tate modern / Herzog and de Meuron

formtexx exhibit

test pattern / reconstruction 1

This reconstruction of test pattern uses the general principles of strips to create sequence of components, exploring the effects caused by varying the dimensions of the strips widths.

components
1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 20

sequence
ribbon 1 - 1,1,11,3,7,1,20,15,1,3,1,7,15
ribbon 2 - 3,7,3,1,3,1,11,20,1,3,15,1,1
ribbon 3 - 11,1,13,1,3,7,7,3,1,1,3,1
ribbon 4 - 11,1,1,7,15,1,3,20,3,3
ribbon 5 - 7,1,1,3,7,3,3,3,1,20,1,3,1,7
ribbon 6 - 3,3,1,1,3,20,1,1,3,15,1,7,1
ribbon 7 - 3,3,1,1,1,7,3,7,3,1,1,7,3,1,1
ribbon 8 - 7,11,1,1,7,3,1,3,3

test pattern / reconstruction 2

This reconstruction of test pattern uses the same organisational principles as the original; generated through formal strips which allow the insertion of components with varying sequence. This adaptation creates new trajectories allowing the ribbons to overlap, creating depth to the pattern.

components
1, 3, 7, 11, 15, 20

sequence
ribbon 1 - 1,1,11,3,7,1,20,15,1,3,1,7,15
ribbon 2 - 3,7,3,1,3,1,11,20,1,3,15,1,1
ribbon 3 - 11,1,13,1,3,7,7,3,1,1,3,1
ribbon 4 - 11,1,1,7,15,1,3,20,3,3
ribbon 5 - 7,1,1,3,7,3,3,3,1,20,1,3,1,7
ribbon 6 - 3,3,1,1,3,20,1,1,3,15,1,7,1
ribbon 7 - 3,3,1,1,1,7,3,7,3,1,1,7,3,1,1
ribbon 8 - 7,11,1,1,7,3,1,3,3

stephen lawrence centre / david adjaye

deconstructed datamatics animation

using the medium of animation i have deconstructed datamatics, a pattern created by ryoji ikeda, illustrating the generative principles of the artwork.

datamatics / ryoji ikeda

using pure data as a source for sound and visuals, datamatics combines abstract and mimetic presentations of matter, time and space, an art project that explores the potential to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world. Driven by the primary principles of datamatics, but objectively deconstructing its original elements – sound, visuals and even source codes – this new work creates a kind of meta–datamatics. Ikeda employs real–time programme computations and data scanning to create an extended new sequence that is a further abstraction of the original work. The technical dynamics of the piece, such as its extremely fast frame rates and variable bit depths, continue to challenge and explore the thresholds of our perceptions.

pattern

primary grid

secondary grid

organisational structure

purist component

My interest in the work of Ikeda is not only in the architectural testing of space in relation to sound frequency, lighting and time but also in relation to the simplistic syntax in which the imagery is representative of such diverse and complex information.

Through the use of algorithm, repetition, sequence and pacific ordering Ikeda’s work translates the most complex information which abstractly surrounds us into simplistic patterns, following generative guidelines.

Test pattern is generated using generative strips which are used in order to organise a series of various components, defined through sequence and rhythm.

Datamatics can be considered as a series of elements (squares) which when arranged within an organisational grid become a component (numbers 0-9). These components are then structured within a larger grid, which is representative of the vastness of information that surrounds us.

There is an interesting relationship as with chemical or physical combinations, where elements form components which are then used to become new elements, each time the purity or impurity of that element is transformed into the purity or impurity of the next, altering properties, cancelling out or promoting reactions.

These patterns can also be considered as the trajectory of components. Test pattern is formed through the linear trajectory of multiple components, whereas datamatics is represented using an abstract trajectory of a single component.

If Ikeda is able to translate such multifaceted unique data into simple patterns generated using simple rules, is it possible to generate unique architecture using similar patterns and generative guidelines?

Mass production has given way to mass customization due to advances in technology and the industrialisation of construction. Systems based on semi prefabrication apposed to the hard prefabricated solutions of the modernists, which saw repetitive complete cellular modules, rather than tactical prefabrication systems based on combinable components. There is a growing importance not for mass repetition, but rather of informatised, (processal, evolutionary, and diversifying) industrial production which permits the conception of a new field of action in the realm of intelligent production system design.

With these intelligent construction systems can the ideas of planners and architects of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s such Archigram, superstudio and the metabolists begin to form a solution to the evolutionary urban matrix in which society resides today and into the future?

test pattern / ryoji ikeda

test pattern is a system that converts any type of data (text, sounds, photos and movies) into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. Through its application, the project aims to examine the relationship between critical points of device performance and the threshold of human perception. In this first edition of the project, an audiovisual installation, test pattern involves a sequence of tests for machines and humans, comprising visual patterns converted and generated from sound waveforms in real–time. The installation comprises 8 computer monitors and 16 loudspeakers aligned on the floor in a dark space. The 8 rectangular surfaces of the screens flicker intensely with black and white images, floating and convulsing in the darkness. 16–channel sound signals are mapped as a grid matrix, passing and slicing the space sharply. Via a real–time computer program, the signal patterns are converted into 8 barcode patterns, which are tightly synchronized. The velocity of the moving images is ultra–fast, some hundreds of frames per second at certain points, providing a performance test for the devices and a response test for visitors' perceptions.

organisational strips

component 1

component 2

component 3

Ryoji Ikeda

Ryoji Ikeda is a Japanese composer and sound artist who lives and works in New York City. Ikeda focuses on the minutiae of ultrasonics, frequencies and the essential characteristics of sound in relation with human perception and the mathematical dianoia applied to music, time and space.

-

Ikeda has been intensely active through concerts, installations, and recordings, integrating sound, acoustics and sublime imagery. In the artist’s works, music, time and space are shaped by mathematical methods as Ikeda explores sound as sensation, pulling apart its physical properties to reveal its relationship with human perception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S_2r0J7bHo

spectra II The installation relies on the intersection of sound and architecture and continues Ikeda's interest in phenomena - be they light, tone or sound - and how they materialise and manifest themselves in the world. The piece is built as a narrow, ceiling-covered corridor, allowing only one visitor to enter at a time. In the corridor space, red laser lights mark out the architectural construction of the otherwise darkened space and divide it into sections. Along the length of the space, speakers and strobe lights are mounted in the ceiling. The flashing strobe lights and high frequency sounds are synchronised and continuously change the experience of the space. Aiming at purity and simplicity in the sound, Ikeda deploys high frequency sine waves, only to subject them to his exploration of how pure tone and sound are distorted by the resonance and reflective qualities of a given architectural setting and the presence and movement of the public. Visitors can hardly recognise the dimensions of the space, which is almost invisible due to its intense darkness/brightness and inaudible due to its ultra-frequencies. However, as they pass through the corridor, subtle oscillation patterns occur around their ears, caused by their own movements interfering with the sounds. The sound itself may be subtle and minimal, but the experience of the sound in the installation is active and dynamic. It is only through the public's physical engagement in the sound space that the real character of the work can be perceived.

spectra The luminal tunnel of Eero Saarinen's TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport was always the perfect symbolic experience of the future. With its plunging vanishing point and soaring roofline, Saarinen's theatrical passage embodied, if not created, Utopian ideals of transcendence and transportation in travel.

formula, a constantly evolving work updated with each presentation, is a perfect synchronization between Ikeda's sound frequencies and the movements on the screen. It places the viewer in a binary geometry of space, and exploits the darkness to amplify the perceptions, with outstanding success. Ikeda aims for the complete integration of the various elements, composing music, images, lighting and orchestrating the relationships between them through a highly precise score.

experimental architecture

Projects which explore the use of megastructures and plug in components to create city's in the sky. A vision of a city inhabited by a mass society, characterized by large scale, flexible and extensible structures that enable an organic growth process.

Clusters in the Air / Arata Isozaki

Tokyo Bay / Kenzo Tange

Overbuilding the city of Ragnitz / Ragnitz-Graz

Yona Friedman

La Ville Spatiale / Yona Friedman

Continuous Monument, on the Rocky Coast / Superstudio

Continuous Monument / Superstudio

New Babylon / Constant

Plug-in city / Archigram

Plug-in city / Archigram

the urban matrix

The contemporary city constitutes a new urban agglomeration of multiplied, heterogeneous and discontinuous spaces and relationships exceeding the metropolises that have existed.

These cities are formed by urban entities that are loosely linked in terms of hierarchy, and more difficult to relate to circumstances of spatial or contextual proximity, but on the contrary are associated with dislocated and fluctuating dynamics with reference to the variable relationships between, residence, production, service and leisure, thus defining a versatile dimension to the contemporary city.

Formed through a vibrant system, which at global scale is generic and recurrent but at a local scale it is diversified and specific.

The metapolis city consists of a matrix, a diversified and elastic development, produced within a changing framework, generated beyond the physical or geographic. A framework of relationships based on the processing and combination of simultaneous bits of information.

The metapolis is not a single place or a particular shape, nor is it at any point at a unique evolutionary stage, it is the accumulation of multiple stages and simultaneous experiences.

As an elastic and vibrant system, the city is defined by relationships between autonomous interlinked movements and events. This is a complex system of fluent networks, and layers of information the outlines of which fluctuate and change in a macrobiotic way.

The structure of cities can be considered as being similar yet different at the same time. They consist of similar dynamics at a global scale yet at a local scale consist of varying situations, formed through collisions, encounters and intersections, generating a variety of specific and varied combinations.

The essence of a contemporary city; a metapolis, is a spectrum of places within places. This multi-city can be considered abstractly as a multi layered structure formed through superposed transformations and evolutions, a fluctuating and dynamic network, definitively unfinished.