Maquettes and sketches towards the realization of final development:
The final construction will be a harmonograph that will feature 2 pendulums that will move in a perpendicular motion. The maquette I constructed could not handle the weight of a pen; therefore, could not be used to to see if the mechanism worked. However, the basic structure will be similar to the maquette. Specific materials and mechanism are do be discussed and established.
Ideals of efficiency and
productivity have increased the development and utilization of the machine in
Twenty-first century America. The machine, defined as an apparatus applying
mechanical power to perform a particular task, has been established as a way of
creating solutions at a more rapid rate than can be accomplished by people
alone. This mechanistic process of labor has increased the level at which
humans can create, manufacture and distribute products and information.
However, the proficiency of this apparatus has replaced much of the need for
human production, and has eliminated the creativity and craftsmanship that come
from the humanistic creation process. By utilizing technology to create a more
effective means of production, man has also erased the need for physical human
production. The relationship of these entities has created a society that is
dominated by a reliance on the machine, but also the need for human ingenuity
and innovation. My piece investigates the connection of these two entities and
the forms that can result from their separate creation methodologies.
The machine has found its way
into the field of graphic design and influences every aspect of human creation,
which is an idea that will be communicated to all that observe and utilize my
work. The mechanistic methodology of image creation is represented through the presentation
of a harmonograph, a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a
geometric image. Upon utilizing the harmonograph the user initiates image
creation through the use of a designed apparatus. The user has no control over
the image that is created by the machine, but the speed, efficiency and ease of
production are represented through production. Through the use of metal, wood
and industrialized materials my work reinforces the cold, lifeless creation
that takes place in the assembly line of mechanized America.
The relationship of
mechanistic and humanistic production is further examined by juxtaposing the
harmonograph apparatus with a more human method of production. The presentation
of a platform that allows the viewer to create an image free from restrictions,
communicates the difference of opposing creation methodologies. When given the
opportunity to produce an image through common, humanistic means, how does the
participant respond? This process allows the viewer to have much more control
over the final image, but may not necessarily have the same amount of speed or
efficient production that would be found in the harmograph methodology. The
relationship of mechanistic and humanistic production is investigated, but this
process also brings to mind the idea of efficiency and how it relates to the creation
of art. The participants experience parallels that are often drawn between the
processes of fine and applied arts. In conclusion, the mechanistic nature of
society and the effectual results on the production methods of mankind are
examined through my representation of creation methodologies of both entities.
Ideals of efficiency and
productivity have increased the development and utilization of the machine in
Twenty-first century America. The machine, defined as an apparatus applying
mechanical power to perform a particular task, has been established as a way of
creating solutions at a more rapid rate than can be accomplished by people.
This mechanistic process of labor has increased the level at which humans can
create, manufacture and distribute products and information. However, the proficiency
of this apparatus can also replace the need for human production, and eliminate
the creativity and craftsmanship that come from the humanistic creation process.
My project will investigate the connection of these two entities and the forms
that can result from the separate creation methodologies.
My project will consist of two
free standing pedestals measuring approximately eighteen [18.0] inches in square
width, and will be focused on interactive viewer participation. The pedestals
will be non-memphis college of art pedestals and will be constructed by the
designer. The pedestals will be located two feet from the wall, and will both
display a sheet of paper that will measure approximately [width preceding
height] eleven [11.0] by seventeen [17.0] in inches. The left pedestal will
represent the mechanistic methodology of image creation and will display a
harmonograph, a mechanical apparatus that employs pendulums to create a
geometric image, above the sheet of paper. The harmonograph will be fastened on
top of the pedestal through the use of clamps. Upon cranking the handle of the
harmonograph the user will initiate mechanical image creation. The user will
have no control over the image that is created by the machine, but will observe
the speed, efficiency and ease of production. The harmonograph will be
constructed through the use of mechanics created by the hand of the designer
and through the use of Ponoko, an online 3D printing and laser cutting
resource. The basis of harmonograph construction will rely on specific weight
distribution which will, when set into motion, allow the attached marked
marking device to create an image that is solely influenced on the
gravitational pull of the established weight. This machine will be the sole
method of creation on the first pedestal and will feature no control of color,
movement or any form of visual construction for the participant. This apparatus
will be no taller than 8 feet tall.
The second pedestal will also
feature a sheet of paper with the previously noted size, but will be
accompanied by a set of visual artist materials. These materials may include
markers, pens, or pencils and will allow the participant to take part in a much
more open process of image creation.
This process will allow the viewer to have much more control over the
final image, but may not necessarily have the same amount of speed or efficient
production that would be found in the harmograph methodology. The participant
will take both created images with them.
The pedestals may also contain
a small protrusion to allow for the inclusion of a small informational pamphlet
as to how to operate the machine and navigate through the project. My project
will utilize the full four [4] feet in width on the wall and four [4] foot
distance from the wall that will be allowed to every student. Electricity and
any other digital equipment will not be necessary.
For more information or visual
aid on the harmonograph please visit:
In late 1927 and early 1928,
Sheeler spent six weeks documenting the Ford Motor Company's automobile plant
in River Rouge, Michigan, as part of the promotional campaign for the release
of the Model A Ford. Sheeler's thirty-two photographs of the Ford plant depict
its acres of gleaming, massive machinery,
rather than the human process of labor. They celebrate the company's—and, by
association, America's—ideals of power and productivity, although there is also
a strangely forbidding atmosphere to the unpopulated scenes. Some of the
photographs would serve as sources for later works in other media, he wrote,
"I had come to feel that a picture could have incorporated in it the
structural design implied in abstraction and be presented in a wholly realistic
manner."
-Murphy, Jessica.
"Charles Sheeler (1883–1965)". In Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shee/hd_shee.htm (November 2009)
"At the dawn of the
twentieth century Henry Adams proclaimed that the machine was as central to our
modern American culture as the Virgin was to medieval culture. Charles Sheeler
(1886-1965) was one of the most noted American artists to embrace the
iconography of the machine. But was he high priest or heretic in the religion
of mass production and technology that dominated his era? In paintings,
drawings, and photographs depicting New York skyscapers, Henry Ford's automobile
factories, and machine-dominated interiors, Sheeler produced images of
extraordinary aesthetic power that confirmed America's technological and
industrial prestige in vivid detail."
The Architecture Machine Toward a More Human
Environment Nicholas
Negroponte
The use of computers to aid the architectural designer and
urban planner is already beyond the experimental stage and part of the workaday
routine of many professionals. There are, for example, machines that transform
two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional perspective displays and others
that check myriad aspects of a design against specifications and tolerance
requirements. The Architecture Machine
looks several machine generations ahead of these to a future in which genuine
man-machine dialogue is achieved, when man and machine will act together on
something closer to equal terms toward a common goal, each contributing his-its
own characteristic faculty.
The ideal result would be a final design so seamless and
well integrated that it is not possible to tell which partner contributed what,
and so creative and innovative, yet contingency-proof, that neither an unaided
designer nor the most elaborate computer system could have produced it without
the help of the other. Negroponte looks forward to man-machine relationships so
personal that each can (politely) interrupt the routine work of the other with
a fresh inspiration or a nudging reminder of higher priorities; so personal
indeed that the response pattern of a machine to one designer would be
significantly different from its dealings with a designer of another
temperament or of another culture.
Some of the proposals put forth here have already been
realized in a system called URBAN5, developed at M.I.T. and IBM by the author
and his colleagues. A full account of this system is given. Beyond this, the
more radical and adventuresome of the man-machine interactive attributes
envisioned by Negroponte are now being created with the coming of more
designers (men) trained in the newer technologies and more sophisticated
configurations (machines)—and the exploratory interaction of the two.
The author has consulted the full literature on systems
theory philosophy and has probed deeply into the underlying issues of
man-machine relationships and artificial intelligence. It is perhaps not so
surprising that an architect rather than a computationist should have provided
us with one of the most provocative proposals for humanizing this
relationship—architects have always been charged with infusing cold and neutral
material with true human dimension and meaning. And although the author's
illustrative examples are taken from architecture and planning, the book is
equally pertinent to those in other areas in which computer-aided design
processes are being pressed into active service. The fact that no specialized
knowledge of computers is required will also facilitate the spread of the
book's message: "The concern is to avoid dehumanizing a process whose aim
is definitely humanization."
The installation, called "Flight Assembled Architecture", was conceived
and built by teams led by my colleagues Fabio Gramazio & Matthias
Kohler as well as Raffaello D'Andrea at the ETH Zurich. It illustrates a
radically new way of thinking about materializing architecture: Use a
multitude of mobile flying agents working in parallel and acting
together as a scalable production means. As you can see in the video,
the quadrocopters are programmed to interact, lift, transport and
assemble small modules in order to erect a building.
Design is the method of putting form and content together. Design, just as art, has multiple definitions, there is no single definition. Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that’s why it is so complicated." — Paul Rand
