FODR M4 Journal - Jeremy Bonwick

Foundations of Design : REPRESENTATION, SEM1, 2017 M4 JOURNAL - FRAME vs FIELD Jeremy Bonwick

(697718) Studio 20 // Gumji Kang

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WEEK 9 READING: PERSPECTIVE AS SYMBOLIC FORM

Question 1: What are Durer’s rules for perspectival projection? (Maximum 100 words) Durer’s definition of perspective states that “Perspectivais a Latin word which means ‘seeing through’,” setting up his rules to conform to a sense of a perceived space as seen through another (Panofsky 1991, p.27). The idea of a window is central here as it implies that the view should feel they are looking into a scene from a point within that scene, through an imagined window into a reality beyond. The image that is seen through the window is a complete “spatial continuum” where everything that should be visible within the scene is so (Panofsky 1991, p.27).

Question 2: Describe homogenous space? (Maximum 100 words) Homogenous space is that which is infinite and unchanging. This makes two key assumptions about ways to represent reality; that the perspective is taken from a singular point of vision, a singular eye; and that the renaissance methods of pyramidal linear perspectives can correctly replicate the human condition of vision (Panofsky 1991, p.29). Perhaps this is inherently flawed as the human eye sees in a binocular space, one where their is no window but focus and peripheral vision as well extended into a fourth dimension of time, what the reading terms the “mechanically conditioned retinal image” (Panofsky 1991, p.31).

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INVISIBLE CITY: Cities & Signs 4

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STORY ANALYSIS In coming to represent the story visually, first an understanding of the deeper meaning must be garnered.

Marco Polo’s trek through the imagined city of Hypatia takes him on a journey of understanding cultures from new perspectives. The story inverts scenarios and locations, subverting expectations of a given landscape for the eventual realisation that a foreign landscape will be inherently different, perhaps even entirely opposite to the culture of the observer.

Instead of an unreadable spoken language, Marco Polo encounters an unknowable visual language.

The depressive and dower tone is set as Marco Polo’s initial positivity is shattered by the harrowing scene of suicides in a lake — the opposite of the beautiful women he expected to find. His initially eagerness to enter into the city is forgotten as Marco Polo recoils from the scene and immediately begins to search for answers to the troubling scenes — he “felt cheated” of his expectations. Through a progression of scenes, Marco Polo finds more inversions: seeking the ruling class in the palace he instead finds enslaved miners; when walking through the library — a learned space — he finds a dazed and smoking adolescent, a symbol of unworldliness. Despite this, the innocence of the youth points Marco Polo towards a window — an inciting incident in Marco Polo’s understanding of the city’s dualism. The window represents a moment of seeing the city and its differences from a new perspective. Marco Polo begins to see how images and scenes which he reads as depressive could be normal and even positive in Hypatia.

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The scene which sparks this realisation is another inversion; a philosopher — connoting an old and wise man — is seen in a children’s playground with toys around him. Symbolically, the toys suggests childhood, the opposite of the old man who knows everything. His words, “signs form a language, but not the one you think you know”, confirm Marco Polo’s suspicious — the visual language of Hypatia is so foreign to him that the signifiers and the signified have become dislodged and inverted.

The proceeding scenes demonstrate how Marco Polo now understands the workings of Hypatia and its inversions: understanding that to find beauty and culture he must travel to those places he would least expect it. He finds women around the dirty stables and musicians and artisans in the cemeteries.

Finally, the pinnacle of understanding is the conclusion that to leave Hypatia he must not decent to water level and the docks but instead rise to the highest point of the citadel and wait for a ship to arrive there. It is a hopeful conclusion which suggest he has found his place in Hypatia and almost regrets the day when must leave. But the inverted nature of the city determines this will not be a sad day, as the flying ship in the sky arrives and carries Marco Polo away.

VISUAL INSPIRATIONS

The angular carved stone architecture of the Mines of Moria in “Lord of the Rings“ (2001) informed the texturing of surfaces in the perspectives.

The Isometric’s aesthetic was based on using black and white hues to create depth and three-dimensionality whilst also preserving some transparency.

The miner imagery borrows from the 1974 Doctor Who episode “The Monster of Peladon“ where an oppressed working class begin to fight for their rights.

The Location of the cemetery was informed by early black and white horror films such as the gothic production design on “The Ghost of Frankenstein” (1942).

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Cities & signs 4: Hypatia

OLD QUAD ISOMETRIC

Key Stare Glance Confident Step Apprehensive Step Light Mood Dark Mood People 0

1m

2.5m

5m

Time Change Window

Linework export of the Rhino modeling of the Melbourne University Old Quad

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Cities & signs OLD QUAD ISOMETRIC WITH NOTATIONS

4: Hypatia

Key Stare Glance Confident Step Apprehensive Step Light Mood Dark Mood People 0

1m

2.5m

5m

Time Change Window

Notations of Marco Polo’s journey of understanding through Hypatia.

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ISOMETRIC NOTATIONS RATIONALE The weight and boldness of Marco Polo’s stepping arrow connotes the character’s confidence and understanding of the situation. Following the story’s progression, he enters the scene innocent and expectant only to be confronted by the suicides. At this point the weight contracts as his expectations are quashed. At the same point his steps quicken, represented by wider spacing of the directional arrows, as he hastens to escape the scene. He moves at a distance past the enslaved miners, keeping to the perimeters of the scene, moving slowly and only stealing glances in their direction.

Entering the library Marco Polo weaves around the space, confined and constricted within the walls until he comes across the slow moving adolescent. At this moment his journey changes as he stares through the window into the playground beyond and the key figure of the philosopher. His importance to Marco Polo’s understanding is conveyed through his elevated stature. The scene is bathed in a circle of light, a further representation of him as a point of understanding and Marco Polo’s moment of realisation, stepping from the darkness into realisation.

As the weight of Marco Polo’s steps swell with his new found understanding, he continues through the city — now knowing where he is going. Whereas in the early stages he kept to the perimeters and walked with difficulty through the library, now he strikes amongst the people of Hypatia — the women, the musicians and the artists he now knows where to find.

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Finally, after a time, Marco Polo knows he must leave the city.

The regret is connoted through the jagged nature of the timeline. He crosses and enters the light of day, ascending towards a hopeful and positive conclusion.

The centrality (and lack of) in the scene, demonstrates the comfort of characters in the landscape. The people of Hypatia gravitate toward the middle as they feel content in their own world. On the other hand Marco Polo is initially hesitant to approach the central parts of the city — a locus from those things he doesn’t understands. Only through being encouraged by the adolescent to view the city through the window is he informed enough to traverse the centre point, the point of understanding with the philosopher.

QUAD PERSPECTIVE 1 + 2 Perspective 1.

This view places the action at a distance from Marco Polo’s perspective, alluding to his apprehensive approach to the city at this point. Positioning the camera to the side of the scene, almost behind a column suggests the glancing nature of the view, as if from a concealed viewpoint. This scene will be occupied by the enslaved miners.

Perspective 2.

In contrast, this scene has a greater sense of depth, with the quad model descending to its furthest point. The composition is also more symmetrical to connote Marco Polo’s greater sense of understanding, the scene takes on a more ordered composition, though still not precisely looking down the centre of the quad to reaffirm that the visual language of Hypatia is still foreign and off kilter to Marco Polo’s expectations.

The scene will feature the graveyard full of musicians.

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PRELIMINARY SKETCHES

Sketch for Perspective 1: Testing the layout of characters in the scene to create the illusion of being blocked off or distanced.

Sketch for Perspective 2: This sketched changed a great deal — including the abolition of the path replaced by a gate at the edged of the scene to suggest the same thing — a purpose or direction to Marco Polo’s journey.

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FINAL PERSPECTIVE SCENES

Perspective 1.

Perspective 2.

This scene depicts the enslaved miners of Hypatia constructing a basalt wall. The scene conveys a sense of disconnect through the changing floor surfaces, moving from the checkered-courtyard to the dusty sand of the mine. The use of horizontal lines - in the wood texture and shadows across the scene - closes the space off, literally building a barrier between Marco Polo and the city. The mood is dark, with the sharp shadows only lifted by lanterns on the columns, to reflect Marco Polo’s lack of understanding at this point in his journey.

In contrast to the first, this scene tries to create the illusion of depth, guiding a path from Marco Polo through Hypatia as he has finally come to understand the city. The graveyard setting is bathed in light, seeping in from beyond the gate, defying the gloomy setting and, as with the imagery in the story, inverting expectations. The gate itself represents possibilities, hanging half open it suggests a direction for Marco Polo to move unlike the previous scene which is barred by a thick stone wall and repeated horizontal lines in the wood. In contrast the vertical lines of the gate beckon him forth.

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WEEK 4 READING: MAPPING THE UNMAPPABLE

Question 1: What is the difference between autographic and allographic practice? (Maximum 100 words) Autographic is a classifier for those art-forms such as painting or sculpture which depends upon and is reliant on the hand of the author, where the finished form is the most important element. The prefixes of the two classifications, auto- and allo-graphic suggest their primary difference — ‘auto’ means the self whereas ‘allo’ means the other. Allographic then represents those forms “where the work exists in many copies and can be produced without the direct intervention of the author”. Notational drawings, such as architectural drawings or sheet music fall into this category because their “notations that can be decoded, according to a series of shared conventions” (Allen 2000, p.33).

Question 2: Why do architects need new representational techniques? (Maximum 100 words) Allen argues that, as early modernist architecture came to resemble new technologies of the time, so should its Contemporary offspring. The new city, an “unmappable territory [of] dispersed fields, a network of flows”, needs new forms of notation, new “levels of representation” to encapsulate it — to go “beyond the level of image” (Allen 2000, p.39). Allen argues this must include the ability to engage concepts of flow, time and change through not a complete shift in ideologies and techniques but a reimagining that allows for new horizons and dynamics of the contemporary city.

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FINAL DRAWINGS Cities & signs 4: Hypatia

Key Stare Glance Confident Step Apprehensive Step Light Mood Dark Mood People 0

1m

2.5m

5m

Time Change Window

Perspective 1

Perspective 2

Jeremy Bonwick, 697718

Final drawings composed on the A1 template

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APPENDIX

Placing perspective characters into the Rhino model Mapping the symbols onto the Rhino Quad model

Positioning the virtual camera in Rhino, placing a point at eye-level to take the view from inside the space of the Quad

< Make2D function on the linework for the mapped Symbols of Marco Poloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s journey through Hypatia

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Beginning to add textures to the exported linework in Photoshop using repeated images of sandstone and bluestone

Using the perspective transform tool to add â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;flatâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC; elements to the floor

Composing the second scene using the distort transform tool to match to the Rhino linework

Masking elements to fit between the arches and appear behind them

Using Live Paint to create the sense of depth and three-dimensionality on the Iso in Illustrator

Adding grass texture perspective transform and Multiply blending mode to pick up the shadows

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