we had a logical theory of calculus, man based forms and ratios on whole numbers and fractions of these whole numbers, for design and construction. I guess this type of math is called Combinatory math, a theory of pure mathematics, which can be related to other areas of math such as algebra, and geometry. Therefore limiting possibilities to a fix design palate. With the introduction of calculus-based forms designers have the option to take whole number ratios, and replace them with calculus-based formulas creating an infinite amount of possibilities. So here this theory of continuous mathematics comes into play, where line segments can be split into an infinite amount of segments, referencing one another.
It’s at this point motion, and the way looking at architecture differs form previous theories of thought. With the usage of continuous mathematics, designers are able to analyze and calculate motion. With this new theory of thought we might be able to look at motion and subdivide it into movement and action, or we can refer to it as animation, (evolution of form through a series of still images that give the illusion of motion)