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

Κύκλωψ

It was harder than I thought... there is NO convenient day to be blind, even in one eye. But I finally managed to put the eye patch on this morning.

A sense of our surrounding space, depth, distance, and perspective is very crucial to our sanity.

In-Progress

Sat, Apr 21, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: jabberwocky, experimentation

Materials and Actuators

Materials
Actuators

Wed, Apr 18, 2007  Permanent link

Experiments: On Self vs Other

It makes a difference to conduct experiments on yourself and to experience it yourself, as opposed to reading about someone else's experiences. Here's my plan for this month:

1. Visual Deprivation

• Single non-vision In-Progress
  Double non-vision

Under two conditions:

• Rested
  Sleep deprived

With two variables:

• Altered
  Unaltered

Possible effects on:

• Hearing (sensation and sensitivity)
  Sight (during and afterwards)
  Skin (sensation and sensitivity)
  Equilibrium and Spatial Orientation

2. Aural Deprivation

All points same as above.

Mon, Apr 16, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: realization, experimentation

BwO

A confusing reading... A Thousand Plateaus but I really liked getting carried away by chapter six, "How do you become a Body without Organs?"

Deleuze and Guattari were way too abstract so I broke it down to what I'd like to get from it. I came up with two ways to look at it:
1. The body is the Mind
2. The body is our Posthuman Body

If 'body' means the Mind, the imposed limitations (the organs which need up keep like eating and excereting) must be removed in order for the mind to advance. We must become non-material.

Paying attention to human evolution, our physical evolvement hasn't been significant. We've gotten taller, stronger and live longer, and our brains have grown in size and capacity. We must physically evolve, in the same way we've imposed evolution on other biological matter.

Our technology is developing fast and our minds can forsee the possibilities of becoming posthuman. But by being limited in our current physical state, we limit our mind to achieving those possibilities.

I think it is fear.

If the BwO is the body, we must rid the body of its physical limitiations in order to survive in most environments.

Mon, Apr 16, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: BwO

Nature Minimized

Plantwall

The point is again to adapt ourselves to nature. If we've figured out no-soil, drip irrigation systems for plants to grow and live indoors, what can we learn to alter about our energy and life sustaining abilities? What can we do without and what can we harvest impactless from the System?

Wed, Apr 11, 2007  Permanent link

Nature in a Bottle
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Philip Ross

Wed, Apr 11, 2007  Permanent link

Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Public Space:Personal Space
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Otto Karvonen Urban Space Occupation Kit



An example of public space for private use. The idea of using any available space is odd because of our programmed way of accepting our activities to be designated to spaces. The essence of our activities are the same, we may only go about the process of doing it differently. Why should our activities be enclosed and private if we are doing the same things? For many it is an issue of privacy and safety.

Wed, Apr 11, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: alternative_space
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

"Does humanity have a chance to survive lastingly and successfully on planet Earth, and if so, how?"
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

R. Buckminister Fuller
Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

The important concept mention in the Manual which we pay no attention to is 'synergy.' Coined by Fuller, synergy means we can not understand the whole by understanding it's parts.

Earth came with lots of room for error to allow for her ignorant inhabitants to evolve. As we've evolved, Earth's room for error has slowly shrunk. We are at a point were we have learned much about all the parts and micro ecosystems that create our greater ecosystem. We have also figured out how our behaviour has messed up a beautifully self-contained environment which recycles and regenerates on her own, but we still don't fully understand the whole system and ultimately we pose as a threat to new ecosystems we may inhabit in the future. The reason being that we are programmed in our ways of living by hastey consumerism and capitalism and 'unnaturally' we will take these erroneous methods with us.

Tue, Apr 10, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: utopian
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Ubiquitous Habitation
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

We have an urge to build. Nature is treated as a side-order, becoming an attraction and a marketing tool. At one point we came from nature, now we package and sell what is left of it in holiday safari trips. Why do we disregard nature as a habitat for humans and immediately build? Why should nature be reduced to symbolism, poetics and abstraction in products, art and architecture? Like ubiquitous computing, why are we not thinking ubiquitous habitation where 'we' are inferior to nature, just as the computer is inferior to human biology? How do we seamlessly occupy and integrate with nature without disrupting it?

What is a natural habitat? If systematically built-up—as a molecular gastronomist builds food—would a built environment with a base of nature (as processed as it may be) be possible and would it integrate with us naturally?

What is architecture? Our activities define architecture; architecture facilitates our activities. A space to rest, a space to cook, a space to love, a space to learn. Must all spaces be built? Can we define our activities in open space? Does that space become architecture for our activities?

Summer 2006. Grant and I were apartment hunting. We tapped into someone's personal wifi at the corner of Idaho and 9th. Though homeless, we found a homebase in an unfamiliar city, returning to that location throughout the day. That corner of 'public' space morphed temporarily into 'our' space, creating an invisible home for our homesearching activity. Can that space be defined as architecture? What if like wifi, we can tap into Earth's electromagnetic fields for our activities?

What limits our activites on Earth? What defines our activites as Earthlings?
Earth-mineral base.
Gravity.
Photosynthesis.
Spirituality.
Emotions.

Tue, Apr 10, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: jabberwocky
Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA