Spatial Perception and Architectural Simulation by Xuepei Wang

Spatial Perception and Architectural Simulation Wang Xuepei Tutor: Phil Watson

UCL Bartlett MACH AD 2010-2011 Report

Contents

Information

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology 04 1. Experiential vision about the unreal illusion 04 2. The simulation of multi-dimensional vision 09

The Simulated World Beyond Social Experiences and Visual Perceptions 13 1.Controlling factors in simulation 13 2. Spatial perception and mediums 15

Imitator

Simulation In The Social environment

City As The Simulation Of Technology

Conclusion Bibliography

28 29

Introduction

This report, concerns a theoretical architecture that may be composed between the real and the simulated, it explores iconography and symbolism in time-based objective environments. This experience, to some extent, concerns the imitation of technology in social communication and cultural diversity, as it becomes relocated in three-dimensional space. The report is in 4 parts. The first deals with vision in animal environments; the second concerns the time-based mediums that extend the concept of simulation and embeddedness- the Detriot house and car manufacturing..the technology informing the dwelling as a connected indivisible object of car house. the third reviews a way to generate the spatial simulation of form based on the time and visual experiences in the social environment; and the last part works on the relationship between technology and the city morphology.

Chapter I. Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

1. Experiential vision about the unreal illusion The first step of the research before moving on to the idea of the spatial imitator is about analysing the different environments that conexist with us in this case animals and their environment and their evolutionary systems. There is no such thing as two same leaves, and there are no such two visual angles from a natural perspective that are identical . Similarly, around the biosphere, each species has their idiographic perspective for understanding the environment, the consequence of evolutionary process. Special Types develop methods of dealing with the world. Sone birds have stereoscopic vision bats us sonic guidance.

The poster ‘ The Lateral Eyes Of A Horse And The Frontal Eyes Of A Man And The Respective Fields Of View Approximately’ (Gibson, 1986, 204)

Jams J. Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, reviews a multidisciplinary approach understanding living systems, and the ecologies of their environments. Chapter twelve of his book, describes how we become aware of our human environment which exists with the animal environment. The two systems existint in a single in a single geography landcape of materials: Humans must “ turn their heads in order to look around is that their eyes are set in the front of their head instead of on either side, as they are in horses or rabbits”(Gibson, 1986, P. 203). “The orbits in human skull are frontal, not lateral”, on the contrast, “the rabbit can see most of its surroundings(but not all) without having to turn its head; it can see around fairly well without having to look around......thus, an enemy can sneak up on a person from behind, sometimes, but the hunter cannot sneak up on a rabbit.”(Gibson, 1986, P.203) 4

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

With these different visual constructions, the environment contains modalities among the species of animals. herbivores, such as zebra wilderbeast, have eyes normally placed on each side of their heads, the evolutionary production of a visual field for survival purposes they need and own a wider than 60 angles primary vison area for finding food and avoiding predators, “it has been suggested that animals who are preyed upon need a more panoramic field of view, whereas predatory animals such as cats can afford to have eyes in the front of the head”(Walls, 1942), thus, it turns out that the environments they experience are different to the one in predator experiences. Another example concerns the snake, it distinguishes “food” or predators by reading smell and temperature. the result is the snake cannot see any objects without moving, their sen sation of the world being the representation constructed with moving and thermal spectral energy. Frog eyes come in a stunning range of colors and patterns. Most frogs see well only at a distance, but they have excellent night vision and are ver y sensitive to movement. The bulging eyes of most frogs allow them to see in front, to the sides, and partially behind them. When a frog swallows food, it pulls its eyes down into the roof of its mouth. The eyes help push the food down its throat.

Eyes positioned atop the head give frogs a field of vision of almost 180 degrees. This peripheral vision helps them spot predators and prey. Humans and other mammals focus images by changing the shape of the lens. Like a camera lens, frog eyes focus by moving the lens back and forth.

Our ancestors “surveyed the environment, for they needed to know where they were and what there was in all directions”(Gibson, 1986, P. 203), but we modern, civilized, indoors adults today spend most of our time looking at instead of looking around. Nevertheless, vision is a whole perceptual system, not a channel of sense (Gibson, 1966). “The essence of an environment is that it surrounds an individual......the way in which a physical object is surrounded by the remainder of the physical world is not at all the same as the way in which a living animal is surrounded by an environment......if it is assumed that no two observers can be at the same place at the same time, then no two observers ever have the sam surroundings, the environment of each observer is ‘private’, that is unique.”(Gibson, 1986, P. 43) Accordingly, different species experience the world in terms of forming their specific visual perception, to some extent, these evolve as a process defining natural selection in an environment. For these reasons, visions and memories of the world vary dramatically not just bwtween people but between species and create what could be described as an evolutionary space of differences the types of spaces included in this are probably infinte.

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

Different visual images of a dinosaur model in different observed height. Sometimes, when we stand on the seventh floor to see the building opposite ours, the vision of the building we can see is different from the one we have seen when we stand on the street, and even we will feel unfamiliar with this building sometimes.

The one we perceive is far from the “real” world. If each individual perceives the environment by using their specific experiences and physical visual references, they must have various different understandings and descriptions about the composition of space. As Gibson mentions, visual perception serves behavior, and behavior is controlled by perception(Gibson, 1986, P. 223). Even though we have no idea how to define an exact real and unique appearance about the environment that may exist between species, what we can demonstrate is shared sensation world within which we interact. This may be described --- as a simulation of the undefinable exact world. There is an simple example to describe this visual phenomenon: sometimes, when we stand on the seventh floor to see the building opposite ours, the vision of the building we can see is different from the one we have seen when we stand on the street, and even we will feel unfamiliar with this building sometimes. One object can be considered as the identity constructed as the space between things in a 3-dimensional system. The object is defined by its boundaries being observed from different points, however, from different point of view, they are quite different and are defined by different conditions, mediums, dimensional systems and so forth. Therefore, the relationship between the exact real world and the one which is understood from one’s mind acts as a similar explanation to the differences “eigentlich” and “uneigentlich”.Heidegger considered that, the root word "eigen" is broadly equicalent to (and cognate with) the English word "own" (as in "a room of one's own"), and the terms might better be translated "ownedness" and "unownedness". Thus, in a way a composition of the actual and it as a simulacrum, are never as a single identity but a composition. 6

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

“The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth ---- it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. (Ecclesiastes)” (Baudrillard, 1981). Normally, the images what we see from with our eyes are the truth that we are defining or seeing, but the objective truth is never existing, that is to say, the imitation of the world from our vision has replaced the “eigentlich” of the space to become the so-called “truth”. We could identify that untruth is anywhere, which also means the truth is nowhere, as well as the visual world being a form of imaginary being. In order to give the describe the visual differences generated by different species, the following images compare the general differences of the visual and experimental phenomen a that exist among some species of animals.

Picture 1a: This is the general form about an object we humans see. Three lines of x, y and z operate as the coordinate system for explaining our three-dimensional vision system, while the coordinate system in other species is different. This is illustrated with curves, sphere or other forms. 7

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

Picture 1b

Picture 1c

Â Picture 1b: Animals such as horse, whose eyes are normally placed on each side of their heads, their two eyes have the ability to see in different directions and a have a vision range wider than 60 angles. Picture 1c: The image following image shows the motion trail of a pair of moving wings as seen by a frog, the trace of the field is part of the image. Effectively this is a reflection of fragments patterned from the objective world.

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

2. The simulation of multi-dimensional vision Each individual experiences or describes the world in different ways. This so-called objective real world contains the combination hundreds of thousands of images of different individuals, this complexity is refered to as the “sensation of the world”, and is considered as the “real simulation” that combines with each indivuals imitators in the world of “eigentlich”. This is translated as the way that an individual takes ownership of their world. So we effectively exist in a complex multiple perspective with our own individual view. To demonstrate the phenomenon, the following content will give a short example to describe species perception experiences. Picture 2a: the spatial system starts from an ancient classical allusion: here the world has been created from a butterfly: an ancient philosopher named Zhuang Zhou(Zhuang Zi) had dreamt he was a butterfly and completely forgot he was a human, when he woke up, he came up with THE idea that he might be just a human-being in a butterfly's dream. The butterfly becomes a basic element in the first step to build the system, here the allusion is considered as a cognitive structure. The butterfly emerges from the cocoon forming a space system.

This is the general drawing of the forming process in an anti-clockwise direction.

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

Picture 2b: This is a drawing, describing the overlapping of various views as a methodology for scale and axis change in a multiple field 3-dimensions and axis. 10

Biological Evolution and Visual Morphology

Electron Micrograph of Fly’s Eyes

Picture 2c: It is an example for explaining the visual differences: as for the compound eyes of insects (which has 3000 compound eyes that have similar visions but slightly different from the next one) The different images overlap with each other, as the sensation of the world the “real simulation” combined with imitators creating the multiple “eigentlich”. It is impossible here for an observer to distinguish between what is “real” and what is “imaginary” because “perception and mental imagery cannot be separated, they both occur in the brain”(Gibson, 1986, P. 256). The following is an example from Gibson’s “The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception “concerning the difference between waht is perceived or cognized and reality. “A criterion for real versus imaginary is what happens when you turn and move. When the infant turns her head and creeps about and brings her hands in and out of her field of view, she perceives what is real. The assumption that children cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is imaginary until the intellect develops is mentalistic nonsense. As the child grows up, she apprehends more reality as she visits more places of her habitat.” And that is the social and cultural perspective of experiences what I would like to discuss on the next step. 11

Chapter II.The Simulated World Beyond Social Experiences and Visual Perceptions

1. Controlling factors in simulation We have discussed sensation and perception about the world being generally different among individuals as well as groups, and the differences in the so-called objective “eigentlich”. The world I own, in our advanced living environment, we have more complex and comprehensive social phenomenon a to deal with than most other species of animals. “The difference between the factual and the fictional depends on the social system of communication”(Gibson, 1986, P.261). Social systems and living environmentS contribute to our perception and understanding about the world and space of our contemporary society. In simple terms, for instance, people living in a city may prefer to use car speed to calculate time and memorise spaces, while individuals in farmland may utilise plant growth, while people living in the tropics may perceive and calculate space by temperature. Districts and social concepts provide different spatial methodologies.

“To perceive is to be aware of the surfaces of the environment and of oneself in it. The interchange between hidden and unhidden surfaces is essential to this awareness.These are existing surfaces; they are specified at some points of observation. Perceiving gets wider and finer and longer and richer and fuller as the observer explores the environment. The full awareness of surfaces includes their layout, their substances, their events, and their affordances. Note how this definition includes within perception a part of memory, expectation, knowledge, culture, and meaning .” (Gibson, 1986, P.255)

The poster ‘ The Flow of Water in Chinese Art’ (Philip Ball 2009,16)

The Simulated World Beyond Social Experiences and Visual Perceptions

Take for example the flow of water in a chinese painting. In Chinese art, “ the flow of water is commonly represented as a series of lines approximating to floating particles, like the streamlines employed by fluid dynamicists.”(M. M. Sze(ed.), 1977) this kind of representation is not “realistic” water, but a “schematic depiction of flow”. In contast, western artists prefer to use colours for performing the denseness of the flowing water. There are other methods such as the sketch of flowing water by Leonardo da Vinci, where he was trying to illustrate something between an experiment and a diagram by using the lines in performance, this is a similar to the method used in the chinese painting, however the atmosphere created by the use of black and white spaces is spatialy different. The chinese work attempts to reveal confucianism an ancient ideological foundation which refers to immateriality and simplism as a method for practicing art. The practice of western art is different and constructed on styles and individual methods and practices. In asian cultures differences occur in regions and religion which informs work depicting the natural world. Therefore, what we called imitators are not faked or simulacra, but the one simulation sensed or transformed from the “eigentlich” one, by using various perceived experiences.

The poster ‘ A Sketch of Flowing Water by Leonardo da Vinci’ (Philip Ball 2009,6)

As Heidegger said, the imperative thing is not who is he, but how can he be a he. Meanwhile, Baudrillard raised a similar argument about hyperreality and simulation: “We live in a world dominated by simulated experiences and feelings, and have lost the capacity to comprehend reality as it actually exists. We experience only prepared realities.” If we only focus on the substance of concreteness of the physical cosmos we will fail to see its none mechanical universes. The physical experience of space is made up of more than its objects we tend to see the solid pattern, made of stone, brick and glass, but actually, “we think we are perceiving solid objects when in fact all we ever see is light reflecting in different wavelengths from the surface of things... light is often seen as the bearer of revelation rather than the substance of the revelation...”(Wortz Turrell, pp.8,9), thus, the light may just as well be the content, the substance, to be seen the world. Using the above context space acts as a medium platform for holding hundreds of thousands of imitators, in this context space might be redefined as a composite “reality” made of the collective experiences of individuals’ in a physical and cultural medium which then redefine the landscapes of objects. 14

The Simulated World Beyond Social Experiences and Visual Perceptions

2. Spatial perception and mediums The next step of the project concentrates on the relationship between spatial perception and its mediators. It should be kept in mind that “animals live in a medium that, being insubstantial, permits them to move about, if supported, we are tempted to call the medium ‘space’ ”(Gibson, 1986, P.226). Generally, our memory about a space or a building are frequently based on the actual time and spatial imaginary on a time point, and what we experience about a space, has fixed the universal time and dynamic time. Additionally, in this kind of space, objects have existed with the dynamic time and shifting mediums. The medium, “as distinguished from space, allows compression waves from a mechanical event, sound, to reach all points of observation and also allows the diffusion field from a volatile substance, odor, to reach them.”(Gibson, 1966b, Ch.1) Furthermore, on each point in time, the mediums which are controlling the perceived representation are different, it leads to the various different visual experiences, thus, the impression from our experience to a space is a combination which constitutes by each spatial formation during each time point correspondingly. Hence, perception in the medium accompanies locomotion in the medium(Gibson, 1986, P. 226).

The Simulated World Beyond Social Experiences and Visual Perceptions

Therefore, objects are constructed as the comprehensive shifting image in a cosmology of actions with time-based physical conditions. They represent only the fragments of the whole , and may be considered only a mode of appearance of epidermis or multi dimensional imagination. This leads to the idea of considering the space as made of protocellular actions. Fields of kinetics and entropies are redirecting form and chemical compositions in synthetic landscapes. Protocells are a kind of biological object, which is a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of polypeptides proposed as a stepping-stone to the origin of life. The project is now reviewed as a system of fusions not separated identities. The model of exchanging information is considered as a protocellular system, the system of exchanges in space and materials of protocellular actions being used to describe our experiences of the mobility of space and its materiality. It also provides a non-object environment for the creative imagination to explore ideas. As a result, a space or a city is not the object itself but the geometry of images represented by the shifting or moving of the mediums, the spaces being changed in the shift in the mediums, with this in mind as a method the relationship between â&#x20AC;&#x153;eigentlichâ&#x20AC;? the objective world and its simulation may be constructed.

Protocell system 16

Chapter III. Imitator

The next step explores the idea of faking by recomposing and refabricating taking pieces from one object a component related to a part of one system to reassemble as components of a completely other system. A Detroit car workers home and work routine is used as an environment. Car assembly and speed related to movement in the vehicle are transposed to elements of the house, the house becomes an extension of the components of daily life in this case the manufacturing of the Detroit car. The energy used in rotating the handle and the interior structure of the keyhole has been act as the impulsion from a racing car and suspension system respectively. Thus, the system is constructed with other geometric objects as fragments of the car. The lever being constructed out of the silver bumper of a car which incorporates the symbolism of movement and stopping. As the handle moves the components take on the action of the car starting and breaking. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 17

The rotation of handle represents the impulsion of the racing car The interior structure of the keyhole is the suspension system Shifting wiggling and rotation is the flapping of wings and feathers The noise of the door opening is that of a violin being played Opening the door is the time The door hinges function as joints of animals Rivets have the function of bones

Imitator Imitator

The handle

Imitator

The door to the house

Imitator

The cosmological space of the door The operation of the geometries is seen as a cosmology of interdependent pieces. As the door is opened the various elements reinform the scale relations by changing the relationships of distance in the system. Pieces in effect taking the location of other pieces. The spatial system and its simulations collect and refigure new reflective composite images made of variable distances and directions in the system the car is now effectively embedded in the opening to the house. It is now part of the other world a thing in the cosmology of other things, where it is transformed from part of an object to part of another system. This is a form of reappropriation that reviews the symbol as having traces in virtually all architectural forms. 20

Imitator

Since the objects in the space are replaced by imitators, the boundaries among them will be defined by their tracing. So the light, rotating or impulsion tracing of motion become the replacements of the objects. They become spatial boundaries rather than the objects themselves. So the spatial system becomes composed as other geometric objects outside of the fixed field but carry the same function or characteristic of the same function in another system. 21

Imitator

Images with the shifting light 22

Imitator

Chapter IV. Simulation In The Social Environment

Space , speed and impultion

The time-based development of technology and regional cultural applications help define the spatial platform in which we operate as its extention this in turn reconfigures our perception of the image and its motion both in the actual and the evolving imaginary, the medium embraces the boundaries of technology as they alter the construction of the platform. There is no exact real in vision around space. While we walk down the road, the space is being broken up by otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intervention, the spatial orderings are continuously been rebuilt, reconstructed and recomposed. These spaces are constantly subject to change vibrating and oscillating as a rhyzomomatic structure preparing for change and regeneration. Always imminent and active as in a protocellar form of synthetic life the energy and its materials are always relocating, and reconstituting relations and simulations. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Perception stops when sensation stops and that sensation stops when stimulation stops. or very soon thereafterâ&#x20AC;?(Gibson, 1986, P.248). 25

Simulation In The Social Environment

Images with the speed of rotating

Perceived space is a stimulation of certain definite dimensions of constantly changing (social and physical) mediums together with momentary patchworks combining with the imageS of memory. It is assumed that sensation stops when simulation stops, that stimulation stops when technology stops, and then culture also stops. The boundaries to cities are vague and graduall. The persistence of the environment is not, of course, an achievement of the visual system alone (Gibson, 1986, P.208), culture and technology accompany. It creates the basis for a new platform that has its embedded history and its new imagination. It is the same phenomenon as referenced in Baudrillardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Simulacra and Simulation, where he states --- territory no longer precedes the map, the map engenders the territory and transcends the meaning of the origin to be the real, the meaning of cultural identity and assimilation highly precedes the formation of cities themselves to be the real in perceived awareness. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is rather a question of substituting signs of the real for the real itself.â&#x20AC;?(Baudrillard, 1981, P.167) The human environment, is not such solid stone, blacktop, glass, crowded exit, not the real in separating, but the stimulating of awareness, in which the technological things, are tensioning, conflicting, communing, seeping and mixing two cultural systems. Where we live in, what we experience and have as memory, in a way, is a simulation of the objective world, it is, in another way, our individual real space.

Chapter V. City As The Simulation Of Technology

In this part, the project of the simulation extends to deal with culture and the city’s evolution as with technology as a tactic for reviewing future architecture positons. “For avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, eager to identify the current means of expression for a new age, the rapidly evolving motorcar provided a highly seductive source of inspiration and imagery. While the realities of mechanized warfare soon provided a cautionary balance to the unbridled and uncritical enthusiasm of the Futurists, it was in the 1920s that the car became established as the essential industrial icon of the Modern culture.”(Marinetti, 2002) The speed transforms the culture with communication, as well as contributes a cultural assimilation around the world. Looking at Beijing, for instance, it currently has twospeeds involved in reconstructing the environment, one is the ancient cultural base which remains slow and immortal the other is a fast technologically driven environment in cultural terms, they have two identitIes constructed out different symbolic form, interacting, mixing, conflicting and communicating in the existing environments, in turn, they synthesize a comprehensive simulated cultual system. “The revolution is a process that readily inspired modernist mechanical metaphors of engines, factories and skyscrapers, also bestowed on the motor vehicle a powerful charisma used to convey messages to the proletariat about the significant of their contribution to the state.” (Barme, 2002) “The disappearance of the forbidden city gates has permitted the widening and straightening of the streets; muleteers and bicyclists do not have to waste two or three minutes going around those majestic sentries; now they can dash in a straight line across a desert (Leys, 1970)”. Beijing city began reconstruction during the western car evolution and its culture proliferation, the city simulates this symbol of the technology, the ancient culture and modern imported culture are gradually mutuaily integrating, with identity symbols and characteristics being imported as in cars being exported from Detroit to Beijing, the cultural gap between them becomes woven into the fabric of exchanges in productions of space. Fragmentation and recomposition are constantly reconstructing environments and their cultures. 27

Chapter VI. Conclusion

This project began with researching ideas of vision and environments in different animal species as a method to review the space we inhabit and its other constitutions the different images of the environment among different individuals simulating the “real” or the “origin” as their own real identity. The relationship between cars, one of the main productions of the technolofical revolution, and architecture itself is a long and complex history, as long as the history of the car itself. The power of the vehicles changed the city forms and streets in America, and soon spread to developing countrIes such as China, the transformation of the city acts as the simulation describing the technological spreading, of a so called reality that reconceptualizes and attempts to reintegrate multi cultural identities. The intangible connections in new urban morphologies will create new futures for architectural spaces in new simulations.

Bibliography

Heidegger, M. (1926) Being and Time. London: Antony Rowe Ltd. Baudrillard, J. (1981) Simulacra and Simulation. Michigan: The University of Michigan Press. Gleick, J. (1988) Chaos. Great Britain: William Heinemann Ltd. Nobili, R. (1922) The Gentle Art of Faking. London: Seeley Service Co. Ltd. Ball, P. (2009) Nature’s Patterns A Tapestry in Three Parts. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. Gibson, J. (1986) The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception. United States of America: Psychology Press. Wollen, P. and Kerr, J. (2002) Autopia cars and culture. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. Gibson, J. (1986) The Lateral Eyes Of A Horse And The Frontal Eyes Of A Man And The Respective Fields Of View Approximately [Image]. The Ecological Approach To Visual Perception. Ball, P. (2009) The Flow of Water in Chinese Art [Image]. Nature’s Patterns A Tapestry in Three Parts. Ball, P. (2009) A sketch of flowing water by Leonardo da Vinci [Image]. Nature’s Patterns A Tapestry in Three Parts. Pocha, S. (2009) Fly's eyes [Image]. Avaliable at: <http://jiaren.org/2009/03/21/dongwudeyanjing-zhaopian/> [Accessed June 2011]. Haugeland, J. (2007) Owned Disclosedness: Resolute Being toward Death. [online]. Avaliable at: <http://philosophy.uchicago.edu/faculty/ files/haugeland/Truth+Finitude+Part+Twp.pdf> [Accessed June 2011]. Armstrong, R. (2010) Protocell Genesis. [Video Online]. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abb9R_JvZ5k> [Accessed March 2011].

vvv

Wang Xuepei