notesMarch+19

PRATT MIDREVIEW MARCH 19th

10.50--JAKE

Fall semester dictionary of terms categorize the city

Scaffolding Calgary precedent typology matrix- three points

WTC site bldg Mulberry Street study NYC public school situation- sidewalk bridging surfaces indexing stimulant interaction

ED: have to present more of the work earlier in the semester, and also show work from fall to provide conceptual framework for how the current scripting work is being developed.

The idea of the triangle matrix is not working yet- it's just a concept image, and hasn't been activated yet. You need to test what each of the active terms really does in that balance.

MARTA: tell us more about your notion of typology?

JAKE: tried to limit it - either based on physical quality, or alternately programmatic differences. EG public school program is very homogenous but material differs

AARON: Very interesting, many things going on here... yet it always sounds like an indictment of architecture on some level physical systems can change... systems haven't been linked yet or have ways to know about other systems. You have two systems behavioral and agent. Interactions driving physical system, so you have a way to think about this but perhaps you need one more layer to think about it- the feedback loop- you have to define what the meaning of behaviors you are getting is.

Agent system might be working on a series of logics that is 'outside' everything else right now.

Could the text work be brought in as raw data to drive the agent system?

MARTA: initial studies on typology could be used as ground for this now to operate. The notion of the different typologies- historically the contrast between Pevsner and Rossi- functional vs. spatial typology- now even tho both dealt with history these approaches are different pevsner- take up function, but rossi discards the function and looks for what is permanent in history. Maybe this is related to your idea of typology.

Now, how your intervention might be behaving TOWARDS THE TYPOLOGY- you could intervene on permanence or on change- run a taxonomy of how the scaffold could behave towards the site

DOUG: let's see the triangle map page. I think that this is fertile ground for exploring the generation of an active system. You still haven't clearly laid out the intentions of a system- which is NOT a scaffold, but is a superstructure that houses the spatial, political, economic.. environmental...

This could begin to address something that is found in the intersection between the systems. Not a spatial condition but an agent somewhere in between. The idea for example of trading points of pollution- making them intangible, yet also global and local- the ambient in this notion could be hyper critical- and related to typology questions if you play out where on the triangle matrix you want to locate the effects of your intervention you can speculate on where this is not just ambient but closer to physical, closer to behavioral.

Specific effects on a physical environ may be directed more towards how people behave in the building. A meta structure that could dictate behavior inside a building. MAtrix between input and output- the terms are not enough. Are all typologies exactly the same.

Adding another layer might not get more clarity but might make a heightened sense of difference.

There are two ways to address the triangle matrix take as matrix of relations and play out as algorithms, but would take YEARS to play this out.

Alternately, putting the weight on a typology so you can understand what reactions will produce points of control. That's more provocative to me. The scaffolding is not passive, it has economic, cultural ramifications. Adding weight to these things- the typologies- would allow the willfulness of design to come in. And that's where the Rossi thing is interesting. He's not interested in the regurgitation of the type- he was removing the politics of space to understand what space can be. I would disagree with Rossi... the other stuff is what generates the blur and excitement.

CHRIS: Could we use a term like modality which is more neutral and an alternative to typology. How could you get out of the iconographic space. We don't know yet how this stuff is happening [triangle matrix].

DOUG: there is a slippage here, you need the images to stand in for the operation, but you need to find the computational logic. the images are not icons because of their logic, but because you are using them passively right not [images of Mies, Parthenon, and Gehry]

Are you trying to make architecture that has 'real effects'? You have to take risks and possibly fail in this work. I don't believe you can get to the computational logic successfully without putting weight on it.

CHRIS: .... the role of the institutions, etc. This is a really useful analogical tool...but it's exciting to see the processing work begin to materialize. Transition from the abstract scale to physical conditions and then site/program/scenario. Push, alter certain program flows, on some site, in the city, at a scale....

MARTA: that is where typology is a key word that can be veryhelpful typology exists at a level above the concrete. In a sense it is diagrammatic but it exists in the world. It can allow a connection between the diagrammatic and the concrete. What IS the typology, how do you read it and what is the diagram, how can you operate in the specific.....

11.35 CEYDA

Water city. place / connection-- flotation structure-

Sea level rise; project is a response to this condition. How to reclaim portions of flooded manhattan Street grid combinations; then grid system remapping

AARON: is it a floating circulatory system? CEYDA: to connect buildings AARON: Does it know about heights of buildings?

CEYDA: took street levels; shapes and shadows; from here on need to apply to height differences....

CHRIS: Supporting buildings with floating, temporary foundation structures. Urban Liilypad system.

MARTA: if you take the Venice model- look at two times- there is the fixed system- brick, concrete- but there is the second time in November when it's flooded, then the lower parts are connected with temporary platforms. Would be interesting to see map of circulation at that time to see what is connected to what-

Then... the study on the shadow and shapes;... what is that going to mean in the construction. What do you mean by the shadow in your scenario and how can you read your notions of shadow in Venice...

DOUG: There are a few issues... one- you presented passively. It's a given that it is going to flood, etc... Now I'm a pessimist and I DO think it's going to flood, but.... One thing I'd like to see you become more active is how you control the flooding to produce your desired effects.

For example in the page with the proposed hurricane storm barriers- which would actually present your project from happening.

Flooding will redirect the social structures in place. Doing a project like this is not just restitching the urban fabric as it stands.

It will not just be an act of god... Insurance companies refer to these events as such so they don't have to cover the property....

So, you could redirect social orders established. Change context of political and building infrastructure... who can afford to build a powerful building that could resist terrorism and natural disasters...

What you are not addressing is that the present street condition is based on other logics, but thru use and history they have become 'other'.

Streets as site for subversive economies. Incredible political propositions, when this is submerged and repositioned... shades and shadows and what they are becomes very powerful. I am all for the poetics of the project but you can invent new relations here.

You can become more of a designer, not just a problem solver. Interesting that you look at Downtown, a symbol not only of the economic strength of the city but the country.

CHRIS: interesting study could be the redistribution of wealth based on the flooding.. Wallstreet might shift to Midtown; migratory movements of capital and culture. Could tie into wetland tapestries... Another major social/cultural politcal and economic force is the reshaping of the waterfront. First portion of the westside park- Tons of politics going on here, debate of the stadium, to what degree there is public space, driven by quasi public leisure zone.

Waterfront extending to brooklyn becomes interesting backdrop.

MARTA: and to DOUG"S point- the street being more than a connector but a space where things actually happen, i would go even further and consider all the outdoor space- as active space in the city. Here what is going to happen to all the leisure spaces. You can connect thru a study of the different levels of what happens on the street- movement being necessary- not just movement of people but movement of your structure itself. What is permanent, temporary, and how they connect.

AARON: There's a presupposition that a space once flooded will be abandoned. BUt for a big company sealing off the bottom floors might not be a big deal, this could be interesting. The street is a planar condition, you could think thru section street structure... this is a design problem, nature is not a given we should just respond to. We are active part of nature.

DOUG: subterranean model. Underground / underwater NY.

Glad we are not seeing computational so much here... there is possibility for the fantastical here. You need to radically PROPOSE A WORLD and start drawing what that world looks like, which would be more interesting than just figuring out what kind of fiberglas you are using. What new society do you envision out of these ruins. Spinning this out into what these worlds could be. Propositions- not unlike what insurance companies actually do.

MARTA: you can assume that you are at the point where people once laid out the grid. You have that opportunity now. How will you integrate the possibility of the new in your plan?

CHRIS: Economic scenarios, cultural... larger scales. One thing that is weakest part is the grid shift stuff. The proposal becomes a formal composition study. I would just drop that. There's a material component which is missing; question of integrating a different material component, but as DOUG is suggesting, move toward global speculations-

DOUG: read GOTHAM- huge volume looking at everything across 1600's NYC history; what about as MARTA suggests you have no grid you are right back at the beginning. What were ideals of the Dutch who were here. How did they encounter the landscape, what political systems were embedded.

CHRIS: Cities have relied on wars to rebuild and to recast their identities How did Giuliani recast NY thru the 90s, prewar streetlamp fixtures, etc.

FRANK: recast scale of street... how do you program that space. GEORGE: system of control that keeps it floating; would it end up being more of a fortress, or how can one disappear into the crowd...

If it is a futurologist proposal- you have to have attitude/idea of what the future really will be. Wall Street as VENICE...

MARTA: Do you WANT it to become a theme park, or do you want it to be a living city....

DOUG: This idea of 'THE WORLD' is crucial, you have to think about it critically- if this happens to NY then other cities on your list will DISAPPEAR creating an incredible shifting of global politics.

.......

CHRIS: discussion brings up the offshore scheme... designing an entire city or making moves within a city.

ED: Look at Graphic Novels and films that have very detailed and cohesive scenarios... WATCHMEN, CODE 46, CHILDREN OF MEN

12.15 NASER

tangible/intangible Rockefeller Center, Guggenheim, Grand Central , NYPub Lib

Major, minor and enhancer categories of terms. Carnegie, vs. Met. Opera entry sequence, staging Alexander mcqueen or chanel staging.

script work spatialized 'scaffolding to see the interactions'

chelsea piers site

DOUG: what you have is a series of programs. if you can begin to get at the attributes... the terms are performative conditions that will guide how new combinations are possible. Oddly enough I am much more intrigued with the computational model. You have to get a bit more rigorous in how you read them.

If you have two forms running parallel,what conditions left untouched could reflect the concept of distance in the computational model.

I'd say there's a real problem in the project if you say that the piers are runways. Need to reinvent the way you read the computational models.

MARTA: the cases that you looked at- you left out of the equation an important factor, which are the mechanisms of control. You are looking at the situations purely as how they've been planned to work. Security for example keeps an order. Were you to remove that factor you would find a whole new level of activities emerging in the spaces. Same goes for the stage examples. You look at these as very controlled situations. Moving to the design proposal, which is based on / with a contradiction- and you come from a study under very controlled situations- you are then not contradicting anything, you just go along with what already exist in that area/ neighborhood already. Galleries, etc. But if you removed some of the control mechanisms, then you might have real situations emerging. Could along the piers be placed gradients of these mechanisms.....creating another level of complexity.

AARON: When did the pier arrive as a site? Why is the pier a way to test out the proposition of intangible/tangible...? The examples seem so much more provocative....

CHRIS: in terms of the siting question, there is an interesting thing... in all the work you are looking at loose manifolds and infrastructures- vehicles/vessels thru which other program/activity builds itself on. So... would you be designing something that embeds into a manifold, or do you design the host....The question is how the host configures itself, it wants to be flexible enough to configure

The computational model- diagrams. Modulated vertical pylon structures. Pier fields.

Can be used for small scale installations.

As RE PIER_ what if you were designing the host? Pylon system. Support system. 'Variable Infrastructure'.

GEORGE: problem of using chelsea piers is that it is already a site for pleasure use. Hard for you to get away from that control structure and presentation. Keeps the project from interacting at a deep level in the city. It will be very hard... there are many ways you can fit that into a chunk of the city. Can you draw people in thru another agenda.

If it si deployable and lightweight can't you bring to Grand Central, etc.

MARTA: Pylons as host, related to the white/red diagrams- when do they multiply or annul each other- right now your'e thinking too narrow and contained, try thinking more open- the structure in time can react in itself, or another time react to the city. Inputted by an event in the city, and your site could be used to balance that. Think of something like a UN meeting, political, across town.

SOO-IN: Want to follow up on DOUG's comment- you have to be more specific about the words you are using. Tangible, intangible, organized. INteresting problem that happens. Definitions are very subjective, but when you get to the computational model all the terms disappear and it becomes objective in a problematic way. There is no evaluation/qualification of what you have generated. At a point you say interaction but I don't know what kind of interaction.

Concepts of tangiblity, organization seem based on POV. How can you get into the models before moving on to do something with this.

GEORGE: once you have done that, then you could accomplish what MARTA suggests, Not as a site shaped in plan but instead what are frequencies of the site- you could draw/model the site as one half diagram- the site comes into the diagram then.

FRANK: it is immediately suggested caverous spaces. You set up intangible, people guided thru space, lighting, etc. VS> tangible- in walls, etc. can you find a way in which the tangible can negotiate environmental factors. Can begin to drive or create an intangible network.

DOUG : I would suggest to look at Yokohama. Mainly because of experiential condition of site, it subverts the typology of pier, changes the peripheral positioning, the extension of land into the water, It makes center of pier the most important point and makes it sectional. Interesting propositions within your project. But looking at diagrams axons- more fascinated about how they stratify the site taking in to account water, interior,exterior, constructing the problematics of the site itself as extended field. As Devil's advocate can be for/against the piers. How can you be more rigorous and more aggressive with the site. Not just folding these things onto because they share a substrate. Zones and territories interconnected thru agencies that don't localize your proposition but deal with it as field. My frustration with your pres. coming from this- the A. MCQUEEN is a radical reinvention of runway. That show broke the model of what a runway is. Because he incorporated things in way never before done. You need to do those things.

Fascination with fashion is a reinvention of beauty. For MCQUEEN- and we may not think of fashion as a critical discipline- they are operating with values about body in spacetime, in relation to cultural identifiers sense of self, these hung in relation to how the body is hung with clothing. How to produce values in society located on surface. Ultimately change the mind. Radical proposition on aesthetics.

CHRIS: Spread on Anna Winter. Worked in novel ways. Devil Wears Prada based on her. How she navigated vogue, she harnessed thru vogue as curatorial mechanism. Scene in DWPRada- goes off on thread of origin of sweater, color makes way thru channels, etc. Industry's capacity to influence all scales of production. Interesting in terms of larger thematic DOUG is talking about.

Back to runway as typology.

SYSTEMIC distribution as field condition scales up thru city. Alternate scheme being a pitch for smaller scale.

SOO-IN: in fashion shows models are usually moving, but next to your current site Chelsea Piers WS Highway potential audience in car could be moving and models could be more static but achieve same kind of exposure.

ED: Question of economic/social aspects of the fashion show... BOND movie example, interesting power/gender relation played out. You need to have a clearer articulation of how politically the project is going to function, because right now it is not clear at all.

1.15 MIA

Grand Central control point within transportations movement pulses on stairs coffee vendor sound analysis- Visuals/sound 'junctions of pulsating matter' 'can contract as it is activating'

Chinatown bus lines, site analysis hunger network, google sound seeker

Chinatown video documentation

3D tiling pattern extracted from RGB wave analysis in video, deployed in site horiz/vertical and then spatialized

DOUG: the intention of the project.....?

MIA: mini units, 5x15, or 15x30 activating 'inactive areas' kits passed around or loaned

DOUG: what do you expect to happen?

MIA: create another surface at the levels at which it is very active, engulfed by the city, buildings are very tall, it needs to move in scale...

DOUG: Marketplaces?

MIA: Activate sense of livelihood, not a constraint market but a different organization.

DOUG: there's a part where I suppose I should care about that, but in the end I don't. Now you have to make this here[last ppt slide] more willful. If you manage to make these shapes and project them onto the spaces- it would be interesting to see your method of study cast back onto the proposal.

It might not be the most rigorous exploration, but potentially you can generate a deeper understanding of how form affects the modalities of commerce, the typology of the street and how people affect each other- has a chance to expand and contract the rhythms of the street, from what I can see is- that the immediate effect on the sidewalk have to be calibrated.

In Chinatown, no matter the cultural and language difference, there is a shared code about when the police are coming.

Nice to see the boldness in the project, but hope you find a way to evaluate the project.

MARTA: there is a contradiction. One hand you address the street market picturesque, but on the other hand you have larger formal statement ambition. When you talk about commerce not at scale of city then you have things like MALLS- not flexible temporary structure of the street market. You have to rethink what scales you are dealing with, are you attempting to introduce an inbetween then it may not be on the street market site, or have street market presence. You have to be aware of the consequences of what this proposal can bring.

GEORGE: The movie- when you look at that what are you thinking in terms of the goal- because it sounds like you want to make more of that- or crank it up a notch- but do you have some critique or response to that? It is a beautiful film, shows many kinds of flow, timing, people bunching up, the buses- there is a lot there- but what do you want to take from that? That is the challenge. Do you want to make more of that ambience or are you intervening.

PHIL: There is a way- the piece of segments- when you showed it flat it accumulates and then becomes segments attached to wall- it is a series of things cutting across sidewall- I am curious what the effect - is this an intensification of the stall as a unit or the continuity of the street life. Play between the parallel and the perpindicular. The stalls, the people moving- the project seems tending toward segment. I am not sure why you would want to do that unless it is about the individual. Could there be alink in terms of communication laterally-

How you can think an intervention here would play out given the tendency of the two different kinds of movement.

MIA: I was thinking that in terms of joints and possibly a system that can transform and change its dynamics. according to the joints. The crucial areas of folding can suggest...

DOUG: there is a way to read what PHIL is getting at. Have you seen the movie the CONVERSATION. In this film G. Hackman is supposed to surveill a couple having a conversation and there's a discrete individual moments of the surveillance and then there is a remaster of this. The more G. Hackman tinkers at the sounds and finds extrapolation between parts of sound, he hits a moral paradox. He realizes there will be a negative effect. But in relation to this discussion the idea of the discrete moments vs. the extensive system that produces a specific singular meaning... the film suggests that the isolate moments can cast a whole series of other meanings as opposed to one complete from the beginning.

You are potentially just giving beautiful form to the way people already organize their crates and cardboard boxes.

CHRIS: The footage of the market could have more analysis of the systems in place. Things like lighting infrastructure. Could be less of spatial patterns and more rigging. Ports, plugin zones. Equipment harnessed, embedded in a general support infrastructure. Work in the playfulness and diversity of the market systems, but at the same time formalizing and institutionalizing it, but not too much. This proposal even tho very suggestive, somewhere between bldg, enclosure, stalls, might be too aggressive.

MARTA: More can be taken from the analytical parts- you went too fast from the analytical that becomes the generative device, there is a formal variation it is too homogeneous to the richness of the scenes that you showed us. Could be analyzed- is a dialog? A monolog? A convergence of people? A car passing?

PHIL: Should this be a material proposition or does it stay like this. You mentioned detail... does this replace the cardboard box? How do you see it in the world, who would execute this?

get into odd position if we sever the city, especially as you see the city so richly. Could be much more clear how you want to propose this.

CHRIS: sponsorship, carry diversification of system itself? Coorperative network?

PHIL: big question who can be sponsoring agent. Otherwise we are left with routine mechanisms and their ideas of scale.

VISITOR: Pieces flexible, idea of infrastructure and connecting infra. to authorship. I thought - what if you equip them with ability to hook into local infra. Energy, batteries? Not authorized by agency. The pieces are JUST ABLE TO HOOK IN. This enables them to continue to populate the city. Then it is a question how you enable them to infiltrate the existing network. What kind of authority does this have?

2.05 ARTA

Vocabulary from last semester. Network gravity- agent to agent.

Field Gravity: condition of field and how affecting agents. Suicidal Gravity: system collapse on self

Institution as living system How does it survive cooperation thru compromise, cellular sturcture etc.

Art colonies. Soho, Chelsea, westbeth, FLuxus, Not An Alternative, BAM

PROPOSAL: Creative Collective- inc. production/consumption engaging neighborhood gentrification can lead to suicidal network nomadic system. moves around, leaves infrastructure GREENPOINT as site; study Wmsburg for neighborhood programs and how they condition real estate value Now- Greenpoint to Wmsburg to Manhattan 'APEX' - such a BQE creates condition within a field. Property value

mapped areas to develop the most.

'Meticulous' street by street study beautiful analysis and breakdown. zoning envelope modifications

Program distribution map- hyperactive interface, interactive, etc.

ALESSANDRA: Beautifully presented and eloquent, but what again is your project?

ARTA: to support people who are creative in a field and pushing boundaries. not only artists, architects as well, etc,.

ALESSANDRA: Site? Shape?

ARTA: right now working to understand distribution of programs within site of Greenpoint.

PHIL: difference between production, administrative- what are these titles?

ARTA: The aspect of BAM was important- the idea of the scale mattering when you compete with city like manhattan I wanted to recognize areas that are vacant and create a major event condition for them. If I get a chance this can be larger scale theatre or music halls.

VISITOR: clarify your definition of positive or negative apex When you were surveying sites you used these terms. Often it is referred in terms of vacancy.

ARTA: Positive is for example wmsburg, Real Estate value high and this is positive...more people want to get there.

ED: but the whole point is to be critical of basic gentrification.

ARTA: undesired site, cheap rental...

MIKE: At that level - tactical- you want to clarify how you recondition negative into positive, even remains negative- somehow at the level of programmatic infiltration it is duplicitous. Not an institutionalized gentrification. Isn't just installing new windws and give to artists until they can't afford it. Maybe the premise of the studio- dealing with appliance architecture- instead of equipping buildings it can work more at the scale of equipping people- giving them 'camping gear' without making permanent or infrastructural improvements. Gear can allow systems to operate. Insist on degree of separation between that and the building in which you operate in.

You said the negative is a positive, but if it becomes too positive it becomes a negative.

ALESSANDRA: I don't know the rules of the game... but what is the final product going to be... is there going to be a 'building'? 4 Weeks.... I don't see a building yet... you have a beautiful research and the other research has to stop- maybe the discussion of positive and negative might generate forms- but you don't seem to have the formal strategy yet. You are insisting on the programmatic level, I am not sure programs can help you to generate a form-

PHIL: is it a question of form or almost of material. I like this idea of the cover/undercover. .....Extension of performance of neighborhood without making it visible enough to pass the threshold of marketability.

Related to a comfort zone- arrange for muggings on thursday so that they appear in Friday AM paper... So in your system you are architecture, not a cop....

it is abeautiful project, how can you tune comfort zones. But these are very strategic and programmatic things, not material and I would make one step- has to be material- maybe paint-

JASON: Back to defining- original question- what is your project- what you plan could really help you. Research is terrific. but what is next stage. Are you planning a branding strategy for them graphics to find way thru creative collective? Or is a building/ but you need to take this initiative.

PHIL. Condos in soho- across from HdM building occupied by people with marginal cashflow. Examples that exist. But you are working on something that is very human dependent, what people will do with their money at a certain point... how to make more of an architecture out of that. The fineness of the decisions you make hinge on complex human desires and needs. You aren't yet addressing how things go 'bad' in these situations.

ARTA: my project is coming down for me- not the admin space/production- but to illustrate the interface as the most interesting aspect- the conditions that - fr example, how to occupy Green street to bring gallery system- to bring money into area for institution- take residential areas and ask for corridor from them. Literally corridors crossing into the house. These are conditions where I can create real architecture and these areas become very important. This is part of the interface- what institution is bringing to the neighborhood and how changing the fabric and running through it.

MARTA: if you look back to case studies you mention earlier, in the trail of the passage of the nomadic community- art community- the conversion that happened did not go back to an earlier stage- you can pick here a different set of spots- distinct from each other- resident, indust- empty spots- but consider what will be left after, in the trail of the passage. You consider the community as an instrument to intervene in the city- for your design then you have to think of what the conversions are and how to manipulate them. Scales can be further extended as a map in time of how the community can move on.

VISITOR: do you see project as a vehicle to SPEED UP gentrification- a zero visibility architecture. ? your intervention have no effect?

ARTA: because spreading out thru neighborhood it would delay it. Considering Wmsburg HAS been gentrified, Greenpoint is getting to level not affordable- has potential to still be interesting.

VISITOR: So it IS a project of resistance.

MIKE: is there an effective way to coopt some preexisting institutional systems. Coop structure, gentrification, artists move because they rent. Maybe part of proejct is as coop- interesting thing is one does not own one's unit- one owns shares in corp- then given lease to certain quantity of space. But if is coop and you buy into territory you can occupy and can be commercial or resident or institutional - and you can increase your equity within this corporate structure. Can be strategy for new artists to buy in, number of shares not fixed. As coop acquires more territory more people can buy in. Responsibilities for staffing, structures available to you to manipulate

PHIL: Part of that is operative in soho. AIR institution. Certain buildings are only saleable to A.I.R. artists. Today almost anyone can figure out how to be an artist perhaps.... question is how this provides you with a resistant strategy to propose architecture. If proposed as strategy how can use as 'exclusive' What is the 'not acceptable' aspect of the project...? Must be active about what you CAN'T DO...

3.45 ILIR

bridge research grand central circulation analysis multiple programs

site Prishtina CA studies site and site cirulation

three plan strategies for site combined section and 3D studies

Back to bridge and church incorporation of existing church to project.

ALESSANDRA: Hybrid between museum/gallery/park...

MARTA: Shaded areas are already coming from previous part of project.

VISITOR: so each color in the processing studies are different kinds of cultures?

ILIR: pretty much.

JASON: a hybrid condition

VISITOR: you have to be more specific though. Does each of those forms represent a different culture?

You just overlaid them?

Different cultural groups in Kosovo?

ILIR: Yes, but I'm not suggesting that it's specifically Albanian, etc- but that it's a processing experiment that suggests something else.

VISITOR: But you started with the location of these cultures on the map

MARTA: but when you bring these shapes that no longer have any differentiation in color into a single shape on your project it is already combining many peoples. You seem to be looking for an iconic image ... now, this cannot become the icon you are looking for. You seem to be associating it with a notion of verticality. But doesn't have to be, think of a labyrinth, which is horizontal. So- how can you rework this figure which is the statement for the project- will it be thru the program of the spaces, or will you stylize it to be closer to the image/icon you are looking for?

It seems that you already have project loaded with ideas

JASON: Not sure how you negotiate landscape project with 80foot church. But existing situation already is landscape with people negotiating with the church.

You can already reach the problem with the way the landscape becomes the place of tolerance and dialog.

I am not sure about the exhibition / gallery experience. You can't force people to go thru, they can already cut across the land.

ALESSANDRA: I am not sure you can do THIS with architecture. Can you create a landscape of peace???? People are perfectly capable of killing each other in Central Park... Thru architecture you can create a memory of an event. so I think you have to define more clearly your objectives what you want to do. A Landscape of peace, it is hard to believe, they shoot the pope in St Peter's Square...

Memory thing to map, I don't understand how you are mapping, frankly- for example, different ethnic groups, ok, but what are these shapes [processing] coming from....

ILIR: [shows processing] Blue color understands black cels. But when red and blue meet one has to move in diagonal. This is why form expands diagonally.

VISITOR: Is the original map taken as a factual, cultural map, or is this an autonomous, autogenerative project coming from the active map? Where is this map coming from? It is very important.

ILIR: I should have explained last semester's project....

ALESSANDRA: But that was initial research, which you now have to apply to Kosovo... Maybe you are mapping the migration of DNA? or I don't know, but this mapping which is beautiful, needs to be applied to your project. So? What ARE YOU MAPPING?

ILIR: When the mixing and migrating cultures-

ALESSANDRA: But are you using actual datas?

JASON: everything is dependent on the script- algorithm which says blue goes up and red goes diagonal.... What we are looking for is how this set of behaviors can relate to the site and context. Speaking for myself I am willing to buy into all kinds of proesses, but without how your Processing work is related to data and formal condition generated, the value is diminished unless you bring actual data in, OR if you interpret how you see the mixing of the groups in the Processing.

So, in a condensed sentence can you tell us how you took this data and took it into the site?

ILIR: I tried to relate the way that the cells move- when they meet there has to be a negotiation.

JASON: But how do we understand what Blue means and what Red means? Is Blue my neighbor, or someone's job, or a religion?

ILIR: Didn't want to make distinctions... just to say that they are cultures.

MARTA: also to understand how to help you to move on- In our blender I don't think it is a homogenization of cultures, but the coexistence. It is not the mixing of everything to make grey, but the grain to become finer and still coexist together. So that is why we ask what is the blue, green, red, etc.

SO if you qualify what the different cultures are as RE the colors ...You have to be more specific, qualify, and be specific as RE the cultural values...

JASON: Does it always end up the same result?

ILIR" NO

JASON, then we need to know how to read certain forms out of it, without any value judgement how can we choose what stage to pull out of the processing.

I understand there's an experimental method, but at the same time you need a bar to measure or evaluate the data. Then you can transpose this and put it somewhere else.

ED: mixing strategies and conceptual descriptions... bringing morphology forward.

MARTA: you need to understand the processing as more than a figure generator. Can you understand according to the meaning you have given to the colors - for example what does it mean when blue shades into a certain density of green...

You have to work this out, get a whole range of possibilities- _

4.25 PAVLINA

Avatar arch. abstract machine translate human imaginative experiences into space facilitated by digital tech

CA studies; snow and water molecules; Borges texts for rulesets of unfolding timespace

CA rulesets two main systems, open system; or closed system CA work analysis SNOW geom. structure, organization rigid system; patterns in 2D and 3D library of Babel, patterns Forking paths; different scenarios/outcomes map of logical sequence of space/event research on labyrinths; recursion and loops- beginning is end; then maybe nonorientable surfaces

MIKE: can you restate your objective-

PAVLINA: create some kind of physical space which is embodiment of an imaginary experience. Avatar comes from Sanskrit. But in current language of cyberspace different. Avatar arch. involve imaginary experience which evolves as a virtual place/space- questioning myself what would be physical aspect of this

MIKE: do you regard the two Borges stories as the conditions you are trying to actualize

PAVLINA: not sure I will construct the story, but they do have dual structure. If I am using already made construct, and have ruleset I can extract, then maybe I can manipulate.

VISITOR: so the figure 8 knot comes from Borges

PAVLINA: this is just the beginning of spatial configuration. starting with physical moments- actual spaces in the story- once I look in depth how they relate to each other then I am sure the figure 8 will deform. May evolve into a different knot.

MIKE: Amazing thing about Borges- the stories appear to describe something physical, but they resist a physical manifestation. Actually the Borges story about the map which is too intricate for the territory. That's why i asked about your objective, because it seems that it is one that isn't set up well... that is, you can account for the diagrammatic structure of the system you are studying but as a physical object it resists.... EG a mobius strip, topologically you can't occupy this. You can't inhabit the strip. We'll allways- precisely because it has this inversion- YOu have reached a moment which - is not so simple. You aren't proposing that this is something you can make and then occupy.

PAVLINA: Looking more at it as navigation.

MIKE: You need examples... where this kind of immersion can take place. Places this kind of desire can be mapped. You can spend a lot of time with this diagram and see that it will not satisfy your need to spatialize.

PAVLINA: museum designer using trefoil knot.

MIKE: Yes, but even that example, one does not occupy the moment of inversion of the surface, that' is the moment that is significant to you.

You made a physical model, but as something that can be occupied, physically, this concept resists that.

THis is a diagram for something that happens in relation to something else. This model will not necessarily yield what you expect- it has to find a context so that it as a representation of an experience can be unfolded.

PAVLINA: I would like this to merge; thesis started questioing digital and physical and what is realm they merge.

AS humans we reside in both realms, but with digital tech there is another realm. What kind of geometry can yield from them. I have a site in mind but not sure I want it to be physical.

MIKE: when I say context I don't mean neighborhood.

PAVLINA: a neighborhood of self reflection. Another ruleset ruleset for creation of a maze that keeps changing itself.

VISITOR: in some ways looking at this is a literalization of the diagram interesting work done- to understand possibility of diagrams to be seen as something that you don't see them- but you see what they do. The diagram could be operating on much different levels than a physical form.

ED: Borges as bootstrapping, recursion looop which includes/generates the outside.

MIKE: Yep, there are also technical conditions that are particular to a text which might not be exportable to architecture or cinema. Has to acquire actualization by some other means. This is why I asked what your objective is.

At this point it is a very conveniently portable idea, but in doing so it feels extremely lightweight. If it can be reduced to a mobius strip- perhaps it is too reduced....

PAVLINA: I didn't say it's a mobius strip- it is much more complex.... I haven't really considered all the aspects of the story.

VISITOR: it all sounds so logic, but somehow I couldn't get my mind around this. The second condition that EK was talking about that was created thru the story- In a way you mapped the storyand you were still within the story. It might be helpful to locate this 'other' in psychological space- I don't even know what to call 'it'. But there seems to be the case that these stories almost bring about something quite different than what the reader is following. And you tapped into this by making references from the beginning to the end and showing it doesn't quite work out, but also by creating this story that something else happens to appear. I will call it psychological space but that might not be the right term. Maybe there that the pattern- you speak of behavioural pattern- I'm not sure that this is enough for the project that you create a virus that does something like the story. Also because then you would be back to the story and not to the 'outside'.

PAVLINA: how long a ruleset can run without producing different outcomes, or does produce different outcomes. CA work from last semester.

VISITOR: You are presenting it as a totality, but in terms of reading the movement in your position, meaning is contingent on the position. There are histories as RE movement, position- minimalist work in the 60s- the more you begin to move the more meaning begins to shift. This can be closely linked to a 'movement' you have to engage in the text and your shift in relation to it.

Position in relation to meaning. Ruleset becomes iterative and prevents you from understanding it as a totality.