Photogenic Architecture by Mark Nowaczyk

PHOTOGENIC ARCHITECTURE

by Mark Nowaczyk September 2012

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture

Department of Architecture and Planning

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Dedication

Thank you to my committee members, Georg Rafailidis and Joyce Hwang, for your guidance and continual support.

Thank you to Michelle, my friends and family for letting me immerse myself in my work and also for dragging me away every now and then.

And thank you to the faculty and students for your constructive criticism and intellectual support.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract___v 1. Photogenic Architecture_____1 1.1 Photogenic Architecture_____3 1.2 Photography_____5 1.3 Photogenic_____9 1.4 The Surface_____11 1.5 Touch_____13 1.6 Simulacra_____16 1.7 Conclusion_____19 2. Precedents_____21 3. Materials and Methods_____29 3.1 Technology_____29 3.2 The Afterimage_____33 3.3 Technology, Technique, and Outcome_____35 4. Photogrammetry Research_____42 4.1 The Basics_____44 4.2 Detail Points_____48 4.3 Color and Contrast_____52 4.4 Filmic_____56 4.5 Temporal_____60 4.6 Conclusion_____67 5. Cyanotype Research_____69 5.1 Light/Shadow Studies_____72 5.2 Review One Installation_____84 5.3 Contextual Recording_____88 5.4 Paint_____92 5.5 Full Room Test_____98 5.6 Conclusion_____107 6. Installation Space_____108 7. Final Presentation_____118 8. Critical Response_____134 Endnotes_____142 Bibliography_____144 iv

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ABSTRACT

PHOTOGENIC ARCHITECTURE

The experience of space is increasingly generated by viewing the photography of databases such as Flickr and Google Earth, thus creating a spatial dilemma in the dilution of first-hand experience and a dramatic shift of photographic information to the surface. However, there is also an opportunity to gain new readings of space from the absorption of many different perspectives and glimpses of time within an increasingly comprehensive photographic record.

Embracing this new opportunity, I

seek to investigate ways to spatialize this absorption and new readings of space as a couple to the physical environment in order to bring about a heightened sensitivity of aspects of space that are transient, fragile, or in constant change. Because of this, photogenic architecture will only emerge from the original spatial structure in which photographic information was extracted at the particular time. The hope is to enable a greater human imprint on space and ease our anxiety of the passage of time.

The word photogenic was dwelled on because of its connotation to physical space and one’s desire to photograph it. Yet, photogenic has also been used to describe the act of photography in relation to other mediums and actors. Some of the earliest photographic experiments done by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839 where described of as “photogenic drawings”.

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This process of the photograph without a camera is interesting because of its direct tactile relationship to the objects and light of which it records. The chemical process becomes a recorder when exposed to light and waits in anticipation for the definition of shapes and shadows. Certain spaces are already designed to be “photogenic” within Talbot’s early definition, such as the movie set, which anticipates human interaction and photographic recording for the production of a movie. The primary motivation of the space is to produce a very particular representation of something physical. Space already in a sense “absorbs” information, but in a very subtle way involving dust, residue, dirt. It is not desirable and considered as beneficial information. However, uncleanliness can be interpreted as spatial information about movements and tendencies.

I am interested in making this information a more conscious and explicit spatial experience, as well as generating new representations of space through photography and digital software which has the sensitivity to record transient and “fragile” aspects of space. This prompted an investigation in ways of recording directly in space and to design recording methods and interpretive re-connections with space. The two main mediums of interrogation were photogrammetry, a software that extracts digital threedimensional models from corresponding photographs, and cyanotypes, a cameraless method of recording image.

The aspiration of photogenic architecture is to produce space that anticipates and eventually accepts its own representation as a couple to the physical environment to facilitate a greater human imprint on space. vi

1. PHOTOGENIC ARCHITECTURE

“The problem with buildings is that they look desperately static. It seems almost impossible to grasp them as movement, as flight, as a series of transformations. Everybody knowsand especially architects, of course- that a building is not a static object but a moving project, and that once it has been built, it ages, it is transformed by its users, modified by all of what happens inside and outside... We know this but the problem is that we have no equivalent of Marey’s photographic gun: when we picture a building, it is always as a fixed, stolid structure that is there in four colors in the glossy magazines that customers flip through in architect’s waiting rooms.” 1

Fig. 1 Segrada Familia, Google Streetview

Fig. 2 Segrada Familia, Google Earth

Fig. 3 Segrada Familia, Flickr

1.1 PHOTOGENIC ARCHITECTURE Historically, space has been experienced either through the first hand or through representations, such as the plan, section, elevation and perspective or non-visually through text. Quite generally, painting of architectural scenes has been replaced by photography as the most universal and accessible portrayal of represented space, but each must express three-dimensionality and time from the “frozen” and flat space of the canvas. It is a surface describing the depth and complexity of something three-dimensional and dynamic in origin. One notable example of an artistic exploration of the representational problem is the cubism movement of the early twentieth century, which grappled with the expression of three-dimensional and four dimensional (time) form as something that occupies a flat, dimensionless space.

Strategies for embodying movement were abstraction of form,

morphing and overlay. This expression of dynamism within the singular was also explored by photographers, such as Eadweard Muybridge, who compounded several frames as a sequence to explore in detail the workings of objects in motion. Tools, such as Marey’s Photographic Gun, made this capture of movement a more accessible methodology. This obsessive capture of space through its multiplicity of singular moments revealed new aspects about an event in time which would normally be imperceptible through a singular depiction. The issue for architecture, as outlined by Bruno Latour’s previous description, is that a representational tool such as the photographic gun has not been determined for recording and making experiential the dynamism and movement of change within physical space.

Today, photography and new representations of space somewhat resolve the desires of artists of the past. Databases such as Flickr and Google Earth provide a multiplicity of visual information, which is becoming more and more revealing about the dynamism of space. Is the online database perhaps architecture’s “photographic gun”? Google Earth literally allocates two-dimensional information from photography as mappings of threedimensional form, thus creating a less stylized depiction than the cubists, but far more explicit expression of the physical world. I argue that these representations are beginning to be as explicit as physical experience is that it makes “spatial” experiences infinitely more accessible and discernible through a visual record that is unbounded by constraints of physicality, distance and medium. The negative consequence is the fact that it makes “spatial” experience too accessible, thus degrading or potentially super ceding the physical. This result raises questions of the authenticity of these experiences rendered via photography. Can visual information be relied on for a “total” experience? In what ways can photography be “unpacked”, made three-dimensional, and contribute back to physical experience of space?

Regardless, there is a need to consider these new, highly potent mediums of representation as a way to address Latour’s call for dynamic representations, and to explore how they relate to and potentially re-invigorate the first-hand experience of space.

1.2 PHOTOGRAPHY Photography innately provides a framed or structured reading of space, which possesses the bias or creative impulses of a particular moment in time as well as of the photographer. It can also be a very personal representatiand record of space that is accessible to all. Theorist Susan Sontag conveys the importance of the personal act of photography in On Photography. She states, “photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can acquire.”2 This insight is an important one when considering the current trend towards the digital experience of space because it solidifies the need for first-hand experience, yet frames an already technologically mediated experience within the camera. These pieces of “miniatures of reality”contain a plethora of information about the recorded space and the photographer. Jonathan Crary in his text, Techniques of the Observer, describes photography as unique within the history ofspatial representation because it is a democratizer, part of a “new homogenous terrain of consumption and circulation.”3 The images produced give a sort of “possession” of the past, while also functioning in the current by giving us “control” and ability to record an insecure present. Photography is a tool of nostalgia against the anxiety of the passing of time. The personal connection to photography also allows one to “offer indisputable evidence that the trip was made, that the program was carried out, that fun was had.”4 These take-away accounts of space extract from the physical, and more and more make actual physical space just a framework for a mediated experience through the lens of a camera. I observe and speculate that the camera touting tourist rarely “feels” space through 5

Fig. 4 Segrada Familia, Personal Photograph

amera touting tourist rarely “feels” space through the senses during the experience, but instead is absorbed by the anxiety of capture. As something not practiced by most as an art, but more as a spatial record of proof of real things and real experiences, how can photography contribute to a better understanding of the real?5 Juhani Pallasmaa states, “architecture articulates the encounter with our world and the human mind. It structures the ‘flesh of the world’ through spatial and material images that articulate and give meaning to our most basic human existential situations.”6 Architecture already exists as a “structure” for photography; how can this recording act also contribute as something that articulates an “encounter with out world and the human mind”? It is through a three-dimensional, spatial experience of the acute and particular readings of space made visual artifact through photography.

“It is the image of simultaneity, of the way that everything within a given space at a given moment is present to everything else; it is a declaration of the seamless integrity of the real. The photograph carries on the continuous surface, the trace of imprint of the vision captures in one glance. The photographic image is not only a trophy of this reality, but a document of its unity as that-which-was-once-present-at-one-time. But spacing destroys simultaneous presence: for it shows things sequentially, either one after another_ occupying separate cells.”7 In conclusion, this quote by Rosalind Krauss both demonstrates the unique power of photographic recording while also expressing its shorting coming in its isolated, cellular state. As a dynamic representation of space, its begins to embody the solution to

Fig. 5 Segrada Familia, The “photogenic” view.

Fig. 6 Movie Set, Der Sandmann, Stan Douglas

Latour’s call, but also requires other technologies to render it spatial and “architectural”. This is important because the image is brought into being because of a physical experience, event or a perceived beauty. Juhani Pallasmaa writes on Gaston Bachelard, “‘The house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind’, he argues. Bachelard argues that we are born into the context of architecture, and consequently our existential experience is always mediated and structured by architecture from the very beginning of our individual life. Even in the absence of a concrete house, the images of houses in our memory and imagination structures our experiences... The house even more than the landscape, is a ‘psychic state’.”8

To allow photography to be experiential images must be unpacked and dispersed upon the “physic” structure of the physical.

1.3 PHOTOGENIC As stated in the abstract, the dominant notion of photogenic space is that which is “suitable” for being photographed because of great visual beauty or appeal. At this stimulated moment, an “image” is created either in the mind or within a medium. This is problematic because it ignores other relationships that could exist between photography and physical space, which can be designed and crafted from different frames of viewing. The design of artificial “photogenic” spaces is not new. Movie sets and photographic models are completely aligned to and anticipate the lens of the movie camera and understand the parameters and constraints of these methods of recording space. Also space is beginning to be marked and enriched with “photogenic” QR tags that require a “photographic” scan by a mobile phone device to understand its contents and information. The idea is that space does not have to be designed passively for being recorded or scanned, but can be instilled with intentionality in design towards such 9

Fig. 7 Dirty door handle

Fig. 8 Accumulated dirt around air vent

modes of experience outside those generated by the eye.

For my

thesis, photography becomes a way of viewing and affecting space, and challenging the idea of “photogenic” purely as a stimulus of the for the human eye. Photogenic qualities can be attributed to things other than beauty, and instead can be producers of visual information aligned to methods of recording. Can photogenic qualities be allocated and unpacked from representation back into physical space? The locus of this exchange is the surface.

1.4 THE SURFACE Space already absorbs information about its occupants to a degree, with the classic example being the dirty door knob or the muddy foot print. David Gissen, an architectural historian who has written on theories of dirt, states that dirt can be an important historical record of aspects of space that invisible or exposed over a long period of time. “(To John Ruskin) dust was a type of historical record. To remove dust from buildings was, in some sense, to deny their own history... (Dust) registers its particular power against and over architecture, through neglect over expanses of time. Cultural theorist Georges Bataille provided a more recent conceptualization of dust. He claimed that dust was an uncanny register of time. Imagine, he asked, the thick blankets of dust covering the character Sleeping Beauty after one hundred years of sleep.”9

The surface becomes the medium that structures this accumulation of visual information, which is certainly an unintended and non-desirable phenomena in the eye of the architect. Architect and scientist, Michelle Addington, writes extensively of the inability of the architect and traditional representational systems to embody architectures that are non-static or immaterial.

Fig. 10 Muddy footprints on carpet

Fig. 11 Recorded phenomena in photogenic space.

“Orthographic projection produced the objectified surface – fixed Cartesian space and endlessly reproducible. What cannot be easily reproduced is the perception of experience of the environment that is always transient, always unique. Defining the surface does not define the environment. We traditionally design to create an image or sequence of images rather than a visual response.”10

My thesis project desires to stage a situation in which environment can define a surface through photographic mediums.

A surface is not so much the designed “architecture” but is more so the enabler for photogenic architectures to emerge and communicate.

particular, it is the qualities of light and texture of an environment. Such qualities are “photographic” in nature, meaning they are best understood and recorded via photo chemicals and photo sensors. They define surfaces and have the potential to become more and more saturated with visual information over time through user occupation and interactions. As a result, the architectural surface already exists as a passive recorder and producer of dynamic representations of space and the conditions that evaded capture by Cartesian representational methods.

1.5 TOUCH “For Maurice Merleau-Ponty, the conception of ‘light as an action by contact’ can be traced to Rene Descartes. ‘The blind, says Descartes, see with their hands. The Cartesian concept of vision is modeled after the sense of touch.’ Laura U. Marks argues that cinema induces a haptic perception, establishing in the registers of the visible a tactile materiality.”11

The qualities of light and texture of an environment are a haptic one because of their inherent reliance on the touching or interchange with the surface toproduce a phenomenological effect. More often the “sensing” is done by the viewer but the architecture which facilitates the exchange is left unchanged. We interact with surfaces through visual contact or touch, but “images” formulated remain internalized. I speculate that the scenario of the muddy footprint footprint begins to equate the absorptive act for both parties. The occupant mentally senses and remembers the walk through space while the floor “remembers” your path through via the mud on ones shoes. It must be acknowledged that these two singular recordings yield different artifacts and readings of space, and when reexperienced individually, may lack certain aspects of the particular moment. One may remember walking through a space within the frame of ones own perception, but also may forget certain key aspects of the occurrence, such as forgetting to wipe ones feet at the door. The spatial recording enabled by a medium, in this case mud, communicates aspects which might be out of ones perception, such as the exact path taken and the materials and textures produced.

Historically, visual information has been used to deduce information about the qualities and conditions of space, and in particular conditions which are deemed hazardous.

Historian, Rodolphe El-Khoury, describes the

usefulness of visual information in times of less sophisticated tools of environmental hazard evaluation. “But this shift to the internal functioning of the organ also entailed new strategies of representation that persisted

with the effort to “visualize” the unseen, attempts to recover the hidden and the imperceptible in superficial and tangible traces.”12 These visual traces were so potent that even in conditions of safety, dirt or other traces produced strong reactions against certain spaces. In essence, a repulsion of the surface which garners a fear of touch. This prompted cities to pave streets and building owners to diligently paint interior surfaces to make more ambiguous and palatable spaces for the weary. The demonstrated power of certain visual traces and cues in space makes pursuing such effects paramount to producing spatial effect.

The task of generating photogenic architecture is to find mediums, such as mud, that register aspects of space that are highly specific and contribute to the experience of space.

We often remember things such as the

lighting quality of a space, but are then unable to accurately replicate that experience after the fact from memory. That is also why this project engages photography for its ability to render other visual aspects of space that are not easily “re-membered”. My justification for several mediums is that

each has a proficiency towards different recordings of space and will be able to absorb and record experiential aspects of space more deliberately and specifically.

1.6 SIMULACRA There are documented consequences of dealing with the surface and the objectified, re-animated experience of space. Michelle Addington, explains the unduly fascination with surfaces of the architect. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This objectification of the surface as both progenitor and the representative frame of environmental phenomena keeps us tautologically bound to a Renaissance definition of space even while our surface forms have become progressively articulated and nonorthogonal. Escaping this bind requires that we subordinate the hegemony of the pictureplane representation, and begin to understand the surface as fluid and contingent rather than fixed and constituent. Only then can we begin to apply the unprecedented array of tools now available, which allows for the representation of phenomenological behavior.â&#x20AC;? 13

The belief that phenomena can be objectified and static is reinforced within traditional methods of representation. That is why new methods of representation must be found that embody the fluidity and dynamism of surface and atmospheric conditions in space.

I agree with the

inappropriateness with rendering atmospheric, non-visual conditions on the surface, but in the case of my thesis, visual information is generated along the surfaces of a space forcing an interrogation of that territory. By embodying the fluidity of a particular space, it propagates a unique image of a space that resists duplication. The nature of duplicated experiences of other, distant conditions is theorized by Jean Baudrillard in Simulacra and Simulation. He writes that the,

He writes that the, “escalation of the time, of lived experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and the substance have disappeared. Panic-stricken production of the real and of the referential, parallel to and greater than the panic of material production: this is how simulation appears in the phase that concerns us- a strategy of the real, of the neo real and the hyperreal that everywhere is the double strategy of the deterrence.”14

The simulation is devoid of the place and time which generated such a condition. I believe that “spatialized” photography is not a simulacra and instead an accurate re-experience of the history of a space because it is re-connected with the original space of the photographic extraction. In his text, Baudrillard reinforces this sentiment by expressing that missing in the simulation are the causes that generated the form, event, shape, etc.15

Photogenic architecture only emerges from the original spatial structure in which photographic information was extracted at a particular time. This relationship makes it not a simulacra, but rather a spatial experience that makes visual histories perceptible.

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1.7 CONCLUSION “Architecture is our primary instrument of orientation in the world; our home determines the ultimate meaning of interiority and exteriority, familiarity and unfamiliarity, homeness and being away. As an abstraction and condensation of the world, the architectural image is an interpretation and concretization of the world, the architectural image is an interpretation and concretization of an idealized order.”16

The rise of Google Earth and photographic databases which are increasingly in depth, challenges the supremacy of architecture as our “primary instrument of orientation in the world.” As I stated at the beginning of this text, there is much to be gained from these new records as well, much as how the muddy footprints records one’s sub-conscious movement through space as well as ones negligence and uncleanliness. These news mediums can give us similar types of perspectives and readings of space, which when recombined with physical space, re-invigorate the first-hand experience of space.

My hope is that by coupling representation with space via different mediums, they will work in unison to provoke a more conscious and historically rich experience of space in the first-hand.

2. PRECEDENTS

Fig. 12 Ethics of Dust, Interior installation view

The Ethics of Dust (2008) Jorge Otero-Pailos

The Ethics of Dust, a project conducted by architect and preservationist, Jorge Otero-Pailos, carefully preserves and isolates the pollution residue accumulated on the interior surface of an old factory building as a way of “illuminating” the atmospheric history of the space. By peeling off this “layer” of spatial history, one is able to better understand the past conditions of the space and conditions of the larger social context. He writes, “You can really see the patterns of dust through the latex, especially when the sun comes through the windows behind. I was also interested to let people inhabit the space between the layer of pollution and the newly cleaned wall. I wanted to create a new experience of the relationship between the dust and the building, and possibly open up a non-linear way to conceive of the changes that buildings undergo in time.”17

The most interesting aspect is the way that the peeled away layer remains in the space as a new architectural element or ornmanet within the space. Also being in near proximity to the window light allows one to experience the atmospheric qualities of the dust as if it were once again airborne. This provides a re-reading of the space and even further pulls forward the nuances of the space which may have normally been forgotten or overseen. To me, the project raises questions of the other potential “residues” that exist as a unseen layer in space and what layers can we add to space in a similar manner. If dirt is just a layer applied to surfaces in space over a long period of time, what other kinds of materials, information, or values can be layered into space overtime as well. How can they be “peeled away”? How does projection onto surfaces or paint applied over time equate to this layered approach? I speculate that these mediums can instill new readings and information about the nuances of particular times in space within the space itself.

Fig. 13 Home Without a Home, Gallery view

Home Within a Home (2011) Doh Ho Suh

Home Within a Home, by Doh Ho Suh, is an installation that recreates in extreme detail the apartment in which he lived when going to design school and the house in Korea in which he grew up. Every last detail of the exact conditions are replicated within the model space as if to permanently immortalize physically a temporary condition of the past, the types of conditions which are usually confined to memory.18

Regarding Photogenic Architecture, Doh Ho Suh’s work provides precedence to the spatialization of a particular moment in time. His models are in a sense three-dimensional photographs. They provide visual and physical experience of a frozen moment but in scale form. The fact that the recreated environment is in scaled form allows him, on one hand, to create an alternate “world” within the space of the gallery, but it also makes it less of a visceral experience due to its lack of contextualization and scalar match to space of the viewer. The model is merely an emotive artifact of his personal experiences, but because of its extreme detail it draws the viewer into the space of the model.

The context and scale of the “spatialized photograph” is important to consider when trying to instill a particular reading of a specific space. For the purposes of Photogenic Architecture it is important that photographic, visual information is at a one-to-one scale and within the space of description as a descriptive couple to the physical environment.

Fig. 14 Windows, Gallery view

Windows (2012) Pablo Garcia

“In an exchange with its virtual self, one window multiplies to two. The line drawing on the wall is an illusion, made to appear in line with the real window when seen from the entry door. Its virtual makeup--lines drawn on the wall--projects back onto the original window with corresponding lines. For a brief moment, as you enter the room, the virtual window achieves equality with its original, as the original slips away from reality towards its illusory reflection.”19

Windows, a project by architect Pablo Garcia, poses an interplay between elements of space which are both physical and virtual in order to heighten one’s awareness of their role in defining spatial boundaries. In this case, the introduction of a “virtual” window, pushes the perceived boundary of space, allowing for a new reading and experience of the same physical space. This was done through careful study of perspective and point of view, which are key aspects of creating drawn representations of space. Within the space of Windows, representation and physical architecture are merged to challenge perception and bring about new readings.

In terms of the thesis, this project provides evidence of the potency of fullscale projections of space and how easily perception can be manipulated through fundamental rules of perspective. It is also interesting to note the strategy of using existing elements within the space as the “anchors” of the new projections. Not only does it ground the “new” elements in familiarity, but as a composition, ties the physical and virtual together as a new spatial condition. 25

Fig. 15 Heat Seat, Before and after view of seat

Heat Seat (2011) Jurgen Mayer H.

Architect, Jurgen Mayer H. describes his fascination with thermo-sensitive surfaces and his project, Hot Seat. “To me, this has to do with dealing with issues such as private versus public and highlighting our understanding of everyday life. Today this concept goes beyond gallery space. We have our private conversations on mobile phones, but we can always be traced and surveyed. The relation of what is private and public, what is exposed and concealed, is changing with new technology and new social forms. In my exhibitions I make people more conscience of these conditions.”20

The designer responds to the new cultural and social conditions of increased surveillance and recording. Although information from mobile phone usage illuminates new abstract spaces and patterns of usage within existing space, the intentionality is similar to that of this thesis. By making visual new mediums and surfaces of surveillance, it pushes new interactions and reactions to space. Some may react insecurely and become paranoid of this “loss” of privacy and individuality within the public realm, but projects, such as the Hot Seat, also bring into possibility the reading of lasting effects and interactions with space. The relationships have existed before, but now become recorded and experienced as a spatial history.

Fig. 16 Aerial photogrammetric model of landscape

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS 3.1 TECHNOLOGY

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Technologies afford a means to an end, a material to manipulate, a tool in service of their needs: to inform design, to realize intention, and to create effects. Technologies offer neither control, predictability, productivity, efficiency, nor promise of the future; they neither respond to a problem nor yield a solution. Rather, inefficient technologies provide an opportunity to generate effects and conditions that are excessive, robust, spontaneous, and performative.â&#x20AC;?21

This quote describing the attitudes of architecture practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro characterizes a way of researching and interrogating technology as a tool for generating architecture. We live in a time in which a plethora of tools and applications exist which seek to address the new problems of today. New tools are invented or old ones are re-purposed in response of ever evolving issues. In particular, in the world of industrial production and construction new tools of survey and rapid production have emerged to make easier and more affordable the realization of increasingly complex and customized products. Ideas can become realized and the already real can be re-produced and modified with ease. In particular, laser scanning and photogrammetric technologies are helpful in achieving extreme accuracy, speed, and efficiency in digitizing physical space and objects.22 Laser scanning is perhaps better suited for accuracy and speed, but photogrammetry is interesting and powerful as well because of its reliance

on photography. I feel that maintaining information about materiality, texture and the photographic qualities of space is crucial in generating a dynamic representation of space and it even further poses a solution to Latourâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call for greater consideration of the transient nature of buildings and its occupants. It also can be interrogated in a manner similar to DS+R in order to provide a rich, robust and performative space through the â&#x20AC;&#x153;mis-useâ&#x20AC;? of technology.

Fig.17 Photogrammetric model of teeth

Methods/Procedures of Inquiry and Analysis Employed Control and interrogation of spatial scanning devices was very important in generating a knowledge base for potential photogenic traits of space and their potential to be re-appropriated. Though there exists other software that scans and digitizes space, I chose to import photogrammetry, a scientific tool of geographical survey, reverse-engineering and medical prototyping, because of its ease of use and input, which is simply a series of photographs, and its potential to provide an intuitive access to digital modeling. Also, it becomes a way of illuminating the biased representation of space surveyed photographically and merging in photography the act of viewing and generating space. From my initial research, other methods and mediums for scanning space were located and interrogated. What was lacking in photogrammetry was a way of “unpacking” the information contained in the models back into physical space. Methods of merging photography and space, such as analog photographic processes and digital projection allowed photographic information to stay at full scale or to repopulate space at full scale. Rosalind Krauss describes photography’s relationship to the full-scale, “photography is an imprint or transfer of the real; it is a photochemically processed trace casually connected to that thing in the world.”23 Ways of making this imprint and transfer direct, tactile, and full scale was the goal.

The cyanotype and digital projection were two techniques discovered that could either achieve this relationship directly or enable digital space made via photogrammetry to be projected full-scale. Each take physical objects

Fig. 18 Photogenic Drawing, William Henry Talbot

and space, and through a process of translation, produce a unique image or reading. The process of translation is what generates specific, nuanced information which serves to illuminate unseen or subconscious relationships within the space. The cyanotype, discovered and coined the photogenic drawing, by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839 was perhaps the earliest spatial scanning tool devised.24 Photogrammetry is at the cutting-edge of spatial scanning technologies today. My thesis engages both as a way of capturing the “historical” conditions of space as a augmented experience of the past which can be experienced today.

3.2 THE AFTER IMAGE The images and traces captured contain frozen information of an observed moment which is able to be examined in greater detail. Jonathan Crary describes early studies of afterimages burnt in the retinas of German scientists working in the mid-nineteenth centruy, “the afterimage became a way in which observation could be quantified, by which the intensity and duration of the retinal stimulation could be measured.”25

Photography

is also essentially an after image but burnt onto photo-paper or a digital sensor rather than in the retina. The after image is a permanent trace of something which is in flux or invisible. In many ways it can reveal the form, the specificities of an object, or connections and relationships to the physical environment which may in normal observation be imperceptible. This decomposition has been studied and theorized heavily as scientific side effect of these artistic mediums. “For (Germaine) Dulac, cinema offers the possibility of decomposing the movement of things and revealing, in the

Fig. 19 Geological survey marker

Fig. 20 Architectural palimpsest on side of building

process, its psychology, or what she calls elsewhere its ‘soul’. The process, its psychology, or what she calls elsewhere its ‘soul’. The purpose of the medium, she says, is to facilitate a phenomenology of the imperceptible.”26 Two examples of physical conditions that act as after images are geographical survey markers and architectural palimpsests. Each anchors to physical space other conditions which either previously existed or exist as an invisible network. Visually they embody information in physical space and enrich otherwise blank spaces, either the wilderness or the urban void, with information about hidden conditions. They bring about greater importance and reverence to the physical and tie in more theoretical notions of space, such as historical and invisible contexts.

Bruno Latour describes the

importance of inventing ways of generating such communications within physical space. “Only by generating earthly accounts of buildings and design processes, tracing pluralities of concrete entities in the specific spaces and times of their coexistence, instead of referring to abstract theoretical frameworks outside architecture, will architectural theory become a relevant field for architects, for end users, for promoters, and for builders. That is, a new task for architectural theory is coming to the fore: to find the equivalent of Marey’s photographic gun and tackle the admittedly daunting task of inventing a visual vocabulary that finally do justice to the “thingly” nature of buildings, by contrast to their tired, old “objective” nature.”27

3.3 TECHNOLOGY, TECHNIQUE, AND OUTCOME My scope for this thesis is to investigate technologies (photogrammetry) and identify and master photographic techniques (digital projection and cyanotype) in order to produce an effective and emotive installation which describes the social and cultural relationship we have with photography today while instilling new importance in experiencing and studying physical space. 35

Fig. 21 Object and shadow on snow, Material Culture project, Troy Barnes and Fang Yang

Fig. 22 Personal object mapping study

A potent example of images created by objects in space and their relevance to the physical objects themselves is the shadow and the object. Without both existing in unison, key pieces of information about the spatial situation would be lost. Without the shadow, one would lose sense of the atmospheric conditions of the space, orientation in relationship to sun and a sense of its time and place. Without the casting object, one would lose a geometric understanding of the origin of the shadow as well as information about the use and materiality, or essence of the original object. When separated they suggest reconnection, just as the architectural palimpsest suggests the extension of floors and spaces off of the parti wall.

What other conditions of space can produce after images, which in their particularity evoke a strong connection back to the physical?

What

movements, interactions and nuances of space should be illuminated and celebrated? Space which illuminates these conditions seeks to generate a heightened sensitivity to that which is transient, fragile, or perceived as banal; for an awareness of these conditions can facilitate a greater human imprint on space and ease our anxiety of time and the loss of the present.

Fig. 23 Personal object mapping study, full room view

Fig. 24 Early study of projection on door

"The prosaic act of moving through an unassuming door becomes a minimedia event transposed from the periphery of the space to its center."28

4. PHOTOGRAMMETRY RESEARCH

CAPTURE

INTERVAL BETWEEN FRAMES

RECORING THROUGH FILM

QUANTITY OF FRAMES

DIGITIZATION

MANIPULATING “REALITY THROUGH MIRRORS

DESIGNING IMAGERY

DIGITAL DATABASE

Fig. 25 Inquiry map of photogrammetry experiments

PROJECTION

FULL_SCALE PROJECTION

FULL_SCALE MATERIAL TRANSLATION

4.1 THE BASICS As a beginning to my research into spatial representational tools,

investigated the practice of photogrammetry and digital softwares that utilize it. Photogrammetry references photographic imagery to determine the geometric characteristics of objects and spaces. It is most commonly implemented as a scientific tool of geographical survey, reverse-engineering and medical prototyping. My curiosity of the unique connection between photography and digital modeling sparked an investigation into what this new relationship could generate. In particular, how could photography as a subjective act yield new â&#x20AC;&#x153;objectiveâ&#x20AC;? readings within a generated digital model.

Photography innately provides a framed or structured reading

of space, which possesses the bias or creative impulses of a particular moment in time as well as the photographer.

In particular, a thorough investigation of 123d Catch software, produced by Autodesk, provided an understanding of its basic workings as well as its creative potentials. The program generates three-dimensional digital models from collected photographic information by extracting spatial information from at least two overlapping flat images, similar to the way the brain composes spatial imagery from two eyes. Common in the images are detail points, locations of frame to object, and focal length that facilitate this construct.29 As part of my my investigation, I devised a series of creative

experiments to explore the slippages of the software and the resultant digital models, which as conclusions provided the beginnings of principle relationships between physical characteristics of space, methods of traversing and recording, and the temporality of objects and the photogrammetric model.

Fig. 26 Variables and inputs of photogrammetry

Fig. 27 Inputs and outputs of photogrammetry software

In order to eventually consider these models as “spatial”, “structural”, or even “architectural”, I considered the outputs of photogrammetric software and their kinship to other digital software. For photogrammetry, the outputs are a wire mesh, photo mapping, frame location and the path taken during the recording. Each provides some new piece of information that can be interpreted. Path data speaks most closely to the original physical space of capture as reference to the act of recording. The photo map is information resultant of the act of recording and the environmental/temporal conditions. As a three-dimensional photograph, it lacks a notion of structure and form, but visually stimulates a reading. Finally, the wire mesh suggests structure and form. As a triangulation, it speaks as a interpretation with varying degrees of resolution of physical form and structure that is most “true” in its physical presence. However varying degrees of formal resolution can describe relationships between quantity and quality of photography and resultant digital model.

4.2 DETAIL POINTS From the onset, I realized that the amount of physical detail in the form of textures, shapes, or materials provided the data required to produce the digital model. This relationship between the quantity and quality of this detail was seen as something that could be studied, controlled, and eventually designed in anticipation of the photogrammetric modeling. I quickly realized that a blank wall does not register and the more visual information, the more accurate the outcome.

This study involved the placement of varying degrees of â&#x20AC;&#x153;detail pointsâ&#x20AC;? within different colorization and location patterns. Each situation produced areas of distortion and smoothness. Smoothness was most often associated with a high quality (color differentiation) and quantity of detail points, while distortion was produced in areas of dispersed detail and high degree of blankness.

My speculation of how these findings become a spatial strategy took the form of a surface application. The placement of ornament and objects, such as sconces, picture frames and outlets influence a different reading of the space in the digital model. The speculation proposes different experiences of space in the physical and the digital via a process of recording. 48

Fig. 28 Detail point studies

In a second take on the first experiment, the influence of quantity of photographs on the resolution or distortion of the final model was studied. Because photographic detail points are ultimately supplied to the program through the photograph, the quantity and quality of the individual photograph influences the nature of the detail points provided to produce the digital model.

I determined that the greater the quantity of photographs the higher the resolution of the final model.

In order to understand resolution in the

resultant structural â&#x20AC;&#x153;formâ&#x20AC;?, the photo map was stripped to understand the result without the influence of visual texture. Another inquiry of this experiment was the introduction of historical photographs and paintings of the same physical space being recorded to understand its influence on resolution. I observed that the these historical depictions were absorbed well into the digital model but produced greater distortion of the form and photo map due to various derivations of detail point information between its current state. 50

Fig. 29 Detail point studies with blank walls

4.3 COLOR AND CONTRAST A second round of experiments investigated the effect of photo manipulation on the resultant model. Also I desired to further understand the correlation between individual frames and how they contribute the reconstruction of space in the digital. This â&#x20AC;&#x153;litmus testâ&#x20AC;? produced a colorized final model that was in relation to its constituent photographic frames, which provided a better understanding of how the software stitched together the models and textures. The test also brought about a sensitivity to face orientation in relation to point of view and the gain and loss of information as one moves about space.

As my speculation on this test, spaces were colorized to better align to the digital model or to try to trick the attribution process between frames in generation of the digital model.

Fig. 30 Color studies

The second round of photo manipulation tests was to provide contrast and isolation of visual information within the frames. First I conducted a series of tests that isolated information based on CYMK color information. The models communicated information about the general ambient color of the scene and its buildings and objects. The models are extractions of the singular scene that call attention to certain elements and forms in relation to their color.

Also, the removal of color into general gray tones allowed the contrast to be increased to further this extraction and isolation of objects within the scene. As I predicted, the more contrast within the data set, the more polarized the visual information. Pure black and white act similarly as blankness which degrades the quality and resolution of the digital model, but also can push new readings of the space through its production of isolated elements within the space.

My speculation of how to design for such an spatial effect involved the isolation of objects within space through the contrast of darkness and light. It is an attempt at spatializing the work of photo manipulation by reducing the colors of the space to the extremes of black and white, while also imposing a high contrast environment.

Fig. 31 Contrast studies

4.4 FILMIC The third series of experiments focused on the nature of the path of capture around the physical object or space. There are various types of filmic paths, such as the pan, tracking or crane shot, which are meant to portray space in a certain way. My belief was that different types of paths produce different distortions in the digital model as well.

The pan shot, which most closely mimicked previous methods of capturing space, was determined to produce the most accurate digital models as can be evidenced by the photo model of a grain elevator in Buffalo to the right. Pan shots also occur frequently in movies. For one study, existing film footage was spliced into frames and then input in order to reproduce the space of the movie.

Fig. 32 Buffalo river mapping study

Fig. 33 Reconstruction of movie space

When testing other forms of filmic shots certain I noticed distortions. A tracking shot, shown on top, collapsed all spatial information onto one surface due to the lack of movement in all axes. A zooming shot also produced a similar skewing and distortion of the space and even affects the clarity and resolution of the photo texture. The movement of the camera becomes a more tangible artifact in the final model when produced with these shots. After this study, I determined that the pan shot was the most accurate method of capture. My speculation proposed space that influenced the points and path of capture in order to produce certain readings in the digital. 58

Fig. 34 Path and capture sequence

4.5 TEMPORAL Finally, as evidenced by my previous usage of historical photographs with current photographs of a particular space, there is a potential for the photogrammetric model to absorb visual information of a place and its objects over an extended period of time. To the test the ability of absorbing an extended time, I took photographs over a long period of time from day to night to attempt to merge them all in to one readable object. Within the final model you can see aspects of space from different times of day, such as different lighting and surface conditions.

Influences of weather, usage and occupancy

also become absorbed into a model that is saturated with information of time.

A second test involving a webcam sought to pursue the opposite of an extended time period. By having photographic information that is constantly updated, the digital model becomes descriptive of the ever-changing present condition of space.

Each model is a highly specific, nuanced

representation of a hyper condition of space which constantly resists saturation.

Fig. 35 Extending of time collapsed in model

Fig. 36 Webcam input into model

As another study, I modeled other temporal aspects of space. My desire was to try model and find form of things that are â&#x20AC;&#x153;formlessâ&#x20AC;?. The first attempt involved an outdoor hose spicket. The software was able to produce the general form of the water flow based on the density of the flow. Areas that are perceived as being solid due to high flow rate are re-constructed most clearly in the digital model.

In order to further study this water form, I removed the photo texture so the wireframe surface could be studied and rendered.

Fig. 37 Capturing water flow

As a tangential study, I studied the effect of a mirror to determine the potential of linking reflected views of a space together with the objects that are within the field of capture. Reflected elements are absorbed and the â&#x20AC;&#x153;virtualâ&#x20AC;? space that is reflected is formalized in the digital model.

A final test in giving form to the formless, was the capture of a crowd. As something that is completely dynamic and in flux, the produced digital model is the most amorphous of all of the studies.

My speculation for this experiment proposes a space of webcam feeds which constantly record and archive the movement of people and objects within a space in order to formulate these amorphous, but highly nuanced and specific readings of space.

Fig. 38 Modeling mirror reflections

4.6 PHOTOGRAMMETRY CONCLUSIONS From the series of experiments into the functional and creative capabilities of the photogrammetric software, I made a set of conclusions to be potentially implemented as spatial strategies in the final installation. The most interesting and powerful potential from the experiments is the ability to combine aspects from different moments in time. This allows the digital space to become saturated and layered with information of many different conditions of the space.

Digital projection allows one to couple these saturated digital views with the physical space in which they originated from. The door projection mock-up to the left evidenced the power of the re-connection with physical space. In this case, the capture and re-connection of the space over several generations began to further saturate the whole experience with aspects of the act of documentation (movement, speed, quantity) and new the perceptions gained through the photogrammetric model.

5. CYANOTYPE RESEARCH

Y A

< >

CONTACT PRINT

PHOTOGRAPH

INVERSE PHOTOGRAPH

Fig. 40 Cyanotype space concept diagram

The second half of my research into spatial representational tools focused on mediums that are able to generate representation that is more closely related to the objects and spaces being reproduced. This is achieved by maintaining scale and the presence of the original space. The photograph and the digital model are a more abstract copy of physical space due to the shift in scale. I see the cyanotype as analogous to the photogrammetry process in that it collapses a series of moments and the shadows of objects and occupants cast on a surface. It is also a more suitable spatial strategy

Fig. 41 Full-scale cyanotype capture

compared to previous speculations of surface applique because of its direct haptic relationship to the objects and light of which it records. Also, as with the photogrammetric model, all 3d information is absorbed into one singular surface as a collapse of time. As I stated earlier, the cyanotype is one of several cameraless imaging processes developed in continuation of Talbotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original studies. Cyanotypes in particular involve the impregnation of a porous material or medium with a series of photosensitive chemicals. Ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide are mixed with distilled water to allow an application to fabric, paper, wood and other porous surfaces. When exposed to ultra-violet light in the form of natural sunlight, fluorescent or black light, the treated surface reacts and changes in tone (either lighter or darker depending on method). Surfaces are then washed with water to remove untreated chemical to leave exposed material in place, which becomes â&#x20AC;&#x153;bakedâ&#x20AC;? in due to the chemical reaction.30

The cyanotype as a representational tool blurs typical distinctions between the original and the copy, especially in relation to the photograph. It is less abstract in its description of the human conditions and three-dimensional space than a photograph or digital model. A cyanotype is a full-scale photograph, which is more closely related to the original because of the maintenance of scale. Also it is able to absorb certain phenomenological aspects of space, such as light, shadows and textures. As a different type of photograph, it is able to more clearly capture and articulate three-dimensional and experiential aspects of space, similar the way photogrammetry begins to allow a collapsing of visual nuances of space onto three-dimensional form. 71

5.1 LIGHT/SHADOW STUDIES

NATURAL LIGHT OVERCAST_30 MINUTES

In order to begin testing the variables and capabilities of the cyanotype as a recorder of phenomenological aspects of space, I staged a series of tests to demonstrate the affect of different lighting conditions on the image produced. Also, I placed different materials, both opaque and translucent, to observe their play with the light and shadow.

In this test, the affect of natural, over cast lighting conditions is seen. There is a need for a longer exposure time to produce an image which captures softer shadows. However, there is still explicit information of contact points, which can be seen in the white areas on the surface.

Fig. 42 Over-cast light, preexposure

Fig. 43 Over-cast light, post exposure

Fig. 44 Over-cast light, resultant wireframe

NATURAL LIGHT OVERCAST_15 MINUTES

In my second test of overcast, natural lighting conditions, a shorter exposure time was tested. The results were similar to the longer exposure time, but distinct shadows were unable to form other than the location of contact. I had an interest in shorter exposure time in order to be more in sync with activities and occupancies that are shorter in duration.

Fig. 45 Over-cast, short exposure

Fig. 46 Over-cast, after short exposure

Fig. 47 Over-cast, resultant wireframe

BLACK LIGHT OPEN_15 MINUTES

In order to deal with less than ideal natural lighting conditions, I tested artificial light. The black light produced different types of shadows and images than natural light due to its spotlight characteristics. Having a stronger dosage of ultra-violet light allowed for more intense shadow creation within a shorter period of time. Also, its placement and directionality can be highly controlled in order to align and correlate with specific surfaces within the space. From this study it became clear to me that artificial lighting would be very useful in producing controlled and conclusive results within the installation.

Fig. 48 Black light, preexposure

Fig. 49 Black light, after exposure

Fig. 50 Black light, resultant wireframe

BLACK LIGHT WINDOW_60 MINUTES

Fig. 51 Black light, exposure through enclosure

Fig. 52 Black light, enclosure resultant image

CONCLUSION

I am abel to conclude that the proximity to sensitive surfaces is important in generating higher legibility and resolution of information. The physical contact of objects with the surface produced the best image, while shadow generation was completely dependent on the nature and quality of the UV light exposure.

By coating walls with cyanotype chemicals, representation is directly generated one-to-one, in real time.

Conceptually and literally, it is an

architecture that “sees” by constantly absorbing information about light and shadow within the space. These markings become a mold or physical artifact of something that is invisible or no longer there. As an architectural palimpsest they anchor to physical space a virtual model or photographic representation.

This artifact is also advantageous for reconnecting with and aligning to when needed because it is only a generic description of shapes and outlines. The “palimpsest conditions” are generated through cyanotype to provide the physical artifact for a connection with digital projection. Photography becomes in greater relation to physical space by blurring the divide between representation and the original.

Fig. 53 Illustration of Cyanotype Space

Fig. 54 Cyanotype chemicals

5.2 REVIEW ONE INSTALLATION

Fig. 55 Review 1 model, view from above

After I obtainined a better understanding of how different lighting conditions affect the images produced on cyanotype surfaces, the next step was producing a full scale installation to test the strategy. Previous studies had used ready made cyanotype papers for the reactive surfaces that only come in smaller sizes. I quickly dismissed blueprint paper, which is also a type of cyanotype, as an option due to the necessity of ammonia for a reaction agent. The next option was creating my own cyanotype panels at the appropriate size using chemicals obtained from analog photography suppliers. Due to space constraints and the need for window access a â&#x20AC;&#x153;roomâ&#x20AC;? had to be generated from scratch. I used fabric over paper due to its durability and ability to be washed and hung.

For my first midterm review installation, a photogenic space was generated that would record the event of the review and the individuals involved. Various light sources were used, including several black lights, natural light from the window and projector light. Also as an early experiment into the usage of a webcam, several were placed to provide a depiction of all events that were flattened on the recording surfaces.

I received several lessons and productive criticisms from the review, including the suggestion that the installation lacked specificity and control of the mediums. Greater care and consideration needed to be taken when using certain lighting conditions and when staging certain events within preexisting architectures. Also, the usage of fabric was determined to be not successful due to its difficulty of fabrication and deployment.

Fig. 56 Review 1, multiple webcam feeds

Fig. 57 Test fabric sheet result

5.3 CONTEXTUAL RECORDING To begin to hypothesize specific relationships between light source, physical object with variability and recording surface, I produced and documented a series of scale models. A smaller scale was re-introduced in order to work deliberately and quickly through several designs.

In these experiments, my strategy was to piggyback pre-existing or designed spatial thresholds, which have bearing on the control of lighting conditions or the usage of the space. By tying into things which are already dynamic and carry embedded but unseen information about the space, recording surfaces capture imagery which is even more provocative and revealing.

The criticism of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;photo-folliesâ&#x20AC;? is that they are not in themselves spatial or engaging previous research into photogrammetry.

However, as an

exercise, they shifted focus and thinking towards the specificity and design of event and placement of recording surfaces, which is a lesson taken and applied in the final installation proposal.

Fig. 58 Contextual recording, desk

Fig. 59 Contextual recording, door

Fig. 60 Design study of room strategies

Fig. 61 Design study of room strategies, above

5.4 PAINT

Fig. 62 Paint testing

In order to address the issues of deployability and craft inherent in the fabric panel scheme, it was discussed using existing walls and surfaces as a medium for reactive surfaces rather than introducing completely new surfaces. Paint is likely the most common and manageable method of applying color to existing surfaces. Because the chemicals for the cyanotype are powder based I hypothesized that they could be added directly to white, not unlike how one would add pigment to white paint to give it color. This prompted a series of test to gain a better understanding of the chemistry and components of such a method.

Early on I could see that some aspect of the white paint retarded or completely blocked the photosensitivity of the chemicals. Further research found that an additive, titanium dioxide, was the culprit. It was reflecting UV radiation away from the hardened cyanotype chemical. Titanium dioxide is added to make white paints appear whiter by creating more reflective surfaces. More research in paint â&#x20AC;&#x153;basesâ&#x20AC;?, or the basic paint in which color pigment is added, found that a neutral base does not contain titanium dioxide. This was chosen and proven to be the best base for the reactive paint.

However the lack of titanium dioxide in the paint raised issues with coverage. Titanium dioxide is also beneficial in producing uniformity in the final coverage. Initial tests with the neutral base mix did not mask the strokes

Fig. 63 Recording test, before

Fig. 64 Recording test, after

and inconsistency in the coverage on the wall. Also, it produced a counterproductive and distracting pattern on the surface which was not resultant from UV exposure. Seeing no way around the lack of titanium dioxide, specifically crafted brushing patterns were conceived. To make strokes less apparent, a larger brush roller was used as well as consistent vertical strokes to make an nearly uniform final coverage. 97

5.5 FULL ROOM TEST

Fig. 65 Full room paint test

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Fig. 66 Full room paint test, model from above

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After determining the best mixture of photo-chemical and paint, I made a first attempt at a full room installation. At this moment, I obtained an office space and built a new floor was built to allow all surfaces to be coated and be come a recording surface. The test was conducted during the brushing patterns tests, so several of the coverage issues arose on the exposed surfaces.

Prior to conducting the test, I researched several artificial UV sources. A reptile heat lamp was eventually settled upon because it provided the highest wattage of UV output in order to ensure success of the exposure. My plan for this installation was to coat every surface of the room in order to get a full sense of the recording potential of each surface. The subjects of recording were those involved in a card game staged within the space. The approximate exposure time was one hour and thirty minutes.

During and after exposure, several issues turned up including the coverage issue and the conditioning of receiving surfaces. It became clear to me that the new built floor was not properly conditioned with primer before the cyanotype paint was applied, for the receiving surface materiality and conditioning influenced the reactivity of the paint. The image to the right demonstrates the non-uniformity of reactive areas. However, as can also be seen, the paint was successful in recording the shadow information of the chair as well as other objects being used in the room. My immediate reaction was to move the chair and observe the immortalized image.

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Fig. 67 Displaced chair and shadow

Other lessons that I learned during the test were the need to consider more carefully the activity taking place in the room. With such a required exposure time, a more comfortable activity must be designed.

Finally,

the psychological effect of the space must be noted, for I clearly felt the recording process to the point of borderline paranoia. Activity was done in anticipation of being recording with the knowledge that the architecture was â&#x20AC;&#x153;watchingâ&#x20AC;? and recording. 103

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Fig. 68 Priming over exposed paint

After the test, the walls are returned to their timeless white and are wiped clean of their story.

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5.6 CYANOTYPE CONCLUSIONS After the series of models and full scale tests, it was clear to me that every aspect must be carefully considered in order to reveal and freeze aspects of the space which are lost or in flux. The cyanotype paint was difficult to deploy, so recording surfaces must be deliberately placed and timed.

I learned that the paint had great potential in creating an architecture that â&#x20AC;&#x153;seesâ&#x20AC;? and with it, generates new types of occupancies and experiences. The space really becomes interactive and enables the occupant to interact with the creation of representation. Again, it blurs the boundary between representation and space, and makes representation much more experiential and revealing as a couple to the original physical space.

Finally, ones relationship with light and surface is reversed and reappropriated. Light is considered as in service to ones optical performance, but with the cyanotype paint, light is enabling to the architecture by allowing it to read and absorb.

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6. INSTALLATION SPACE

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Fig. 69 Final installation diagram

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Fig. 70 Final installation, view from above

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Fig. 71 Detail, sun through window.

Fig. 72 Detail, recorded experience

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The installation, as a demonstration of photogenic architecture, focuses on thresholds both current (window, door, vent) and past (painted over window) as anchors for the layering of visual information. The window as an active threshold (aperture) has phenomenological information to contribute to the history of the space. The cyanotype surface allows the shadow conditions of a particular moment in time, 5:30 pm on March 26, 2012, to be permanently absorbed into the walls of the space. The view out of the window also contains information of that particular moment. A webcam captures the occasional passerby and the distant buildings that compose the scene. These two initial absorptions create a memory that can be spatially reexperienced any time there after.

The re-experienced space contains the artifacts and continual unpacking of a moment. It is a moment that would have been normally lost or contained within a fragmented memory. The digital model also allows new perspectives of the space within the particular moment. A photogrammetric model allows for the recorded â&#x20AC;&#x153;spaceâ&#x20AC;? to be re-connected back to the physical architecture, which allows subsequent visits and recordings to be layered and absorbed by the architecture. When the space is re-experienced and re-photographed, those new accounts are layered into the space via the 123d software. After several visits to the space, each containing new aspects to be contributed to the history of the space, the walls become saturated with visual information.

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Fig. 73 Image sequence of digital juxtaposition of space

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As happens subconsciously or non-visually with architecture, space becomes dripping with memory and nostalgia as it exists longer. Photogenic Architecture makes this condition more tangible and experiential, and a phenomenological experience of history, space, and time.

Fig. 74 Final review model, view from above

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Fig. 75 Final review model, view towards window

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK As a Material Culture thesis it is important to highlight how this work relates to that particular realm of inquiry. My thesis engages material and records spatial history through the mediation of visual and tactile representation. Representation, memory and image become perceptible as aspects rendered on surface.

The installation addresses two conditions, the proliferation of the photographic image and its consequences on first hand experience as well as the proliferation of the image as a way of intensifying one’s awareness of the changes that take place in a space over time. This condition is theorized in Jonathan Crary’s work, Techniques of the Observer. Photography is unique because it is a democratizer, part of a “new homogenous terrain of consumption and circulation.”31 This accessibility has allowed photography to permeate deeply into the way we perceive and spatialize the world.

Photogenic space requires a direct tactile engagement with the materials and objects in space in order to embed information into the representation. Because the space is recording, it provides a record to intensify one’s awareness of the past occurrences in a space as well as their conflation into one layered condition within the current.

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7. FINAL PRESENTATION

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Fig. 76 Final review, various views

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Fig. 77 Cyanotype table recordings

FINAL PRESENTATION

As a photogenic space, the installation utilizes existing physical information, such as windows or painted over windows, or new generated information from the cyanotype to embed information about a specific event and reexperiences of the event within the space itself.

The space engages

previous findings from the photogrammetric studies, such as the ability to layer and merge visual information from different times as well as the possibility to project back onto physical objects with accuracy and effect. This process of capturing the physical, generating a representation, and then reconnecting back with was done over a couple of generations, or cycles of representation and merging back with physical, in order to begin to layer in an absorption of periods of time within the space. 129

GENERATION ONE Begins with acknowledging existing details, in this case a window, and “freezing” new ones. Generation 1 involves the “freezing” of information of physical objects and furniture which are in flux or not usually mapped as a physical artifact of a particular time.

CAPTURE_Webcam captures specific movements of objects and people over the duration of exposure. In this case it was the view outside of the window.

GENERATION TWO Projection allows an interaction with and spatial experience of the reprojection of generation one into the space. New interaction produces new information in the space, which begins to generate another layer of representation to be collapsed with the representation of generation one.

CAPTURE_Photogrammetric

mapping

allows

this

movement

and

experience to be absorbed in the digital model, which marks capture paths and frames. This provides a second layer of absorption within the space as it conflates visual information from the two occurrences.

GENERATION THREE Space is filled with the re-projection of a descriptive animation produced in the photogrammetric software. This animation reveals the paths taken

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during the mapping process or potentially reveals other relationships within the space, such as interconnectivities between objects, movements and usages of inanimate features, revealing virtual spaces that grow and revolve within the physical wall space.

REVIEW The installation is presented on the outside of the room via a webcam and projection of the photogenic space. This allows one to experience and interact with the various layers, but also be re-projected on the outside. This layers in this moment as yet another layer of representation within the space.

Fig. 78 Generation 3, saturated model

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Fig. 79 Virtual wall pivot

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8. CRITICAL RESPONSE

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TRANSCRIPTION FROM REVIEW (TIME)

David AllinDoes this installation need to be within this specific space?

Philip BeesleyIncredibly nuanced material, need a conclusion, what does this mean for me and for architecture?(45:37) THEORY: Cyanotype is not necessary to bring together with photogrammetry. They have utterly different cultural agendas. 1. Chemistry is obsessive, finding partial imprints on surface. 2 Photogrammetry deals with new Cartesian space, the opposite of that. REFERENCE: Baudrillard Simulacra Andy Warholâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works of repetition Roger Caillois Surface and Space Georges Didi Huberman writings on stains ANALYSIS: Recording and Measuring have agenda. Read Denis Cosgrove and the Yellow Wallpaper, by Perkins Gilman CRAFT: Why not look into thermodynamics? For you, the surface is being bleached and receiving image and being built up. Read Michelle Addington and her precise anatomy of multiple laminations and Luis Fernandez Galianoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 136

writings on fire. Try to build on your intuition of the surface consuming and then find a theoretical synthesis of that material. It is about a trace and rebuilding, but the trick is it needs to matter. Read Roman Slutzky, Liminal and Phenomenal. Re-build one thing having an impact on another into depth, hybrid depth.

Jennifer HarmonReading into the project, there is an anxiety that everything that we view is becoming incredibly flat, a very thin idea of materiality. You are trying to remedy that flatness by bringing them back into three-dimensional space, but through that process things are becoming distorted. Image is something that is applied to form and is perceptually different than how we perceive it. Think about how we make things three-dimensional in perception? Brain connects two images, parallax to make three dimensional space. Two panels could provide another way of using this medium.

David SalomonCan you describe the difference between photography and film? (29:37) You have made things redundant within the room. Multiple times, things, it is about addition. (31:33) Did you look into using more than one projector, or a history of panoramas? (32:48) Is this a installation strategy or could this be an office? What is its affect? It is ornamental in the fact that it calls one attention to certain aspects of the space, such as the wall or the ceiling. (38:44) A new kind of ornament, its loses its effect after a few times? Can you make 137

a room? Does it become personalized? (39:51) Why is it interesting to leave a history behind? The things that we interact with everyday but do not think about? Clarify why it is important to leave a history behind?

Catie NewellHow does this affect how we think of space? The projection is implying things such as doubling the size of the room. Does space pertain to physicality of space or to these layers? (35:22)

Beth TaukeAnticipation of certain types physicality. I am Interested in your experience of the space, what occurred to you viscerally? (41:38)

Maciej KaczynskiSeem to mashing together a lot of techniques, which one do you prioritize or prefer in this? Or is about the lamination and conflation of the different techniques? (34:25)

Mike SilverPhotography is a thing of the past. It is a thing that is â&#x20AC;&#x153;droolingâ&#x20AC;? with nostalgia. I am amazed at the way the models are emulsified with the photo and the way the sky becomes part of the foreground. Surface continuous. It is also a new technique that can be mobilized, turned into a geometry to make forms within the site. You are trapped in the comfort of the installation that

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has precedent, which is difficult to translate. First step of a new type of architecture. (43:19)

Look into Ives Klein, the image on the surface. What about three-d printers with color? Get away from nostalgia and the chemical. You have the stuff to produce a radical body of work by simply using a color 3-D printer with photogrammetry. It is a grammar of another way of making form, inventing a new medium. (55:25)

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RESPONSE AND CONCLUSION

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In response to the criticism of the review and to conclude the investigation of the thesis, I agree that such a undertaking of multiple medias and techniques invites criticism and opinion on the theoretical appropriateness of their usage. However, my main intention of this thesis was not an exploration of theory of technique, but rather in finding and employing strategies to mine and exploit hidden perceptions of space. In particular, I was excited by the heightened awareness of time and the nuanced changes of the everyday afforded by the cultural and technological conditions of today. I agree with one critic, that there is much to be learned from â&#x20AC;&#x153;the things that we interact with everyday but do not think aboutâ&#x20AC;?. I believe that by dwelling on aspects of the everyday and locating an ability to leave history behind addresses the anxieties of many. This anxiety can be witnessed in our photographic practices of today. Why else would we photograph every single moment if we were not afraid of losing that experience, that moment, that space and feeling.

Through an engagement with technology and technique, which can be debated in its appropriateness, I sought to make these photographic practices more potent and deliberate in combating a loss of moment, feeling and space. I believe that this research is merely a beginning to a series of spatial explorations that seek to bring more intelligence and sensitivity to space, and make it more sympathetic its finite human occupation. We live in such close connection to space and grow unique bonds to it, but when we pass those connections are lost as a result. Perhaps, in appreciation, architecture now has the potential to celebrate its occupancy and to recommunicate its history for years to come. 141

ENDNOTES

1. Bruno Latour. “‘Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move’: An Ant’s View of Architecture.”

In Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, edited by Reto Geiser (Boston: Birkhäuser, 2008), 80.

2. Susan Sontag. On Photography. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 4.

3. Jonathan Crary. Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.

(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), 13.

4. Sontag, On Photography, 9.

5. Ibid., 8.

6. Juhani Pallasmaa. The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture. (West Sussex, UK: John

Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2011), 120.

7. Rosalind Krauss. “The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism.” In The Originality of the Avante-garde and other

Modernist Myths. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985), 107.

8. Pallasmaa, The Embodied Image, 120.

9. David Gissen. Subnature. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), 88.

10. Michelle Addington. “The Phenomena of the Non-Visual.” In Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a

Simulation of Space, edited by Sean Lally and Jessica Young. (New York: Routledge, 2007)

11. Akira Mizuta Lippit. Atomic Light (Shadow Optics). (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 62.

12. Rodolphe El-Khoury. “Polish and Deordorize: Paving the City in Late-Eighteenth-Century France”. Assemblage

31 (1996), 10.

13. Addington, “The Phenomena”.

14. Jean Baudrillard. Simulacra and Simulation. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 7.

15. Ibid., 23.

16. Pallasmaa, The Embodied Image, 121.

17. Gissen, Subnature, 99.

142

18. James Gady. “Do Ho Suh Recreates His Previous Homes, In Painstaking Miniature”. (Acccessed March, 30

2012), http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665075/do-ho-suh-recreates-his-previous-homes-in-painstaking-miniature.

19. Pablo Garcia. “Windows”. (Accessed July 9, 2012), http://www.pablogarcia.org/projects/windows/.

20. Jurgen Mayer H. “Game of Ornaments.” Interview by Vladimir Belogolovsky. Web. http://www.mascontext.

com/tag/jurgen-mayer-h/

21. Ashley Schafer. “Designing Inefficiencies.” Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio. (New

York: Abrams, Abrams, 2003).

22. Paulo Jorge Bartolo. Virtual Modeling and Rapid Manufacturing: Advanced Research in Virtual and Rapid

Prototyping. (London: Taylor and Francis Group, 2005).

23. Krauss, “The Photographic Conditions”, 110.

24. Malcolm Daniel. “William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography”. (Accessed July

9, 2012), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tlbt/hd_tlbt.htm

25. Crary, Techniques, 102.

26. Lippit, Atomic Light, 62.

27. Latour, “Give Me a Gun”, 89.

28. Schafer, “Designing Inefficiencies”.

29. Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies. “Photogrammetry.” (Accessed July 8, 2012), http://www.cast.

uark.edu/home/research/geomatics/photogrammetry.html

30. Stuart Fishelson and Glen D. Lawrence. “The Cyanotype Process for Teaching Principles of Photochemistry.”

(Accessed July 9, 2012), http://myweb.brooklyn.liu.edu/lawrence/photoche/cyanotyp.html 31. Crary, Techniques, 13.

143

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