Storm Front

Storm Front from Xárene on Vimeo.

This rhizomatic model is a concept of identity for Other Earth. The rhizome is a term referring to non-hierarchical systems, here becoming the foundation for Other Earth society. Any inhabitant of Other Earth is a continually dismantling organism, a body without organs, connecting with other nomadic inhabitants, creating temporary social networks at any point in space.

Just as any one citizen of Other Earth is a point for leadership, self-sufficiency, discovery and sustenance of limitless, accessible knowledge (possible from achieving Singularity), any one space of Other Earth carries equal possibility of becoming a significant space to host the organisms. Using the terms of Madeline Gins and Arakawa, Other Earth is an "Architectural Surround" where the sky is the ceiling and the broken blades of grass the ephemeral border we create with our bodies. Though the Architectural Surround pre-exists us, in our understanding, our world only comes into existence when we notice it.

Wed, Apr 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: other_earth, architecture

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I follow her...

... though not clear where I am being led. She, however, has no doubts... plays along... treads on...

Wed, Apr 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: other_earth

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Shifting and Evolving
Project: What happened to nature?

Adolf Loos' Ornament and Crime holds a favourite ammunition of mine in defense of immateriality:

I have therefore evolved the following maxim, and pronounce it to the world: the evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects.

How would I define what ornament is today? Ornament, a constant in decoration culture, is surprisingly a very competent shape-shifter, constantly changing form and material. For centuries ornament has been paint on the body, beads around the wrist, embroidery on a collar. It has also seen itself as reindeer and snowflakes on holiday mugs and useless objects in modern homes.

The stripping away of ornament lead to the International Style and what is essentially known as Modernism and it's further stripped down Minimalism. But all these styles are rather funny when they are defined by objects, because objects are mere ornaments. Ornamentation is giving style to a very basic necessity. When a simple stoop to rest your legs becomes the Barcelona chair, sadly, regardless of the absolute admiration and desire that I have for it, it becomes an ornamental mode of sitting. Therefore, objects that exceed providing the bare minimum in order for us to achieve a desired state, are ornament, and ultimately the crime of our materiality.

The desperate and depressing question of What Happened to Nature becomes irrelevant if our culture evolves to eliminate ornament and unnecessary objects. We must shift our perception of what we need to create for survival to what is already there for us to survive on. Learning to live with our natural environment—as opposed to live off of it—is where our focus should be.

The greater evolution of our kind is a paradigm shift from what we perceive space and architecture to be, to what it can be—or actually in the sense I intend to use it, to what it can 'not be'. There is no need to build solid, oversized ornaments for our egos. There is no need for our mortal beings to leave a disastrously lasting mark for posterity. If we look at nature, everything is made of its environment and goes back to its environment after its life-cycle. Everything is self-sufficient or hyper-efficient in the use of its environment.

To move towards that same intrinsic understanding as other life-forms in nature, means we need to move towards immateriality and the acceptance of being a part of nature. We need to accept that we are in possession of lost qualities that make it possible for us to survive without the materials we make and build around ourselves. We need to accept that architecture should not define space, but is space and that space can be made of immaterials. This is as much a mental re-conditioning as well as physical. It is not achievable immediately and it will not be realized unless we have the guts to let go and start from somewhere. That is the ultimate evolution of our species... to return to nature.

A good book to make us think about our relationship with our environment and to put us back in touch with the reality of our horribly excessive materialist lives is Janine Benyus' Biomimmicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Here is her talk at TED.

Tue, Dec 4, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: utopian, nature, biomimmicry
Sent to project: What happened to nature?

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NASA Contest - The Moon: Back to the Future
Project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

Tue, Nov 13, 2007  Permanent link

Sent to project: Design Media Arts at UCLA

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NoZone X

Visualization by Jennifer Daniel
(Created for NoZone X, Published by Princeton Architectual Press. Edited by Nicholas Blechman)

Tue, Sep 4, 2007  Permanent link

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Art on the International Space Station

Contact Omar Rafael Carreño for more information.
orcarrenor@yahoo.com

The press release is in French. I ran it through Altavista Babelfish for crappy English:

EXPANSIONISME - MANIFESTE 4

Paris, 2004 – Caracas, 2007

After the II World war, the compass of the art of avant-garde pointed towards Uruguay and Argentina. After the contribution of Pettoruti to the abstract art, Arden Quin, Kosice, Lozza... create Madi in Buenos Aires, in 1946. And Madi is converted into one of the most important movements, and most active, with a great creative dynamism. Perceptisme (1947) and Expansionisme (1951) are the consequence of Madi. When in 1945 Arden Quin said that "architecture must be mobile", it went beyond Tatlin and from Constructivistes Russian. We are in the course of approach of a new design of architecture in space. Like important sphere of activity to support the development of the ideas of avant-garde, we think especially of the orbiting stations of type ISS (International Space Station) like that which was launched in 1998 and weighs 470 tons. It will be finished in 2010. We think that art cannot continue any more to be excluded from this mini-city in space. Art must always continue its expansion, just as the Universe, and accompany the man there. Expansionisme was centered on transformable work, and especially on the preparation of the theoretical bases of works of the future making profitable the magnetic fields and the gravitation like geometrical property of l`Univers, to be able to work with the curve of the space time and even with the vacuum which, according to astrophysicists', is full with energy. New painting, the new sculpture, new architecture will be also in external space. For the art of avant-garde the workshop will be a memory of the past. The Impressionists were right: it was necessary to leave the workshop. We think in the same way but of another scale: it is necessary to leave the Earth, which implies that our way will be very long and difficult. In the field of creation the computer will have an important role, but it will not substitute the creative act which it could even asphyxiate. What we outline it is a new humanism, which requires that we rely on the human being more and that we profit owing to the fact that our memory can record up to thousand billions of units of information. We must be optimistic if we compare the million bytes (unit of data processing) which has thecubic one of a computer, with the twenty millet million which the same volume of our brain contains. When we was in disagreement (and we it are always) with the "multiples" (Proclamation 2, 1967) it was because we had understood that work single and easy to handle is that which more wakes up the need and the desire to create at the spectator. Time does not stop. Far from fearing technology and science, we consider that they are an essential part of the human creativity. We must approach all that supports it.

Wed, Jul 25, 2007  Permanent link

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NASA challenges open until 2010

NASA Centennial Challenges

Via The Independent

Wed, Jul 18, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: NASA

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left side, right side, upside down

I was looking at a map today and an other one of those odd sixth grade questions suddenly hit me: Why is the planet oriented the way it is: Americas on the left... Oceania on the lower right? Why did we determine the planet's rotation to be counter-clockwise? Where did "counter-clockwise" come from? The clock's rotation could be the other way.

In space, there really isn't an up and down to the solar system—what we call up could be down and visa versa for all I care. In that case left is right and east is west and upside down is right-side up. We can look at it at an angle too. Then none of our directional conventions make sense. Maybe I need an astronomy class (and astrology)...

This simple determination of the direction of all things, by someone(s) at some point has lead to so many complex socio-cultural models which have shaped our perception and minds, and in return, which we apply to almost everything and anything, anywhere. Narrow I'd say.

How would a change in perception evolve in a space colony if these directions are nulled and everything is in constant movement, in all directions? What will that society be like? How will their minds work when they don't have these trite, earthly limitations?

I'll come back to this...

Lewis Carroll's map of the ocean:

Tue, Jul 10, 2007  Permanent link
Categories: jabberwocky, rotation_and_direction, realization

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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

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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

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