Selected Work Vol. 01 by ampdesign

Selected Work Vol. 01

Andrew P. Matt

The body of work contained in this book has no agenda other than selfish fulfillment on my part. Many explanations and meanings can be attached to each phase of the body of work for the past two years. Why not leave that to the analysts and to do work. Reflection on past action leads to greater insight. This is not an apathetic or simplistic intention on my part. It is far more difficult to start from zero than to build upon preconceptions and habits. Some believe, (and it is common practice in Master’s thesis programs), that a grand vision is where one begins. Or that the artist/architect is an inspired creative genius. I have no desire to create such a manifesto. Manifesto’s are for egotists. It is my understanding that one of the primary aims at Cranbrook Academy of Art is to help and promote artists in “finding their voice”. To that I say there is no more “voice”. The notion that an artist in today’s environment one has a unique “voice” carries the baggage of the “Avant gard” or the artistic “genius”. There is no “Avant gard” anymore. Genius is moot and therefore not relevant to work produced. There is no Avant gard, there is nothing “original”, there is only the “move”. Most architectural design is prescriptive. Paradoxically architecture is the result of both prescriptive and random decision making. Generally speaking, I came to Cranbrook to explore transitional links in the design process and decision making. More specifically, however, I am interested in the transition between simulated environments and the act of making, the “Facticity” in the words of Architect Neil Denari. Denari also notes that “Architecture is interested in facts and telling you exactly what is going on without killing the mystery.” The work included in this book is divided into two parts. The first stage of my work addresses a simulated or virtual image based process focusing on representation, image and the object. The content of the image is less significant than the process and filters used to define the objects. I sought to provide programmatic design constraints via the fabrication process and the boundaries imposed in the tooling, programming and execution. I attempted to remove context from the object and observe the creation of form as a series of solution based moves that could result in an adjusted perception of object as simulacrum where its meaning is destabilized. The latter body of work or second part is a realization of the object as a performative device that becomes interactive. The project began by literally framing architectural space. By adding a pair frames, a field of operation is created via a physical armature that can be added to or subtracted from. The 360 degree field of operation becomes the program and an attempt to remove context. The result is a non-object space between and around the frames, free of prescriptive influences. Objects suspended in space appear to be light weight or they could be created from air as John Cage mentions in a 2007 interview. The work titled Sound Trap included in the second part of this book, developed out of an interest in John Cage’s ideas about music and sound. In the same interview, Cage refers to music or the collection of sound in this case, as a “space art” as opposed to a “time art” and goes on to say that [different sounds coming from different places can produce sculpture]. The project Sound Trap is meant to be an on-going test project exploring Cages notion of sound as sculpture by allowing for perception of space and time which can be both mediated by the object and/or created by the object.

Andrew P Matt Detroit 2013

Select Bibliography of Influential Texts:

Alexander, Christopher. Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press., 1964 Cache, Bernard. Earth Moves, The Furnishing of Territories. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1995 Barrett, Paul M. Glock: The Rise of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gun. New York, Random House, Inc. 2012 Lang, Peter and Menking, William. Superstudio: Life Without Objects. Milano, Italy, Skira Editore S.p.A. 2003 Woods, Lebbeus. Anarchitecture: Architecture as Political Act London, England. Academy Editions 1992

Notes:

1. 2. 3.

Cache, Bernard. Earth Moves, The Furnishing of Territories. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology.,1995) 21-22 Ibid (July 14, 2007). John Cage on Silence. Video posted to You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y&list=PLGaQ bZ6ABbH7kld2utzVnuo6Dwg09U3vv&index=3

Hygiene: 8”X18”: Plastic Lids and tissue

Glissue: 4”X8”: Cotton glove and plastic lid.

Part One 1- From Image to Object-No Agenda 2- Structural Morphologies

Part Two 3- Sonic Trap

Pistola Project Panel: 48â&#x20AC;?X60: Foam

Pistola Project Rendering

Pistola Project Panel: 48â&#x20AC;?X60: Foam

Pistola Project Gun: 3.5”X8”: Foam

Pistola Project Bookends: Steel

Pistola Project Rendering

Pistola Project: Rendering

Morphology Test Piece: Steel

Compression Desktop Book Caddie: Steel

Compression Panel Rendering

Starﬁsh Conference Table: Rendering

StarďŹ sh Conference Table: Rendering

Tadpole Table: Steel and Wood

Tadpole E-Table: Rendering

Tiki Table: Steel and Wood

The Sonic Trap project is the result of my interest in the relationship between form and sound. The piece itself is intended to be a device for continued testing. The origins of my exploration in the Sound Traps Project were founded initially on the formal construction of framing space. The construction of the ﬁrst hanging armature pieces was an attempt, through the use of multiple frames, to provide a theatre of operation in order to investigate integrative digital fabrication methods as applied to formal constructs. It was intended that this arena have many probabilities and combinations for the addition and subtraction of elements. In Earth Moves, Bernard Cache notes that, “…strictly speaking, architects design frames.” 1 A literal and conceptual stage for possibilities, the frames reduce the opening moves of the work to their most elemental components. According to Cache, “The frame reduces architecture to its most basic expression and allows us to formulate a concept that derives directly from Eugene Dupreel, whose philosophy was centered entirely on the notion of the frame of probability.”2 Suspending the frames and creating a framed space created many probabilities. By sus-

pending the frames, another plane or axis was opened for consideration. This meant that 360 degree access was usable in the formation of a spatial design. In addition to spatial probabilities, a variable of time is added to the piece with movement. The frames were constructed so that they could move horizontally and swivel along a main axis. We build space in the practice of architecture. Space as it is normally considered that is created by objects, a system of objects or integrated components thereof. The addition of time to the equation in the case of the Sonic Trap provides options for an alliance with other sensory episodes. With the elemental reduction of objects from the frame environment, program is deleted. We are left with a varying context of probabilities. We are left with the frames, air and movement. Object space and time…silence. John Cage commented when talking about silence, “I have the feeling that sound is acting ...” This activity may be free from constraints of time or meter or pitch. It just is. Cage goes on to say that, [Marcel Duchamp began thinking of …music as being not a time art but a space art … Which means different sounds, coming from different places and lasting, producing a sculpture.]3

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