FOCUS STUDIO ARCH 747

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BIM PULNUPON SUEB-AI ARCH 747 Focus Studio: Drawing Machine Professor Scott Singeisen ARTH 796J Mappping: Issues in Representation Dr. Geoffrey S. Taylor SCAD Fall 2016



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DESCRIPTIVE As we begin the investigation of Drawing Machines as minor acts of architecture that produce discursive imagery, we also begin at the most tangible and scientific end of the spectrum. In alignment with the co-requisite seminar ‘Mapping: Issues in Representation’, the first foray into understanding these precepts is through the descriptive operation.


HARMONOGRAPH PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY PULNUPON SUEB-AI


THE MACHINE

HARMONOGRAPH

Wikipedia contributors. "Harmonograph." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 5 May. 2016. Web. 6 Sep. 2016. 1

DESCRIPTIVE OPERATIONS: MECHANICAL APPARATUS

‘A harmonograph is a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a geometric image. The drawings created typically are Lissajous curves, or related drawings of greater complexity. The devices, which began to appear in the mid19th century and peaked in popularity in the 1890s, cannot be conclusively attributed to a single person, although Hugh Blackburn, a professor of mathematics at the University of Glasgow, is commonly believed to be the official inventor. A simple, so-called “lateral” harmonograph uses two pendulums to control the movement of a pen relative to a drawing surface. One pendulum moves the pen back and forth along one axis and the other pendulum moves the drawing surface back and forth along a perpendicular axis. By varying the frequency and phase of the pendulums relative to one another, different patterns are created. Even a simple harmonograph as described can create ellipses, spirals, figure eights and other Lissajous figures.’1

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THE MAKING PROCESS: HARMONOGRAPH

Arms & Ink

The importance of understanding the working mechanism of the harmonograph and the effects of the pendulums on the product is paramount to the success of this project. Ensure you have a clear understanding of the physical properties of pendulums to guarantee the desired results. Additionally, the construction of the design is influential in the success of the project since many variables are introduced during the assemblage and design-build phase of the construction.

Pivot

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THE PROCESS

NICK’S ACTIVATING HARMONOGRAPH

IN MOTION

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THE DRAWING

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THE DRAWING

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THE DRAWING

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Figure 1. Leonardo da Vinci (Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519) A plan of Imola 1502 Pen and ink, with colored washes, and stylus lines, over black chalk Royal Collection Trust/Š Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016.


THE WRITING

CARTOGRAPHY ISSUES IN REPRESENTATION: DESCRIPTIVE AND DIVISIVE Using Leonardo da Vinci’s Plan of Imola of 1502 craft a synthetic analysis of the course readings completed as studies in descriptive operations. The synthesis must consider survey operations and methods, mapping traditions, representation conventions, and the historical context of Leonardo’s ichnographic plan.

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DESCRIPTIVE AND DEVISIVE KEYWORDS Renaissance Cartography Scientific System political and societal influece Symbolic Values Representation Conventions universal man Surveying Methods In order to talk about descriptive operations, let’s breakdown the words and find out what they mean. “Descriptive” as in a descriptive writing, where the main purpose of it is “to describe a person, place or thing” in such a way that it can form an image with an imaginary senses in reader’s mind thus makes a writing more engaging and at the same time informative.1 “Operations” Collins English Dictionary defines it as “a process, method, or series of acts, esp. of a practical or mechanical nature.”2 In the context of Cartography, descriptive operations are acts of drawing or marking of maps in a particular way following standard conventions and traditions with sets of rules and methods that have been formed and debated throughout history of maps making but with one common goal, to describe and create superimpose representations of our physical reality and environment around us through a god-like perspective. For cartographers alike, it can be quite empowering.

Cartography, the art, science, and practice of drawing maps, is more than what meets the eye. A map can’t never be a city, not for the obvious reason of that a city comprises of the physical realm and a map is a two-dimensional “representation” of it, but a map is of an influence(s), interests, and personal representations that creates by patronized group of “makers.” These makers are essentially dictating the results of the outcome without consensus agreement with the people, shifting rivers, moving landscapes and neighbors. And these maps are what have shaped our history and understanding of our world today, as Adam Gobnik writes “…comes the history of places, where the ingathering of people and classes in a single city or state makes a historical whole bigger than any one face within it.”3 Even our “Universal [Maker]” was not prone to such influence and truly rely on his observations, rational and personal ambition to master his understanding of the natural world. That man is Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance master painter, the multi-disciplinary “Universal Man.”4 But it is important to also place Leonardo on the ground as a real man, a man who lived and walked in real physical place and time, to critically analyze his representations of cities. Thus, to view Leonardo as a real man, he’s also a product of the Renaissance, for he who has his own ambition to pursue knowledge and opportunities often times let symbolic values

Descriptive Writing, Reading Rockets Operation, Dictionary.com Adam Gopnick, Faces, Places, Spaces, The New Yorker (October 29, 2012), 108. 4 Charles Nicholl, Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the mind (1st American ed. New York: Viking Penguin, 2004), 2. 1 2 3


abandon quantitative descriptions evident in reality as shown in Plan of Imola of 1503 (Figure 1). The Plan of Imola by Leonardo, although it was created during the time of reborn aesthetic inspired by the heaven and new scientific knowledge of the natural world, failed to represent its epoch. But it provides a perfect representation of the Renaissance’s manipulation of natural world using symbolic representations fitting a narrative and agenda by expressing power and influence. The analysis of this claim will be supported through the drawing’s historical context, mapping traditions and representation conventions, and its survey operations and methods. The Renaissance, meaning rebirth, has been known as a transitional period of cultural that bridges the Middle Ages to our modern history.5 The intellectual movement was based on humanism, the new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science and literature. One of the most significant development coming out of this was the ability to represent three-dimensional space onto a twodimensional surface using scientific perspective.6 The new scientific methods of representing the natural world is the ambitious attitude of intellectuals and scholars try to achieve, to impose order to nature and to perfect their ideal imagery of their own physical world they are living in. In the context of cartography, a man that had contribute the most in development

of Renaissance maps is Leon Battista Alberti. In his Descriptio Urbis Romae he applies mathematical techniques to mapmaking.7 Although none of Alberti’s maps have survived but his writings and reconstruction of Plan of Rome has been widely studied (Figure 2). The key to Alberti’s plan is in his Ludi Maematici, where he expresses the manner of measuring the circuit or circumference of a territory, to construct a city plan base on mathematical basis. Renaissance scholars also studied Ptolemy’s Geography and his cartographic system. Both systems from Ptolemy and the use of perspective of the Renaissance are both acknowledgments to a renew matrimony between man and the universe.8 Leonardo da Vinci was possibly Alberti’s true successor in applying mathematical perspective to mapmaking as shown in his ichnographic plan of Imola of 1502. Imola was a military colony and Leonardo was under the service of Cesare Borgia, a Roman official under Augustus, Leonardo’s plan of Imola was drawn to show the Roman military might and its perfect city. As the map clearly focus and fixed to its Capitoline shows the importance of the state by placing the city center where the state’s power located as the starting point of the map which everything radiates from it. The circle drawn also works as horizon is a reference to the imperial and mediaeval walls not only it represents as perimeter but as symbols of power and perfection.9

David Woodward, The History of Cartography: Cartography and the Renaissance: Continuity and Change, Volume III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 5. 6 John A. Pinto, Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 35, no. 1,(1976), 35. 7 Naomi Miller, Mapping the City: The Language and Culture of Cartography in the Renaissance (New York: Continuum, 2003), 169-70. 8 Ibid., 174. 9 Ibid., 182-83. 5

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This old convention was based on Leonardo’s schematic plan of Milan in 1497 (Figure 3). From both maps it may seem like Leonardo was just following Alberti’s mathematical measurements methods in conjunction with the Renaissance art of perspective, he failed in the attempt of representing the accurate reality but to be influenced by the authority. Its significant and insignificant topographic information were dictated by Leonardo under his patron’s command resulting in a symbolic representation of a perfect Roman town plan of Imola and placing it in the world’s recorded history. Leonardo could create a representation of the real world by scientific observation but he also could control the marks and lines on paper that could manipulate things in the real world. Often time we can’t really know what was going on in his mind. Leonardo’s plan of Imola was a result of mapping traditions and conventions of Alberti and the Renaissance art of perspective. Similar to Alberti’s reconstructed plan of Rome (Figure 2) plan of Imola is presented as if “viewed from an infinite number of view-points,” but only Leonard’s plan is an ichnographic plan (the delineation of streets and buildings drawn in outline, as in the ground plan).10 Maps in the Renaissance began to serve vastly as political and economic tools in society.11 Despite Leonardo’s plan being a military map, he still utilized older traditions

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and conventions of dividing into eight segments according to the compass-directions of the wind.12 Leonardo’s plan of Imola like in Alberti’s reference in the Descripto using a circumferator to mark location using radial degrees and circular parallels in which recalls Ptolemy’s use of longitude and latitude in astronomy shows the influence of Alberti’s attempt to create an accurate topographical representation by scientific mean.13 However Leonardo’s plan of Imola still follows the medieval plans and world maps conventions and traditions where cities are represented iconically. They are often contained within a circle sharing the cosmos view and the most significant place or city will be shown in the most iconic center of those maps.14 These conventions can be clear seen in both Alberti’s and Leonardo’s plans. They both are contained within a circular format and both locate the most iconic feature, in the Imola Plan is the street crossing, LBA’s Rome is the topographical significant at the epicenter of the plan. Ptolemy also describes his humanistic system by implying that “the position of one place is no more important than that of another...”15 Therefore, Leonardo’s plan should have been drawn beyond its pure geometric and the fixed point should start base on the accurate distance of the Imola’s perimeter’s wall to its center. This further shows the symbolic abstractions that do not represent the scientific representation of

Pinto, Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan, 35. Woodward, Cartography and the Renaissance: Continuity and Change, 11. Miller, Mapping the City, 176. Pinto, Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan, 36. Ibid. Woodward,15.


the physical reality attempted by Renaissance cartographers. Leonardo still followed traditions and representatioal conventions derived from the influence and power of the Middle Ages and not to the rebirth of scientific knowledge and relationship between man and the universe. Survey operations and methods of cartography during the Renaissance took a more scientific turn compared to preceeding period like the iconically medieval maps, from self-centered mappaemundi to the Ptolemaic system of map making onto the Renaissance maps of Alberti. All these operations and methods historical context and influence give rise Leonardo’s representations of his mapmaking. Maps are to be expected to be accurate, truthful and contain errors, therefore maps often be assumed as statements of geographical facts.16 Leonardo’s highly detailed and colored Plan of Imola thought to be “the most accurate and beautiful map of its era” resulting from his artistic ability and innovation in surveying.17 Traditional surveying methods and late medieval discoveries in navigations become the essential tools to apply to the new way of representing cities in the Renaissance maps. The new rational representation of the city asks for the development of scientific instruments to accurately record the abstract mathematical description of physical world.18 Leonardo’s invention of technical apparatus controlled the representation by

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using the magnetic meridian to be a constant reference for surveying from different viewpoints (Figure 4).19 The Odometers device by Leonardo led to a very accurate plan of Imola in terms of measuring distances (Figure 5). The most important aspects for surveying for the plan of Imola were to accurately measure distances and establishing orientations. Then with precise records the creation of representational plan could manipulated and depicts based on the purpose and control of its maker and patrons, leaving the accuracy and honesty to artistic and ambitious influences of Man. Leonardo’s preexposure to radial ideal city plans like in Rome influence his choice of an ideal graphic format to represent existing city Imola, where Imola has rather irregular formation. This further shows that no matter how surveying operations and method had advanced in the Renaissance in the pursuit of scientific knowledge an individual like Leonardo, a man, still can be influence by his preoccupation of his environment and place. How can one ever be free of influences? Or it merely is a hypnotically question? Like a great man of the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci, “descriptively” tried to represent his physical world on a flat surface using traditions and conventional operations to convey the city and its features. Even applied the Renaissance artistic and scientific advancement and reasoning, Leonardo still failed to

Matthew H Edney, Imago Mundi: Theory and the History of Cartography (1996), 186-87. Nicholl, Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the mind, 350. Pinto, Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan, 40. Ibid.

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realize the imprint of his society and bureaucracy influence had placed upon him. Maps that have shaped both our geographical and human history have been products of power and influence by a dedicated few that audience entrusted. Because maps are statements of facts produced by neutral technologies, we have been accustomed to maps; they are natural objects.20

Figure. 4 Transit Dial with Magnetic Compass, from Bartoli, 1564 (courtesy: Houghton Library, Harvard University).

Figure. 3 Leonardo da Vinci. Plan and view of Milan. Codex Atlanticus, folio 199v, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

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Figure. 5 Leonardo da Vinci. Odometers,ca. 1502. Codex Atlanticus, fol. Ir, (after U. Hoepli,ed.,Il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano [Milan,1894], I, tav. I).

Edney, Imago Mundi: Theory and the History of Cartography, 187.


Bibliogaphy “Descriptive Writing.” Reading Rockets. http://www.readingrockets org/strategies/descriptive_writing Dahl, Ed. “A Discussion of Concepts, Approaches and New Directions.” Imago Mundi 48 (1996): 185-90. Edney, Matthew H. “Theory and the History of Cartography.” Imago Mundi 48 (1996): 185-91. Gopnik, Adam. “Faces, Places, Spaces.” The New Yorker, October 29, 2012, 108. Literature Resource Center. Harley, J. B. “Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe.” Imago Mundi 40 (1988): 57. Miller, Naomi. 2003. Mapping the city: The language and culture of cartography in the renaissance. New York; London;: Continuum. Nicholl, Charles, and da Vinci Leonardo. 2004. Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the mind. 1st American ed. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Viking Penguin. “Operation.” Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://www. dictionary.com/browse/operation (accessed: September 24, 2016). Pinto, John A. “Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 35, no. 1 (1976): 35-50. Woodward, David. “Cartography and the Renaissance: Continuity and Change.” The History of Cartography, Volume 3. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

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02

OBJECTIVE


GEARS PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY PULNUPON SUEB-AI


THE MACHINE

PINTOGRAPH OBJECTIVE OPERATIONS: PREMANUFACTURED CONTROL As we continue the investigation of Drawing Machines as minor acts of architecture that produce discursive imagery, we move into realms of production that do not have direct physical and tangible understandings. Here, elements of premanufactured control are used as opposed to the construction of each of the elements in the Harmonograph exercise. This transition within the spectrum of understanding requires intense research and experimentation in order to produce an anticipated outcome.

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THE MAKING PROCESS: PINTOGRAPH

Double Scissor Arm

Pintographs are harmonographs that use electric motors instead of pendulums to move the drawing instrument. Therefore, these drawing machines are more engineered in their construction, and yet provide more result combinations in their product than relying on simple laws of gravity and friction. Pintographs consist of two motors, switches, a speed controller for at least one of the motors and some sort of linkage system connecting the rotating shafts of the motors to a pen

Gearing

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Scissor Arm Pen

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Lines drawn by pintographs show separation because the two motors run at slightly different speeds so the pen is constantly being pushed along different paths.


However, with pintographs the faster motor will eventually catch up to the slower one so the figures repeat if the machine is left to run long enough. These machines can be compact and can easily create copies of previous images. 32





“MESSED UP”

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THE WRITING

FORENSIC OBJECTIVE OPERATIONS: INVESTIGATION OF NARRATION A forensic record exists in tension between a narrative account and a presumptively objective recounting. Ex post facto the chronicle diagrams an activity or event(s) within a limited space and time. This written response will read the forensic map and locate the document within the discursive spectrum from account to recount while considering the illegible and the articulate, the uncertain and the predictable.

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INVESTIGATION OF NARRATION KEYWORDS Nolli map forensic map objective operations forensic record pintograph narrative account misinterpretation empirical data If you are looking at the “pintograph drawing” is it possible to determine what tool(s) were used to draw the image? (Figure 1). Was it done by hand— meaning a human physically made marks on a paper using a pen or pencil? Alternatively, was the drawing even produced by a human at all? In order to answer the questions one has to investigate, to gather evidence, and closely look at each and every mark on the paper to find any abnormalities. This process of investigation is call an objective operation, which is done by performing a forensic examining facts and data in this case the evidence consists of a line, gabs between the lines, and implied directionality. One who conducts the investigation has to have a narrative account— to find a meaning for the drawing, a motive, however by having a motive that person will most likely interpret his or her own meaning of the drawing influencing the outcomes and guides the investigation in certain way. When considering the pintograph drawing, the question of motive was

posted as: what produced the drawing? However, we might subjectively question it as: why was the drawing made? People always want to uncover the story behind an unsolved case. We will try to make connections to other stories, other similarities, or from our knowledge. Perhaps to different people, the drawing could be viewed as a scientific record, a mathematical graph, or a computerized visualization. A person looks at drawing subjectively with his or her own narrative opportunity, which can sometimes cloud the ability to judge the object. Looking at a forensic record objectively cannot make sense because there is no background story or narrative to aid in the completeunderstanding. The artist of the drawing most likely had a subject or story in mind. Therefore, in order for us to fully interpret a drawing we must look at it subjectively as well. If the artist is not next to the drawing to explain its nature or meaning, we cannot look at the drawing correctly, if we only use an objective analysis of the finished product. The artist alone is not only vehicle to subjective analysis. Nevertheless, without success, finally, one will turn and look objectively for concrete evidence, the empirical data— continuous curvy lines that do not seem to repeat itself on the same single path but somehow it looks uniformed but not symmetrical. There are abnormalities, either at the start or finish (top left and bottom right), it seems like the drawing

Elsa Lam, Narrative Structures: The Nolli Plan and the Roman Experience,”Giambattista Nolli and Rome: Mapping the city before and after the Pianta grande” (2013), 81-90. 1


apparatus has been dropped onto the surface. One can assume that a human was involved in its process as the one who started and stopped it. Because of its complexity and intricate design, we can assume that a machine created a pintograph drawing. Though it looks like a scientific drawing using calculations and computation, it is really just a drawing by a pintograph machine based on gears and motors without any expected outcome except an exploration of drawing (figure 2). Therefore, it is just drawing for a drawing sake; there is no subjectivity behind it. Through objective operations, forensic record produced inherent objectivity yet alone cannot be substantial enough to communicate information without any subjective narration. “Every map is more than a simple documentary exercise” Lam claims that that actually a map is a representation based on a narrative understanding of place.1 However, we view mapping as a “neutral activity” that utilized objective operations in the premise of reproduction of reality based on facts and data. Lam counters that the claim is a mere illusion. Because the creator of the map inherits power and control in the process of making the map, choosing what to depict or omit, which related to the map’s larger context and the motives of its creation. In the example of Nolli plan, the figure-ground plan became the effective analytic tool for designers to objectively focusing on

the city’s public spaces (Figures 3 and 4). The Nolli plan of objective is to emphasize public spaces, the creator chose to omit information of different sites and significant of different buildings because the public spaces are the narrative of this account. It is then necessary to exclude some data in order to tell the story that will fit his narrative. So if one were to use this map as a forensic map and objectively investigate it, he/she might find it difficult to realize the significant ties of the plan tothe political strategy of Rome, in which the idea of Rome as a tourist city is reflected.3 There are many obstacles in reconstructing a map to purely base on forensic records without inserting some form of narrative background. In Urban Setting of the Pantheon by Allan Ceen, Ceen it looks at evidence of urban planning Rome from Roman antiquity to present day.4 First Ceen has to seeks the forensic records of maps from the past between “predetermined” planning or “developmental planning” objectively looking into developments based on street layout instead of looking in to developments around monuments or civic buildings if one would typify a Roman town.5 In reality, the objective evidence suggests that the city of Rome as one expects does not exist. Based on maps of Rome, Ceen suggests that the city’s developmental planning developed in different systems of orthogonal overtime. Unlike the Roman custom,

“Rome as a tourist city, a view first conscientiously applied to the eighteenth century that has persisted to present.” Elsa Lam, 86. 4 Allan Ceen, The Urban Setting of the Pantheon, “The Pantheon in Rome: Contributions to the Conference, (Bern, November (2006), 127-138. 5 Allan Ceen, 127. 3

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,the plan despite evidence of perpendicularity is anything but regular (Figure 4). Ceen stresses the importance of objectively investigate urban planning of Rome stating that to recount the urban setting of the Pantheon, the reconstruction must be derived from the street pattern of that area, rather than its significance of its location or proximity to monuments. In the Pantheon urban context, the street reveals its urban morphology.7 Although Ceen attempted to make objective recounts of the city of Rome, he already made premeditated judgments on the street layout along the river using his expertise as an urbanist to justify his assumption. Ceen expresses his disbelief of the facts presented based on his previous observations of various maps: “It is difficult to believe that there were none....”8 Although forensic records are presented, Ceen still hesitates to accept them because it disproves his previous judgement of the nature of assumption. This shows that Ceen is using his opinionated assumption, although the knowledge extends from his study and experience, to assert his authority over the forensic record thereby, influences reader’s attitudes towards the validity of the evidence. Thus, readers rely on interpretation of the forensic record solely on Ceen; the map is viewed through Ceen’s Map and Writing, where he questions empirical data arguing that a drawing itself cannot become an objective forensic record because people are sovereign to interpret

their own meaning anyway.9 Jacobs argue that it only makes sense to make connections of empirical data to make sense of the account of the recount otherwise the drawing itself is left to be an autonomous object with its own sovereignty useless to any readers except the author him/ herself. In other instances, where all empirical data and set of instructions of a lost forensic record are present, the reconstruction of the account is more articulate. In Leon Battista Alberti’s Delineation of the City of Rome, records the forensic evidence in detail, and instructions were clearly noted that one can objectively reconstruct Albeti’s lost map of Rome of 1450 using step-by-step objective operations (Figure 5). Without its original map as a reference, the reconstruction of Albeti’s plan of Rome still pertains the authenticity of Alberti’s account. Because there are specific coordinates and instructions on how to draw the map, one can avoid the subjective influence of personal bias or any. The author also notes that the absence of drawn illustrations eliminates any subjective misinterpretations of Albeti’s instructions.10 In this case, the articulation of the forensic record from the author left the objective recounting controls the outcome of the narrative account However sometimes too much empirical data serves less purpose and dilutes the relevancy in a useful context. As shown in Guest Editorial: Affective

Ibid., 127 Ibid. “Most of these plans also show two streets paralleling the river, south of the central area. But none of these plans, including those of Lanciani and Scagnetti, show any streets passing through the central. It is difficult to believe that there were none,” Allan Ceen, 130-131. 9 Christian Jacob, Maps & Writing, “In The Sovereign Map: Theoretical Approaches in Cartography throughout History,” edited by Edward H. Dahl, translated by Tom Conley, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2006), 189–256+, 380–82. 6 7 8


Geovisualizations by Stuart Aitken and James Craine, geovisualizations dismiss the static and objective nature of geography in maps and GIS data visualizations as often time the program has the tendency to overwhelm the content.11 Aitken and Craine suggest GIS-visualized data sometimes to be more interesting to look at than to actually experience the information itself. They argues that by offering the user the option of engaging the geography of a particular place through ‘story telling’ of geovisualization (moving pictures much such in videogames or in films), the user may lose a conscious connection to his own corporeality.12 And this is what modern technologies could provide for us, the immersive experience the breaks the gap between our conscious knowledge of our physical world and the objectivity of the visualized data.13 To be objective is to be unbiased using facts and evidence to present forensic information that can be interpret by the audience. However, one must interpret the forensic evidence and recount narrative based on objective operations in order to make sense of any forensic record. Otherwise, the forensic record or a standalone drawing of pintograph serves no purpose. They will not extend its significance or relevancy to larger context and discussion. In terms of objective operation in a drawing, each piece provoding forensic evidence should be independent from each other; they

should not make any connections. To make any connections when one is creating a story is a narration of the investigation.

Leon Battista Alberti, Mario Carpo, Francesco Furlan, Jean-Yves Boriaud, and Peter Hicks. Leon Battista Alberti’s Delineation of the City of Rome (Descriptio Urbis Romae),(2007),3-6. 11 Stuart Aitken and James Craine, Guest Editorial: Affective Geovisualizations (Directions Magazine 2006). 12 Stuart Aitken and James Craine. 13 Stuart Aitken and James Craine give an example of immersive experience in video gaming— “Video-gaming in a case in point where filmic digital images are merged with usable/controllable products to create innumerable storylines.” 10

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FIGURES

Figure 1. Untitled. Pintograph drawing by pintograph drawing machine designed by Pulnupon SuebAi. 2016.

Figure 3. Giambattista Nolli Plan of Rome, 1748

Figure 2. Pintograph drawing machine designed by Pulnupon Sueb-Ai. 2016.

Figure 5. Map of Rome during Antiquity,1886 Source G. Droysens Allgemeiner Historischer Handatlas


Bibliography Aitken, S.C. and J, Craine (2006) Guest Editorial: Affective Geovisualizations. Directions Magazine. http://www.directionsmag. com/entry/guest-editorial-affective-geovisualizations/123211. Alberti, Leon Battista, Mario Carpo, Francesco Furlan, Jean-Yves Boriaud, and Peter Hicks. 2007. Leon Battista Alberti’s Delineation of the City of Rome (Descriptio Urbis Romae). Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, v. 335. Tempe, Ariz: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Boriaud, Jean-Yves. 2007. Leon Battista Alberti’s Delineation of the City of Rome (Descriptio Urbis Romae). Edited by Mario Carpo and Francesco Furlan. Translated by Peter Hicks. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 335. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. http://www.directionsmag.com/ entry/guest-editorial-affective-geovisualizations/123211. Ceen, Allan. 2006. “The Urban Setting of the Pantheon.” Edited by Gerd Grasshoff, Michael Heinzelmann, and Markus Wäfler. The Pantheon in Rome: Contributions to the Conference, Bern, November. Jacob,

Christian. 2006. “Maps & Writing.” In The Sovereign Map: Theoretical Approaches in Cartography throughout History, edited by Edward H. Dahl, translated by Tom Conley, 189–256+, 380–82. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Lam, Elsa. “Narrative Structures: The Nolli Plan and the Roman Experience.” Giambattista Nolli and Rome: Mapping the city before and after the Pianta grande (2013): 81-90. Metro-Roland, Michelle M, Tourists, Signs and the City: The Semiotics of Culture in an Urban Landscape. New Directions in Tourism Analysis. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011.

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03

SUBJECTIVE


TIMELINE PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY PULNUPON SUEB-AI


THE MACHINE

SUBJECTIVE MAPPING SUBJECTIVE OPERATIONS: UNPREDICTABLE & UNANTICIPATED As we continue the investigation of Drawing Machines as minor acts of architecture that produce discursive imagery, we must explore those machines and drawings that are unpredictable and unanticipated. This transition within the spectrum of understanding requires intense research and experimentation in order to produce an anticipated outcome. In alignment with the corequisite seminar ‘Mapping: Issues in Representation’, this foray into understanding these precepts is through the ‘subjective’ and ‘projective’ operations.

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THE MAKING PROCESS: THE BRAIN

Arduino

This subjective drawing machine is an installation that maps people’s movement as they walk through the hallway. The machine “brain” is an Arduino, a programmable controller using motion sensor and motors. As one approaches the detectable range, the motion sensor will send an input to the Arduino board which then translates that input into movement through a motor.

Sensor

PIR Motion Sensor

Arduino

Motor

Motor

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THE MAKING PROCESS: THE BODY This subjective drawing machine expressed the input through its “body.� The body consists of belt driven cart that has linear motion of left and right. Attaching to the cart is the arm, double pendulum, where the momentum swings it chaotically. At the the tip of the pendulum is a drawing tool: a pen, chalk, grahite, or ink.

Drawing tip

Ball Bearing and Spacer

Belt Driven Cart

Double Pendulum

Double Pendulum

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THE MARK MAKING: A LINE THAT SHOWS PROGRESSION Line starts at the darkest and heaviest impression and ends at the lightest and fading mark. Darkness represents the beginning of time. Lightness represents progression through time. Empty space represents the absense of time.


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THE WRITING

SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTIVE OPEREATIONS: SUBJECTIVITY IN REPRESENTATION This written response will closely read and consider subjective maps while considering the intangible and haptic, the inventive and observed, the effective and the complete.

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SUBJECTIVITY IN REPRESENTATION KEYWORDS subjective mapping effective intangible Leonardo Bufalini Plan of Rome narrative Today, maps are presumed for their accuracy of the representation or at least. Maps work as guiding function. Some work in an administrative function and some have been used in military application. However, maps always possess agendas. They serve a specific function or purpose, at least in the intent of the maker. The way audiences experience or use the map is up to them to interpret since the map is an autonomous object. It possesses its own sovereignty therefore; it dictates the information given to the specific users. A map for a specific audience would have specific meaning for that particular audience group. For others, without specialization in the context, would be at lost; thus they will have subjective control of their own interpretation of the map. Therefore, the map becomes a subjective map to the unfamiliar audience. ‘Subjective’ (adj.), defined by Merriam-Webster is relating to the way a person experiences things in his or her own mind based on feelings or opinions rather than facts.1 When relating this definition to cartography, subjective mapping can include the

cartographer’s incorporation of the resident’s subjective experiences in navigating their city to extend its representational quality and context beyond its typical empirical data. This will bring out their impressions and their ways of perception of their environment, which will be apparent in a subjective map. It will also lead to the discovery of a key to individual’s response emotional layer in the perception of place. All narrative platforms, whether in literature, films or videos games, dictate certain subjective experiences for the audience member in correspondence to the creator’s message. Subjective mapping is no different because engages maps that are altered to the context of the viewer, and thus can be more experimental. This writing will explore: the intangible and haptic, (looking at the subjective in the narrative and the physicality within and of the map itself), the inventive and observed, (comparing the divisive creativity in attempt to convey subjective information in maps and the records of perceived data and information), and finally the effective and the complete, (defining the success in fulfilling the maps function and the conclusiveness) of the subject maps in various articles. To say a map is ‘effective’ is implying that the map is successful in conveying the necessary information necessary and producing the intended result. Incoherently, a ‘complete’ map does not mean it

“Subjective.” Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed November 1, 2016. http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/subjective. 2 Friedman, David. “Leonardo Bufalini’s Orthogonal Roma.” Thresholds 28 (1992): 10–16. 1


is fulfilling a specified function thus sometimes results in failures to convey the useful information. In the Leonardo Bufalini’s Orthogonal Roma (1551) by David Friedman and Paul Schlapobersky talks about the relevancy of Bufalini’s map of Rome in 1551 and its applications (figure 1). The author questions the purpose of the plan since city plans were often used by the military and they were not intended for the public.2 The public required specialized skills to be able to read the maps that were intended for the officials. However, Bufalini’s plan appears to be for many diverse applications: military, archaeological, and administrative. Although his plan seems to be complete, meaning it has all the necessary or appropriate parts to convey information, the map is not effective. Its fault is in the inventive convention of bird’s eye perspective, since it was not based on measurement. Therefore, it cannot be used to rationalize the knowledge of the city.3 Bufalini’s representation embodies subjectively antiquarian vision of Rome by including the fragments of ancient ruins and ruins that had vanished entirely into the plan.4 The map represents timelessness where Bufalini is merging the contemporary and classical seamlessly. This show the intangible quality of the narrative the maker of the map is trying to convey through the physical map. It reveals Bufalini’s imaginative and highly subjective representation of

Rome. The map becomes subjective in a sense that the audience perceived it differently depending on their own interpretation and usefulness of the map to them and because the intention of the maker was subjectively manipulated to fit his own creation with imagination. Given its completeness of the map, Bufalini successfully produce an image of the city– a representation of its character and identity as well as its form without compromising the spatial information that one might experience while travelling through it.5 Sometimes the observed phenomenon can be abstracted to form inventive way of representation. Through abstraction of recorded information, the author’s message can be more directly presented thus resulting in a successful outcome. In Ancient Battles by Guido Beltramini, the military drawings are not the accurate record of the battles or formations but abstractions, inventive representation of the described (figure 2,3,4).6 In Domenico Cora’s Battle of Pharsalus between Caesar and Pompey much information has been subtracted from yhr image (figure 2). Geography and the landscape were removed the battle formation represents directly on the drawing plane with no topological context. It loses the tangible data and completeness of the observed. However, the map becomes more effective in informing the user of its functionality, in this case, the formations of army.

David, 10. Maier, Jessica. “Mapping Past and Present: Leonardo Bufalini’s Plan of Rome (1551).” Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography 59, no. 1 (2007): 1–23. 5 David, 14. 6 Beltramini, Guido. “Ancient Battles.” Baltimore, MD: Homewood Museum, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. 3 4

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The map also includes a narrative or notes at the top to control the subjectivity of its audience that could lead to misinterpretation as often occur in subjective maps. By removing realistic information of the site and representing, the army in conventional diagrams, in a sense, it makes the information in the map more tangible as one could pretend that he is playing chess and moving pawns and knights strategically across the board. In a different representational convention by Albrecht Durer, Siege of a City, leaves more intangible the representation (figure 4). The print is subjectively mapping or recording a past event but at the same time, shows the military formation and its movement. This is a subjective map because it includes a narrative that the audience could draw from. Although Durer’s map shows the characteristics of the contextual landscape and locations, the map becomes elusive in its functionality; it becomes intangible for military for the use in formation of troops. However, the subjective quality of the drawing extends its autonomous state as an object to be timeless and tell story and shows overall geographical features of the site of the battle thus memorialize the battle.

Figure 1. Leonardo Bufalini. Roma (1551), in the 1560 edition.

Figure 2. Domenico Mora,Reproduced by Beltramini. ‘Battle of Pharsalus between Caesar and Pompey’, in Il Soldato (Venice 1569).

David Woodward, The History of Cartography: Cartography and the Renaissance: Continuity and Change, Volume III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 5. 6 John A. Pinto, Origins and Development of the Ichnographic City Plan, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 35, no. 1,(1976), 35. 7 Naomi Miller, Mapping the City: The Language and Culture of Cartography in the Renaissance (New York: Continuum, 2003), 169-70. 8 Ibid., 174. 9 Ibid., 182-83. 5


Figure 4. Albrecht Dürer, Siege of a City (1527)

Figure 3. Giovanni Franco, ‘Formation of the Roman legion. After Polybius’, engraving reproduced in Gl’Ordini Della Miltia Romana. Trattida Polibio in figure di rame (Venice 1573).

Bibliography Beltramini, Guido. “Ancient Battles.” Baltimore, MD: Homewood Museum, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Friedman, David. “Leonardo Bufalini’s Orthogonal Roma.” Thresholds 28 (1992): 10–16. Trumper, Charlotte. The Past from Above: Aerial Photographs of Archaeological Sites.Translated by Spencer, Stewart. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2005. Maier, Jessica. “Mapping Past and Present: Leonardo Bufalini’s Plan of Rome (1551).” Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography 59, no. 1 (2007): 1–23. doi:10.1080/03085690600997464

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04

MOBILE BEHOLDER



THE WRITING

PROJECTIVE PROJECTIVE OPERATIONS: THE MOBILE BEHOLDER This writing will closely read and consider the mobile beholder by addressing movement within the confines of the two-dimension map, the phenomology of threedimensional experience, and the descriptive space that marks thresholds and transitions between these spaces.

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SUBJECTIVITY IN REPRESENTATION KEYWORDS mobile beholder physical artifact projective Architectural promenade wayfinding effective maginary physical realm movement What is the ‘mobile beholder’? What is the relationship between the mobile beholder and maps or drawings? The word ‘mobile’ (adj.) defined by dictionary.com as capable of moving or being moved readily.1 The beholder is the spectator, the audience, the viewer of the experiences. A ‘mobile beholder’ implies that a person is in motion and therefore is not fixed in one position and view. A mobile beholder could also imply to that in not only physical state but also in the state of being moved mentally or imaginatively. Mobile beholders have the most control of their information. They have the complete sovereignty of the use of the drawing, the way they read it, the way they interpret it, and the way they experience it. It is the maker’s responsibility and creativity to control the information or ‘project’ the information of its intended outcome in order to make the map effective. For the map to be effective entails that the map is successful in conveying the necessary information

and producing the intended result. The effectiveness of the map is most critical to the mobile beholder. Since once the physical artifact leaves the creator, the object or map becomes autonomous and now it is in the hands of the beholder. In a sense, a map is the mobile beholder in itself in a way that it relays information as how its viewer views it. Therefore, the map is the ‘mobile’ artifact. A the words ‘mobile object’ expresses the mobility of the object and thus reveals the dimension of the object; one that might be in a form of a pocket map, an atlas that fits into the glove compartment, or today’s ‘mobile’ devices we are relying on for navigation and information. A mobile spectator can change his/ her position as one pleases, but one can also be moved mentally breaking away from the physical realm to the intangible, imaginary places. That is when the physical artifact or a map can regain control over information and become an effective tool to relay prescribed information and to attain the anticipated outcome. This writing will attempt to define the ‘mobile beholder’ and identify the relationships between the observers and the artifacts being observed (maps, drawings, buildings, and places) by addressing movement within the confines of the two-dimensional map, the phenomology of three-dimensional experience, and the descriptive space that marks thresholds and transitions between these spaces.

mobile. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://www. dictionary.com/browse/mobile(accessed: November 20, 2016). 1


The act of walking is something we do every day. Walking in the city although is a quotidian act; one might be subconsciously doing something other than the physical mobile act of moving through space, that is, looking and voyeur-ing the people, the buildings, or the intangible things like gaps between spaces and buildings or the chaos. In the Practice of Everyday Life by Michael de Certeau, sets one on a non-linear movement like the usual walk in the city, he lifts one to the summit of the World Trade Center in New York City.2 By being on top of the city that one used to walk in, one is no longer confined to the twodimensional figure/ground like ants in God’s eye. Now the vertical mobile beholder has left behind the chaos, lost texture and missed up identity of the mass, and become separate from it, becoming the spectator and author of the city. Still a phenomology of three-dimensional experience, the elevation ‘transfigures’ him into a voyeur, a beholder of New York City.3 The elevation allows the beholder to read the city with an unobstructed eye, “looking down like a god.”4 The elevated mobile beholder has the pleasure and lack of pressure of not being part of the reality of life walking and moving through the streets. He is detached from reality in order to be the beholder of below and nothing more. The mobile behold can breech his reality by being immobile physically but travel through their imagination dreaming and traveling

through spatial memories. Marco Polo’s hesitation in describing the city of Venice to Kublai Khan in Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino is what memory or imagination turns back to reality; something tangible like words.5 Marco Polo expresses: “Memory’s images once they are fixed in words, are erased. Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it.” Spatial memories stay ‘real,’ in a sense, in one’s mind but once expressed or defined, they become something perceivable, tangible and exist in the physical world thus losing its authenticity of memory’s images. When the words are uttered, they left the memory and vast fantasy of one’s consciousness to the physical realm thus becoming less ‘real’ to oneself. Therefore, if the information is not truly true to oneself, how could it be more honest or truthful to the beholder? Perhaps the inherited meaning of the mobile beholder resides within this relationship of authenticity of the physical representation of our subconsciousness, the ability to move and witness the phenomenology of three-dimensional experience beyond the physical means through our senses. The two-dimensional map is confined in the hands of the user but it has ever been so mobile in the hands of its user. Maps entail the

Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, pg. 92. “… to be lifted to the summit of the World Trade Center is to be lifted out of the city’s grasp. One body is no longer clasped by the streets that turn…” 3 Ibid, 92. 4 Ibid. 5 Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, Translated by William Weaver. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974) 87. 2

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future, the new frontier, and next destinations. They are projective devices that give spaces imaginative future. Though they inherit physical characteristic, they transfigure beyond their confined boundary through the movement of their mobile beholders. Like road maps and movement s through the express train discussed about in James R. Akerman’s Twentieth-Centuray American Road Maps and the Making of a National Motorized Space, where the experience (express train), to the beholder, became “ the world, and the world beyond it became a series of snapshots flashed by a cinemagraph performance.”6 Or in another one of James R. Akerman, Finding Our way, where Akerman suggests that wayfinding maps do not just tell us where are we going, but also tell us who we are.7 However, wayfinding maps are nothing new to human, the Americans maps in particularly are essential parts of their highly mobile lifestyle.8 Because the maps are navigating by their automobile (figure 2). To the extent that all other context in the past (river crossings, landmarks, or oral directions) seems irrelevant and unreliable. The American maps reveals American people’s attitudes in their movement through space; they see their destination and they set out to be there and nothing should keep them from doing that, in a way this exposes their inherit Manifest Destiny ideology. “Wayfinding refers to the act of moving along a path or through

space from one point to another effectively and successfully,” this definition gives out by Akerman in Finding Our Way, will lead us on the topic of elements of wayfinding in descriptive or perceptual space that mark thresholds and transitions between these spaces. In Towards a Kinetic Architectural History by Ker Houston looks at James Ackerman and the Moving Viewer, 1942-1961, in Ackerman argument that historically, architects designed that everything could be viewed and experienced from a single fixed point is simply not true.9 Ackerman argues the ideas of static centrality by looking at the architecture of Michelangelo as in contrast to the static, stationary plans of the past. Michelangelo’s designs, such as doorway relief sculptures and ornamented pathway, encouraged movement of the visitor through space to evoke a more emotional response through multiple visual experiences rather than views those spaces directly in one fixed position.10 This is the closest meaning of the ‘mobile beholder,’ as the visual experiences and emotional response change according to the beholder, the viewer who moves through space that encouraged the movement and the viewer has the control over such action whether it’s a visual response or emotional response, the space created is effective. It is successful in conveying the necessary information and producing the intended result, the kinetic architecture or maps as in their nature appear to be static and

James R. Akerman, Twentieth-Century American Road Maps and the Making of a National Motorized Space, In Cartographies of Travel and Navigation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 151-206. 7 James R. Akerman, Finding Our Way, In Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr.,(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 19. 8 Akerman, 19. 9 Houston, Kerr. Towards a kinetic architectural history: James Ackerman and the Moving Viewer, 1942-1961 (Southeastern College Art Conference Review 2015), 622. 10 Kerr Houston, 622. 6


confined. This kinetic architecture device can be seen in Le Corbusier works using entrance, doors, and openings, where each threshold transitions you to the next as series of experiences and provides a scene for anticipation. Le Corbusier called it an ‘architectural promenade.’11 Architectural promenade reflects body engagement through series of experiences within our senses and memories essential in initiating our pleasures and imagination that extends beyond our physical realm. Indeed the mobile beholder has to move in order to experience, but the term does not declare on what should move in order to achieve that, our body or mind? The real question is which can travel the “furthest?”

Figure 1. The view of Manhattan from One World Observatory on the 100th floor of One World Trade Center. (Photo: Spencer Platt, Getty Images)

Figure 2. Marco Polo sailing from Venice, Photo, from Encyclopedia Britanni-ca Online, accessed November 21, 2016.

Samuel, Flora. Le Corbusier and the Architectural Promenade (Berlin, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2010), 68-86. 11

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Figure 3. Detail from James Ackerman’s class notes (Papers of James S. Ack-erman, Fine Arts 248, March 23, 1942, p. 2).

Figure 5. Threshold, Sainte Marie de La Tourette (Photo: http:// hicarquitec-tura.com//2014/05/aeb03-le-corbusier-la-tourette-eveux/)


Figure 4. American Road Atlas, 2017 Road Atlases.Shutterstock. http://www.randmcnally.com/product/ road-atlas

Bibliography Akerman, James R. “Finding Our Way.” In Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., 19–63. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Akerman, James R. “Twentieth-Century American Road Maps and the Making of a National Motorized Space.” In Cartographies of Travel and Navigation, 151–206. The Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr.,Lectures in the History of Cartography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Calvino, Italo. Invisible Cities. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Rendall, Steven. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984. Houston, Kerr. Towards a kinetic architectural history: James Ackerman and the Moving Viewer, 1942- 1961. Southeastern College Art Conference Review 2015. Samuel, Flora. Le Corbusier and the Architectural Promenade. Berlin, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2010.

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HEXGRID GENERATED BY PULNUPON SUEB-AI


THE MACHINE?

MOBILE BEHOLDER PROJECTIVE OPERATIONS: ‘A DRAWING THAT IS A MACHINE’ A Machine? A Map? Is it a physical artifact? As we conclude the investigation of Drawing Machines as minor acts of architecture that produce discursive imagery, we culminate our exploration with the product as a result of a process. This farthest swing of the pendulum to the opposite side of the spectrum from where we began requires intense research and experimentation in order to produce an [un?]anticipated outcome. In alignment with the co-requisite seminar ‘Mapping: Issues in Representation’, this foray into understanding these precepts is through the ‘mobile beholder’ and ‘programmed’ operations. 88



THE MAKING PROCESS: THE GENERATOR The drawings are generated with algorithms, geometry, pixels and manipulation of color to create ‘A Drawing That Is A Machine’. The work challenges the limitations of digital creative processes and the dimensionality.






















Special Thanks to: Andrew Huemann Mike Nesbit


THAT’S IT. THANK YOU All contents and photographs not cited are produced or photographed by the author of this book


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