Super Un-Rolling

Preliminary for Object Competition with Ronald Eckels III

T4T LAB 2016. Object Redux. Critters

T4T LAB Spring 2016. Object Redux. 

Invited Professor

Adam Fure

Team: Juan Arriaza, Stefani Johnson, Chris Bell, Sydney Farris, Madison Haynes

The experiment began as we became interested in Ronchamp as a late modernist object where inside and outside are separated by a fold between exterior and interior. Based on its main organizational principles of continuous change around a central void, transformation of wall to volume/ volume to wall and creation of entry through the repetition of elements, we decided to reconfigure and distort elements and extrude them to produce 3d manifestations of these. We began to denote these new primitives as “chunks,” and proceeded to create an index from which compositions were created. By sweeping, extruding, lofting, and booleaning shapes and forms derived from the plan of Ronchamp individually, the group members then compiled the sum of their work to assemble new objects. Through the process of  combining and distorting chunks, elements which once functioned as parts of a plan began to lose their definition and begin to take on a new autonomy, driven by the inputs of each team member.

Trying to understand if the product was a simple sum of different chunks, we decided to replicate the experiment with a different building. The Jewish Museum was selected as it also follows an irregular organization around a void as well as the notion of the fragmented line as an organizing principle. The process of reorganization of the plan and production of chunks was repeated to create a new irreducible object.

In computing, from least to most physical, there are four layers of information: application, transport, internet, and link; where the application is the interface we actually engage in and the link is the physical medium of transport. The deeper scripting languages go and the further they move from our understanding, the more boundless and raw the information becomes. The “critters” we engage with are the most abstracted result of the plan of a real building; but while they’re entirely hypothetical we are more able to interface with them than with the original drawing, or data.

With Ronchamp and The Jewish Museum as precedents, the plans are used as genetic framework from which “chunks” are derived and categorized. The aforementioned process has been repeated so many times that the final productions have logical depth, meaning a large amount of data has been discarded to reach the final — a conventional design process with an unconventional product. We began to ask: Does folding an object (in the Deleuzian sense of The Fold) automatically create a new irreducible product or is the folded object identical to the new object because it retains the same formal qualities? The action of unfolding both opposes folding and continues it.

Because each chunk was extracted and operated on by different people, their ultimate combinations were the products of entirely different evolutionary processes. Each “chunk” acts as a pixel in that the assembly of all these similar building blocks reads as the unity of infinitesimal parts. And each of the final conglomerations is the manifestation of a variety of arrangements and productions. “The [referenced plan] becomes distorted to such a degree as to render the [‘critter’] a denial of repetition,” as it develops a particular character through its new autonomy. Point-of-view is not limited to human perception. The irregularity and lottery-like selection and combination of chunks creates a final model which changes continuously around its axis, alternating from volume to wall, wall to volume. The unity of the objects’ inherent multiplicity produces a gestalt reading, as the self-organized chunks attain their own reality.

In this way, the project redefines abstraction by unfolding rather than folding the original data.

T4T LAB 2016. Object Redux. Digital Ruinification

T4T LAB Spring 2016. Object Redux. 

Invited Professor

Adam Fure

Team: Adam Wells, Christian Stiles, Luis Muňos, Kendall Slaughter

Our process begins with a collective of objects created from models downloaded off the internet for free, 

These objects were used in a subtractive Boolean process that we term “data weathering” on a set of six initial blocks.

That is to say the structure of a digital mesh model is composed of a series of polygons, the Boolean process deteriorates the original data structure of the model leaving in its place a new polygon system creating variations in texture, voids, and abstracted architectural space.

These new objects are translated to the physical world via 3d printing, where again the model must restructure its data system by translating polygons into layers of gypsum powder.

This re-structuring results in breaks, softer edges, and an overall loss in articulation.

 Although we recognize the disparities between both models as an act of ruination, we also see this moment as an act of creation and edification of a new object.

These prints were then taken through a sequence of mechanical deterioration, physically chipping away reducing the material.

Converting these pieces back to the digital through photogrammetry resulted in an exponential growth of polygon data.

Both previous processes of 3d printing and mechanical deterioration resulted in a loss of physical material, but the photogram program could no longer read any hard edges or large flat surfaces, forcing the software to compensate by constructing an object with a dense polygon structure.

These photogrammed models were then moved and reorganized to form a larger object and additional polygon data was added making physical connections between each block.

This new object was CNCed out of Styrofoam, again switching the data structure and material.

Because of the machine restrictions on the 3 axis CNC, each block was forced to be cut into multiple pieces and reconstructed.

 It is necessary to outline the entire process as each step represents the creation of new objects that can be viewed as a collective, which Adam will talk about further.

We also began to borrow ideas from Object Oriented Onticology. We define pivotal moments in the process as translation from the digital world to the physical world and from the physical world to the digital. (As Luis mentioned, these moments would include the initial digital model being 3d printed, the 3d print photogrammed back to the digital, and going back to the physical world through the CNC. These translations are not merely previous iterations of the former object or representations, they mark the creation of a new object through a restructuring of data, material, and formal qualities. Thus the typical notion of a linear process as well as representation is ruined, leading to a collective of objects, each able to stand as its own autonomous entity. (We’ve displayed this in these images here and here, showing the initial figures we gathered from the internet, pieces of the CNC model, as well as entire blocks at different phases during the process, all objects equal and on the same plane )

The final drawings and images displayed follow this logic, using a process that we’ve termed the decollective, using a digital tear to create a new object formed from the collective. (looking at the 3 images on either side, they are composed of the initial data structure of the first model, images of the 3d print and CNC, as well as the data structure of the photogrammed model and the final render. The Exterior views, close ups and sections argue this same point using this digital tear to display multiple objects from the collective. Through all of this we’ve created a procedural post digital scenario. The final images are all different variations of the collective becoming objects themselves. They assert no sense of origin, context, or orientation. The CNC model displayed attempts to argue this point as it populated with figures  varying in scale moving unrestricted by gravity or other physical forces.