body-no-body-what-body-some-body

I get stuck when thinking about my future form and environment, because I am thinking in my current form. My current form has physiological limitations—including my brain's limitations. My limitations make me ask questions, irrelevant ones I think, such as "How/Why/When do I ___?" I say irrelevant, because these questions relate to the very environment and form I exists in, and to the only way I know how to live as.

How do I experience the sun on my skin and revel in the enjoyment of getting a tan? How will I participate with the wind and bees among the flowers on the hills of Gorman? How will I acquaint myself with the scent and taste of rose water?

In my new form, so many physical experiences will be irrelevant, which makes me wonder if life in the new form is really relevant. Why do we exist in this form (a different question than why we exists)? What are the attributes of life?

If my mind is the source of life and existence, my senses are the essence of life. My mind uses my body to feel life. What makes life is the strength of emotions—pleasure and pain and all that make up and define the two.

Love hurts physically. Will the mind alone experience love? All emotions need the body in order to be realized. Will we have emotions in the new form?

I am resolved that the body is enslaved by the mind in order to advance it's purposes. But I think my ideas of the body-less life are being foiled the more I delve into thoughts about it. Does the mind need a physical connection to the environment is occupies? Will it always need a body?

What will that body be? Do we occupy it when we need to, yes, just like going to the toilet, only when we need to...

Sun, Jul 8, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: jabberwocky

Scenario Planning Besopke Futures

This is a an interesting article on changing our perception in designing for the future. Lunenfeld brings to attention an important strategy: Scenario Planning. And applies a nice, lost term to the future: Bespoke

It is a no-brainer. But the problem I find with two generations (mine and the one after, I guess X and Y gens) in applying that strategy is our short attention span brought on by our lifestyles and all the tools for our daily work and play... just things as 'simple' as Google, the Adobe apps, the instantaneous locating of our music on iPods, digital cameras and camera phones and so on. These tools have brought about a lack of patience to plan in detail for events far ahead in time, or to even put scrutinizing attention to tasks at hand (ctrl+z).

My speculation is coming from my personal change over the past 10 years and how by using the internet and getting instant search results, I can't stand flipping through a printed resource to find my answer, or the 1 minute render time will seem like DAMN FOREVER. And think of Photosynth... are you kidding, will I have the patience to click for the next image on flickr?!

(I have been taken control of by my tools. Really, I'll admit it. It must change.)

That (scenario planning) is really smart. That's how we've come to be under the control of corporations. They planned it way ahead of time (think public transportation here in helLA). We need to take back the control and design our method of control. Not to sound like starting up the Death Star colony. But we need to think beyond aesthetics and experience (aX) for continuing living happily elsewhere, but aX for means of long-term survival of just control to prevent wrongful control (make sense?). I am sick and tired of being sold what's free, of having our freedoms sanctioned, censured and commoditized (is this a word?). I don't want breathing to be a service I pay for.

Not only have we messed up our environment, we've messed up how societies play out and interact.

On top of it all, we're drugged up on anti-depressants which make you sit around and do nothing. Between 1998 and 2002 anti-depressants were up 113% and 91% among girls and boys under the age of 18.

How can this population scenario plan a future?!

I'm banning pharmaceutical drugs and the exchange of money.

Mon, Jul 2, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: article, jabberwocky

Phase A1_Architecture reDefined: Ubiquitous Habitat #001

Ubiquitous Habitats hold a minimum of two criteria:

1. Every point in space, through kinesthetic instigation, is a possibility for becoming a 'site.'
2. Every site or 'tentative holding space' (Gins and Arakawa) provides limitless potential for the organism on/within that site.

Applying this concept to architecture creates shapeless architecture which defines our world and which itself is defined by our bodies. The initial stage of this architecture is introduced in the form of a garment—an easily attainable representation of a larger scale of architecture.

The process is a study of the relationship between an organism and an occupiable body—be it the I and the physical body, the body and architecture, or architecture and nature. Space is defined through tension and relaxation of an organism's movements. The movements and their resultant forms create new shifting organisms.

The concept is in support of emergent architectures where form arises from natural pattern; and nomadic systems where organism and form are all encompassing, becoming one, and adapting to multiple states.

Installation
Book

Sun, Jun 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: architecture, documentation

Sun, Jun 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: architecture, documentation

What is I?

What is the self to be aware of it? Are the mind and the self the same thing? Does the self exist in the mind? Or is the mind occupying the self?

Doesn't the self pertain to our body in its material surroundings? Isn't the self the manifestation of our behaviours which are merely the result of our environment? Makes me think of a 'bad seed' or other similar sayings of the traits of a person. Are the characteristics of the self passed from parent to child? Then is the self an ever changing physical thing because it has physical repercussions? What about when we say 'change my mind'?

Being without oneself, beside oneself, selfless...

After brain damage, many have been recorded to have taken on a new personality, 'he was not himself anymore...'. What is our measure for gauging the change of the himself? Taken out of the context of the world we are familiar with, what does it mean to say oneself, herself, himself or myself? Does the self matter without the body? No body, no hurting yourself.
Without: Latin sed

The mind is aware of the self, but it is not self-aware as we would say we are [physically] self-aware. The mind is, however, self-conscious as it knows of its existence.
Self, own, onself: Latin sui

sui sed

Are we gone for good without our self?

Fri, May 25, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: jabberwocky, BwO

Thu, May 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: architecture, stitch
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Thu, May 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: stitch
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Thu, May 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: stitch
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Thu, May 24, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: stitch
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Mummies, coffins and little robots
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

I strongly oppose attachment to ground. By becoming locked in our position, we become dependent on our surrounding environment, and eventually our dependence becomes destructive to the ecology of the area we've become accustomed to. We develop a sense of ownership because of our attachment. Think of it as a house guest who has over extended their welcome and helps him/herself to your amenities. Wouldn't you feel crowded and used? Now what if the houseguest stays for a reasonable amount of time and uses the resources you offer only for as long as it is comfortable for both of you?

By leading a nomadic and dynamic mode of living, we can easily adapt ourselves to new environments, learn to pack less and take and use just what we need at any given moment and most importantly, learn to live without attachments to a physical location where we will end up abusing.

Beginning:



The person is draped in a fetal position (I just started at that form because I feel comfortable in that position... and don't we all begin our existence in that position...). I thought it would be funny to watch a person 'unravel' from that position to the next position—say seated upright—by releasing just enough fabric, and in the exact form to allow sitting upright. The next position would be standing and again, just enough fabric would be released from another pocket to allow for the person to stand within the cocoon. This would continue and continually change the shape of the cocoon to accommodate other positions (an extension can be released to allow for an arm to extend and so on...). Each of these spaces is connected to the previous and the final form of the cocoon will resemble anything but the human form it initially had. The final form will be a culmination of all the forms.

This idea was extended to allow more than one person to join spaces. Instead of pockets of unraveled fabric, each cocoon is zipped on two sides:



Each person can unzip him/herself and re-zip their space to another person's space. This cocoon can continually grow. The initial form is the shape of its occupier; the final form is the shape of the space the collective of bodies create. It is infinitely dynamic.


(plan view)

This leads to utilizing the concept of utility fogs. The initial form is simple and on demand of the need for the final form, they connect one by one and create shared spaces which eventually lead to the final space/shape.



The utility fog concept can be applied to nomadic units of living space which can connect to become nomadic communities, and communities connect to become nomadic colonies. The individual units of each colony can detach at anytime and reattach at anytime and point on the colony. In addition, these colonies are also not attached to any fixed point on any ground, but are rather orbiting their selected rock. This would be a form of ubiquitous habitation.

At this point, almost a day spent with only one eye, I begin thinking of the sense of space, depth, distance, and perspective. When fixed, with a known and familiar horizon as line of reference, we are mentally and emotionally 'fixed.' When orbiting, how do we deal with the lack of these 'grounding' senses? It may be initially difficult for the first generation. If they don't go crazy and self-destruct, the following generations may not even see the loss.

What do we do with our waste? Ship it back to Earth, since she's on the path of becoming a 100% cluster-fuck of landfills anyway? Let the waste incinerate in her atmosphere? Will her atmosphere be around for that? Do we jet our waste to the Sun? We'll make the Sun explode one of these days. Will we learn to re-use 100% of our waste and be a waste-free colony?

Sat, Apr 21, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: alternative_space
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA