Project 2a: Animation with Electric Image

Using Electric Image, I attempted different techniques for animating each short clip.  I began with black vertical planes, modeled in Rhino, to hide parts of the model, and rendered with a black background.  I also tried rendering in wireframe to suggest the object's form.  For the first few iterations, I solely moved the camera.  Then I tested rotating, scaling, and moving the three components of the model.  By changing the color of the light, I was able to change the components reflection.  I've always admired the Hitchcock Zoom, a film technique emphasizing depth.  I moved the camera forward and objects past it to create this effect (somewhat unsuccessfully.)  

Hensel, Spiller, & Burry

Hensel’s Vigorous Environments is centered on the mobile relationship through space. He sees animation as a tool to understand the space-time continuum and its relationship to design.  Similarly, design relies heavily on time influencing the environment.  He suggests that modeling and other mediums allow for an iterative design process, which strengthens the overall concept.  “Current technology can provide the ubiquitous enabling infrastructure that can facilitate real-time exchange between subject and milieu, and yield a generative immersive field of material and ambient effects.” 

This idea reminded me of a performance company, Diavolo, who uses movable structures as an integral part of their performances.  Their concept of ‘architecture in motion’ relates to time impacting design.  In this case, I see animation enhancing the project and its concept, if ustilzing effectively.  Here, motion is a fundamental  element of the work and depicting it through a time-based medium is essential. 

Neil Spiller argues that animations can hinder a project, as they are impersonal and used incorrectly.   Spiller states that architects are too eager to use animation software, which leads to a neglecting of a ‘rigorous approach to architectural space.’  I thought his analogy of books and film lent itself perfectly to this discussion.  How often times do we say that a film created from a novel was better than the original text? Almost never.  In the same capacity, film making software should be used sparsely or very carefully in architecture.  Far too often do we see student animate models, when perspective graphics would serve equally as well if not better. 

Burry argues that animation should break the boundaries of traditional filmmaking and question architectural and spatial perception.  He cautions its use by reminding reader of animation’s intended use for the film industry.  Users should not rely on the software to generate design, but use it as a medium to convey.

Project 2a

Not sure if I am pursuing the drawing correctly, any ideas?

Grosz + Rocker Readings

The introduction of Project II relates to Grosz’s idea of space-time continuum.  The capture of movement or spatial types over a course of time is the pursuit of this exercise.  The discussion of past and present as a continuation of time clarifies this concept.  Grosz argues that the present instantaneously becomes the past, so immediate that we cannot differentiate with time.   The past-present relationship renders one infinite phenomenon that in this project we are attempting to separate.   Grosz explains that the relationship and coexistence between the present and past is crucial for the functioning of each other.  

By capturing still motions of a video of movement, we are “throwing oneself into the past, to seek events where they took place-in time, in the past; to experience any other space is to throw oneself into spatiality, to become spatialized with all of space.”   Representing the past through still frame photos or drawings with help us understand the past action in one cohesive graphic. 

Grosz relates this concept to spatial types;  “Space is understood, according to Deleuze, as a multiplicity that brings together the key characteristics of externality, simultaneity, contiguity or juxtaposition, differences of degree, and quantitative differentiations.”   

Rocker discusses digital media coupled with human design.  He explains, “Versioning manages complex co-authorial information systems, merging the design's projection with its production.”  It is the co-authorship of the human with the machine that drives this design process; the person operates the computer as a form of medium.  Some programs mentioned in the article include CATIA, Maya, and Rhino.  I see these programs as a means to an end, or part of a method to reach an end goal or design.  There fore, versioning is a non-linear process as the engineer and the program work simultaneously.