Research Method Statement
Posthuman Fun Palace The thesis has been developed as a guide to the Posthuman Fun Palace, which like Cedric Price’s ‘Fun Palace’ (1964) offers new forms of social interaction. It will be designed and augmented based on my own interests, in the way we will be able to create our own minds, bodies, spaces, environments and communities. As you enter the Fun Palace either physically or digitally you begin to be augmented and fractured, moving through the landscape you improve your cognitive attachment to the environment as it nurtures you into a form that maximises your visual sensorium towards a paradise of fun. Allowing you to manipulate and control the environment around you.
Tim Evans M.Arch Tutor: Nic Clear
The posthuman Fun Palace in 2066 is a highly dynamic, mixed reality wonderland, based on a number of speculative predictions from science fiction stories and hard science inventions. With the ability for every user to customise their synthetic form and virtual/ physical surroundings to match their own personal preference, the city is likely to become a complex maze of cultural hubs where people with similar interests join together to develop designed communities. These areas will contain a diverse range of different posthuman forms, where you may have to adapt and augment your body to fit in as you travel through different territories, just like we do in London today. Different areas affect what you wear, eat and how you move/walk through areas, depending upon the local cultures and traditions and how integrated we feel to the other people living, working or visiting the space
Introduction
The thesis uses a timeline of science fiction and science fact to create a speculative framework to inform the parameters of the Fun Palace, within a theoretical future. I have approached it in the same way Steven Shaviro writes his book, Discognition, “Perhaps we will be able to imagine what we are unable to know” (2015). Science fiction is a literature tool used to frame this guide and the environmental constraints it will be set within, I use a Paraliterature as Samuel R. Delany refers to it. The use of this genre allows us to ground our fabrication through the use of narratives in character’s cognition.
Overview
The primary focus of the Fun Palace is to explore the architectural, technological and environmental, designs, uses and visual representations within the constructed timeline. I investigate the idea of ‘fun’ within a highly efficient post-scarcity environment using Dada as the skeleton of the performance. It is an instrument to understand the mesh connections between mind, body and spaces.
Conclusion Speculative The conclusion to this guide does not follow the standard protocol in developing a closing statement because of the nature of this thesis. It does however provide the reader with a breakdown of the history and technicalities of posthuman architecture and design and frames them within a speculative park to demonstrate the possibilities of how this knowledge can be implemented into practice. The goal is to provide a conclusion that like the Fun Palace is unique to the user, created by working through the different guides within this collection. The RMS has only been updated through out the creation of the thesis to separate the guides from each other in order to provide a more efficient way of setting the scene for the Fun Palace. By separating each part and using a different style of language, the collection of guides are able to set the scenes, explain their creation and evolution and speculate the future of them, while integrating the reader/user within every step. The Companion Guide, which is the final part of the thesis has become the tool which has set the scene for my final design project.
The thesis is a transformative guide for developing a unique posthuman, as you journey through the Fun Palace. It considers both a physiological and psychological factor towards the amalgamation of your anatomy and cognition into the paradise, where there is little differentiation between the posthuman and the architecture. With the goal of posthumanism to become an entirely unique experience based around our individual needs and desires, the paper will be an exclusive perspective of my own method and progression through the process. Through the histories, theories, technologies, technicalities, social and political concerns of becoming posthuman along with the rich involvement of science fiction, we can develop a detailed brief on the need of a methodology towards developing our own posthuman palaces. The need for the guide now is of vital importance, given the rapid adoption of media coverage on the topic through both science fiction (Westworld: 2016 and Ghost in the shell: 2017) and actual scientific achievements like the neural lace, synthetic limb replacement and mixed reality architectures. The spaces themselves cannot be considered on their own, but require the connection between the mind and body, to be explored as a system. They are created either by designing the space around your body or designing your body around the space, creating a highly diverse landscape that require continuous augmentation for complete immersion. The Fun Palace will become a post-artist’s studio where many similar thinking minds collaboratively build up personalised spaces that both harmoniously and singly develop community zones for fun and enjoyment. As a spatially rich area, the interesting architecture becomes the seams between ideas, where slightly different minds create part fractured and intersecting spaces that are also influencing the design of the creators to better interact with the area.
Thesis Form
Structure
Presentation
Posthuman Fun Palace: A Companion Guide
The ideal format of this collection of guides to integrate fully with a posthuman future would be a cloud based interactive knowledge packet that can be accessed wirelessly upon admission to the Fun Palace. The Online interactive timeline is a representation of this, however to ensure the compatibility is maintained until 2066, the thesis is presented in a hard copy form. As the Fun Palace relies on an element of Dada, the posthumans will be required to augment their bodies into a partially outdated form in order to access the information. Because this is a speculative project designed to be used by all users within the Fun Palace it is necessary to separate the contents of this thesis into multiple parts, each with a specific purpose and its own type of language. A simple essay would not be appropriate for the thesis as it would fail to portray the full system involved within the fun palace, in order to create an immersive posthuman environment where there is little differentiation between the entity and architecture, a new type of essay is required. The form of this thesis attempts to provide a multi-level and reader specific platform to develop a greater special awareness and understanding of posthuman architecture. The Interactive Timeline: This is a preview of how the guide could be presented to a posthuman combining all of the information into a simple user interface. This uses the latest in open source coding including, Html5, Javascript, CSS, CSS3d, WebGL and a ThreeJS collection. All of which I have taught myself through the process of developing the Thesis. The timeline in its current state shows the leading edge of what the technology is capable of currently, to make a three-dimensional interactive website accessible by all phones, tablets and computers. The Investigative Timeline: This compiles a large range of data from science fiction stories, novels, comics and films, along with scientific discoveries, research fields and predictions from the last 50 years, into an extensive timeline to speculate the achievements over the next 50 years. Which will set the scene for the paradise of fun. This is a two-dimensional version of the interactive timeline which remains the easiest way for humans to understand it. The Histories and technologies: To provide a technically grounded and fully researched understanding of the framework operating at the Fun Palace, this text explores the development of posthuman theories around the mind, body and spaces for the past 50 years. This allows me to create informed speculations of the entities, technologies and spaces that may become available for use in the fun palace in 50 years’ time. This creates a link between researched theories and the timeline for use in the Companion Guide The Companion Guide: Presented as a tour guide, this is written to engage the visitors with the Fun Palace, demonstrating one of the possible ways to experience the Fun Palace. The need for the tone of language in this is to embody a posthuman and develop a feeling of the environment as humans may be unable to understand the emotional attachment between bodies and spaces.
1. Introduction 2. The Body Part A: Defining Your Posthuman Subject Part B: Posthuman Technological Advancements Part C: Posthuman Forms in Science Fiction Part D: Posthuman Forms In The Fun Palace Part E: Posthuman Need For Dada 3. The Mind Part A: Defining Your Posthuman mind Part B: Understanding Your Cognitive Attachment Part C: Posthuman Minds in Science Fiction Part D: Posthuman Forms in The Fun Palace Part E: Distinguishing Between Human/A.I. Minds 4. The Spaces Part A: Cybernetic Architecture Part B: Developing the Environment Part C: Posthuman Environments In Science Fiction Part D: Environments In The Fun Palace 5. Collaboration in the Fun Palace 6. Destruction in the Fun Palace
Posthuman Fun Palace: Histories and Technologies 1. Introduction 2. Historic Development of Posthuman Theory Part A: The Posthuman Theory Development to 2016 Part B: Predicting the Posthuman Theory as of 2066 3. The Body Part A: Evolving Theories of Entity Form PART B: Methods of Transformation 4. The Mind Part A: Evolving Theory of Human/Environmental Integration Part B: Thinking like a Human Part C: Thinking like a Posthuman 5. The Spaces Part A: Understanding form in Price’s Fun Palace PART B: Defining the Spaces and Environment
Posthuman Fun Palace: Interactive Timeline Part A: Defining the Posthuman Subject Part B: Cybernetic Architecture Part C: Theories of the Environment Part D: Environmental Interfaces in Science Fiction Part E: Evolving Theories of Human/Environment Integration
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