Academic Portfolio_SCIArc_2019-2021_Cristina Cotruta

© 2021 Cotruta Cristina All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher and author.

COTRUTA CRISTINA|SCI-Arc

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SCI-Arc|2019-2021 COTRUTA CRISTINA cristinacotruta090@yahoo.com Los Angeles, CA (+1) 213 256 7472

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I WAS a perfectionist dreamer who had just graduated architecture at TUM, Moldova, Europe; was consciously seizing to shatter the perception of people upon the built environment. I was eager to experience building a structure and it led me to work and design my soul project-my own private school, designed and built from my mind’s free inception, by engineers and constructors; “Da Vinci” is living and breathing for the world to see. 91.500 sq.f of work, sleepless nights, site visits and emotions in the course of a year and a half. One of my most prized works of art. A building of my own, existing in time and space in reality. But I needed to grow, so I moved forward.

I AM ART. This is how I currently define myself at SCI-Arc. No limitations, no judgement, no lines. I am free to create, I am free to seek, I am free to grow. I am more me than I ever was.

I WILL embody my own me and will share it with the world.

The visions on architecture, art as I now perceive it will have long changed, will have evolved into a future my current me is striving to find. Every sleepless night shall cast a light upon a new awareness. Art is limitless, art is society but it becomes alive through us, through me, through new ideals. The future is me now.

#ARTISTSOUL

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_DS1200_ 11 _DS1201_ 107 _DS1200_DS 2GAX COMPUTATIONAL MORPHOLOGIES _VS4200_VS VISUAL STUDIES I GR _HT2200_HT THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE I _AS3302_AS ADVANCED STRUCTURAL SYSTEMS _AS3200_AS ADVANCED MATERIALS/TECTONICS _DS1201_DS 2GBX GENERATIVE MORPHOLOGIES _VS4201_VS VISUAL STUDIES II GR _HT2201_HT THEORIES OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE II

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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_DS4000_04_DS VERTICAL STUDIO _AS2810_01_AS PHYGITALITY TECH OF WORK IN PROG _AS3222_01_AS DESIGN DOC GR _HT2743_01_HT PHARMAKO-AI _DS5000_06_DS VERTICAL STUDIO SPRING

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_LA8037_01_DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE _HT2410_01_HT THESIS PROJECT RESEARCH _AS3230_01_AS PRACTICE ENV GR

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2GAX_DEAR PETER PAN...

DS1200_DS 2GAX COMP MORPH SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Angelica Lorenzi LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA, USA Partner until Midterm: Karim Khayati SOFTWARE: Maya, 3DS MAX, Rhinoceros, AutoCAD, Z-Brush, Processing, Agisoft, Autodesk Recap |10

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project brief ‘dear Peter Pan...’ is a physical manifestation of an ideological and transcendental architecture that excludes limitations of formal, structural language and morphologies to this day and explores the idea of mind abstraction in an overlay of human behaviour within an engineered built environment.

It pulls the built environment out of trivial historical dominance of structural limitations into a pure humane art instance and uses abstraction and shape as means to explore the impact it could have upon certain areas of the human brain.

Stepping forth from the initial project brief, which asks for a series of object assemblies being taken away, extracted from Los Angeles’ China Town district, through 3D scanning and then later on transshaped into a fully modeled, coworking space, the project delves deeper and explores the human aspect of the dialogue between person and structure. It focuses on psychiatric distortions of the mind and researches a possibility for architecture to alleviate and become a transcendental bridge between mind, object and building.

The project refuses to set a physical, programatic limit in terms of architecture and denies standard ways of shaping the built environment, in accordance with sole physical needs of its inhabitants. It rather sees the space as a dynamic, living phenomena and an apparatus used to shape the inhabitants’ entire identity. In that search, DEAR PETER PAN...examines the psychological Peter Pan syndrome and tries to understand the way in which mind, body and structure are correlated and interweaved and the ways in which architecture is able to recreate and alleviate a psychiatric condition.

It takes an object of comfort and places it on an elitist formal pedestal, in the hopes of understanding and exhibiting a physical manifestation of human mind identity and denies its separation from material forces. |12

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The 3D shape is a result of a 3D scanning process of objects (buildings, streets, small architectural shapes, organic forms) within China Town District, LA . The scans were turned into 3D separate pieces with the help of Agisoft Metashape AI software and later on combined to obtain separate 3D models that became the base of the building massing. top elevation shape_01 right cross-sections and plan views shape_01

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The flow of lines of the organic shape obtained is studied as a means of impact on the human perception. It then regroups and morphs into a fully 3D environment modeled object, configured with textures, lighting and interacting geometries, the plasticity of which is intended. right partial object close-up

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The complex gathers 3 main identities which it tries to project onto the viewer: the outer space, governed by the superflous plasticity of the building shape (coworking space and entertainment area), the site plan, a result of an accumulation of the comfort object (The Teddy Bear) and the inner space, governed by the same principle of plasticity and liquification of lines, showcased also in the use of textures that have the same goal-to interact and influence in a symbolic and tranquil way the human perception. It thus allows for the person to extract personal ideas, projections and understand on an intimate level and personal one the architecture.

The person is the one shaping the space according to his/her considerations. The impact thus of the building becomes unique to each person. There was a deliberate intent to hide and mask any shape that could create boundaries. The space is infinite, elusive. left perspective view

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The Teddy Bear is used as a partial object. Placed strategically within the architectural environment, it loses its standard meaning, becoming an appropriation of the environment itself. top partial object close-up

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materiality The use of textures and color schemes was essential in the search for plasticity. The melting effect of the building facade was achieved by using highly reflective and metallic textures. Each variation was derived from a series of AI generated schemes within Ostagram, later adjusted to the shape and materiality of the entire building. The project switches the materiality between a standard built environment (concrete, glass, metal) and object (velvet) on purpose and inverts it. Half of the main building facade, thus acquiers as a main material, a soft, blue velvet that contrasts with the highly reflective, metallic part of the other half and the silver-cold teddy bear. built structure, it transforms and starts to embody human behaviours.

left materiality research

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Structural and material iterations both on the inside and the outside of the building. The search between materiality: white, hard, porous concrete, metallic silver textures and soft, home velvet textile. top detail close-up

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Textural, material, color and shape studies of the exterior and interior of the structure. The textures have been generated with the help of AI software, carefully directed by the architect. top iterations of material study

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The functional spaces of the building follow the required program to a certain extent and add a series of other areas, needed to fulfill the building intent. The building provides multiple levels of interaction with the structure, varying in height, elevation and degree of difficulty. right

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floor plan_level 02

The building provides multiple levels of interaction, varying in height andd degree of difficulty. The plasticity of the building furthermore enhances the melting effect of the structure. top cross-section

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The building is dynamic and perceived differently from any point in space. Not one is like the other.

It becomes a maze of singularity in which one can observe the plurality and non-standard use of materials, textures. The massing interacts with the site in a morphological way and seamelessly converges with it. right perspective views

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The outside space and the ground elevation of the building, forms a plaza that allows for free movement within the site boundaries, thus connecting it to the existing environment. top axon in site

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The melting effect of the structure allows the building to converge with the idea of the partial object and destroys the conventional materiality of the built environment. top elevation, AI generated texture

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Link to video animation of the project https://vimeo.com/401463968

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2GAX_SLICE IT! VS4200_VS VISUAL STUDIES I GR SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Andrea Cadioli, Curime Batliner, Casey Reas TEAM: Cristina Cotruta, Nikhil Bang SOFTWARE: Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, Maya, Processing |40

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project brief SLICE IT! is a Visual Study project that focuses on the interaction between human visual aesthetics and findings, imprinted and processed by computational software, which results in code developed lines, patterns and colors, later on brought into a robotic lab for further transformation and transposed to physical materiality.

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The means the final results were developed encompassed both creative and physical labour, allowing us to fully embody and understand how an aesthetical visual comes to life.

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The process began in Rhino, with the use of Grasshopper. A series of code interrelations that were meant to project a flow of linework developed by each of us onto an assembly/ composition of 3D objects. The resulting intersections were then altered, offset, given color, character and identity by use of AI agents and later on began to form shapes, flows. right grasshopper script iterations

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Link to video animation of the project https://vimeo.com/401564201

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digital assembly We started in Grasshopper, Rhino and began finding intersections between 3D object compositions and line projections. This then resulted in 2D shapes that were taken and projected onto cut MDF model. The cut-out of our shape was printed and laser cut to fit our module, meant to be processed in the Robot Lab. Within the Robot Lab, the module was assigned onto the robot arm, which moved according to AI scripts, allowing to take photos at various positions. These photos were then assembled and a pattern emerged. left MDF panel digital preparation

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The pattern emerged after a series of Robot lab sessions that allowed us to explore our design from a different perspective. top robot arm holding the MDF panel emergent pattern

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The pattern manipulation allowed for an intricate design result which was later on used to form one of the column’s facade. top manipulation of emergent pattern

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The emerging pattern was then postprocessed within a series of software including Processing, Photoshop and allowed us to obtain a more intricate design, ready to be printed and applied onto 2 m high MDF boards and assemble them in boxes for our final presentation. right facade pattern generated in the robot lab

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The Final Display of the Visual Studies project within SCI-Arc’s exhibition Room_10. Digitally obtained pattern applied on MDF cut-board, Size: 80x20 inches right physical display of pattern

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The last VS class was a workshop with Casey Rheas. Intricate algorithms were used to alter images, lines, videos and produce our own art pieces. top AI generated images

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Link to video animation of the project https://vimeo.com/401569347

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2GAX_MOMENTUM TRUSS AS3302_AS ADV STR SYSTEMS SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Greg Otto SOFTWARE: Rhinoceros, Grasshopper |62

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project brief The Stadium project focuses its attention on the interweave between architectural aesthetics and physical implications the shape chosen has upon the structural rigidity of the building.

It seeks to challenge and explain how buildings come to life and how structural resistance is vital for an architectural massing to be able to withstand time and demands.

The concept starts with a series of iterations within Grasshopper and seeks to find the morphology for the 3D massing.

It goes BIG from the start and doesn’t stray away from complicated geometries but rather sections its parts into divisions and attributes them functionality and justification for structurality.

Each part of the building works either in compression or tension and clearly showcases that.

The main structural scheme is based and seen on the roof of the building. It consists of 2 rings that work in tension and support the membrane in layer 1 and also the diagrid structure. Ring 1 is welded and connected to the main megatrusses, thus supported.

Ring 2 is linked to the diagrid structure and also supports lightweight membrane 2. Loads are being transferred to additional frames/trusses to the ground in key points. Membrane 1 spans between rings 1 and 2 and works in tension, while the rest of the loads are being transferred towards the diagrid structure 1 and further on, to the foundations.

As a result, a heavily connected and mazed structure has appeared, that is steady from both an aesthetical point of view, as well as resistance.

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The Stadium is a physical manifestation of intricate shape brought into the eye of structural engineering.

Rings, trusses, materials and loads all come together as a tool for creating architectural novelty that challenges standard ways of designing long-span structures.

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momentum truss The main structural system consists of 3 megatrusses (2 whole ones and 1 divided) that span along the entire length of the stadium and are pinned to the ground, thus working in compression and tension at the same time. The design wanted to make use of a very bionic shape in terms of the envelope, so a diagrid system had been used, supported by the overall building structure (functions such as offices, recreational areas, etc.) and the rings of rigidity in the middle. The diagrid structure supports glass panels and cement board panels in some areas, thus allowing light and reflections to shape the aesthetics of the space. The roof of the structure consists of 2 rings that work in tension and support the membrane in layer 1 and also the diagrid structure. left momentum truss close-up

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The materials used were a combination between cement boards, reinforced concrete, metal, glass and membranes, allowing for the diagrid structure to come forth. top plan view and elevations

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Link to video animation of the project https://vimeo.com/401569347

12/2019

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2GAX_QATAR NATIONAL LIBRARY_OMA AS3200_AS ADV MATERIAL/TECTONICS SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Maxi Spina, Randy Jefferson TEAM: Devangi Kansagra, Cotruta Cristina, Jasper Gregory, Karim Khayati SOFTWARE: Rhinoceros, Revit, AutoCAD

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project brief EXISTING CONCEPT Qatar National library is the latest expression of OMA’s long-term interest in the library. The entire structure strives to achieve an almost infinite type space that spans with singularity on the background of the Qatar environment by rising a 138 m long structure.

PROPOSED CONCEPT Debating upon the overall aesthetics and functionality of the building, our team has managed to identify 2 key-points which we believe manage to change that perception.

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CHANGES Envelope_1: Our main goal was providing light within the building and developing an envelope which could be both aesthetically and functionally interrelated. Qatar weather is desert, this had implications for our design.

Based on computational design, we were able to understand where our building could allow us to introduce either more or less amounts of insulation.

In order to decrease the level of heat transfer, we used composite panels, consisting of 2 aluminum cover sheets and a 0.5 mm mineral-filled core. This allowed for the contours of the building to wrap in a different skin and show divergent materiality (some were aluminum, others-mimicking concrete) and almost visually ‘melt’ the existing structure. From a technical standpoint, the panels are low-weight, rigid, weatherproof, vibration-damped. They can be easily bent and folded; also, the beauty of it is that installation is fast.

Envelope_2: The corrugated glass system used by the architect was innovative but its main downfall was the distorted perception onto the exterior. Thus, we opted for a glass fin system, which provided high levels of transparency, created expansive areas of total vision and also acted as a structural support element. Withstanding wind loads was achieved by the use of glass mullions which span on the inside and vary in depth from 200-500 mm and have a thickness of 19 mm.

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Flat I-Section Steel trusses|Depth: 2500 mm

I-Section Steel Beams|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm

Steel Tube Boxed Brace Frames|150x150 mm I-Section Peripheral Beam|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm The full shell is broken down in 5 parts and each has its own peripheral beams Different angles to the beam are achieved by welding them I-Section Peripheral Beams|Web: 1100 mm, Flange: 350 mm The full structure has a peripheral beam that supports the drainage and plays the primary role in transferring loads Steel brackets, welded and bolted to the peripheral beam for the GFRC envelope to fit on Steel reinforced concrete columns|Diameter: 900 mm

Steel I-Section Connectors The grid beams are connected to the peripheral beams through steel connectors at its calculated angle

Two different angled beams welded together at the junction Bottom I-Section Steel Beams for the formwork, for the uplift forms vary in thickness and placed densely together for stiffness and rigidity Bottom Box-Section Peripheral Beam

left structure chunk

top periferal beams (primary beams)

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top truss and secondary beams

top steel boxed tube bracing frames

top bottom beams (secondary form structure)

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Glass Skylight Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete Cladding|50 mm Waterproofing Membrane 4 mm Thermal Insulation|100 mm Corrugated Galvanized Steel

Steel I-Beam|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm Steel Diagonal Truss System|2500 mm GFRP|50 mm Steel Baring

Steel I-Beam|Web: 1100 mm, Flange: 350 mm

Steel Reinforced Concrete|900 mm Corrugated Curtain Wall

Reinforced Concrete Slab|1500 mm

Steel Square Beam|1100x350 mm

left envelope system 01

GFRC Cladding|50 mm 1000x2500 mm

GFRC Cladding|50 mm 1000x2500 mm

Steel I-Beam|Web: 380 mm, Flange: 180 mm

Steel Shear Stud 290 mm

Steel Bracing|Square Beam 150x150 mm Steel Diagonal Truss System 2500 mm depth

Steel I-Beam|Web: 380 mm, Flange: 180 mm

Steel I-Beam|Web: 380 mm, Flange: 180 mm

Steel I-Beam|Web: 1100 mm, Flange: 350 mm

GFRP Column Cap 40 mm

GFRP|50 mm

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top slanted roof_envelope detail

top flat roof_envelope detail 01

top flat roof_envelope detail 02

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Crislan inside glazing 8 mm Heat Strengthened Float Silkscreen (Black Vertical Bands) on face 7 0.76 mm clear PVB-Solutla RB 41 8 mm Heat Strengthened Climaguard DT

Crislan outside glazing 8 mm Heat Strengthened Float Silkscreen dots pattern on face 4 0.76 mm clear PVB-Solutla RB 41 8 mm Heat Strengthened Sunguard SN67

Steel Mullion Casing Joint Element steel outer casing

Corrugated Curved Glass Panels

Concrete Column|Structural System Element Crislan Low-E is a curved double-glazing with low emissivity coating on one of its glass surfaces , reaching exceptionally low overall heat transfer coefficients (U-value). While the most of the solar

Flat portion of glass

radiation short wavelength goes through the glass, the Low-E reflects to the inside the most of the long

The glass windows of the offices are flat

wavelength radiation generated by heaters among

so workers aren’t exposed to distorted

others.

views all day

left envelope chunk top right detail 01_glass connection to mullion right detail 02_steel mullion

Steel Mullion Casing|l=1330 mm

Joint Element steel outer casing

Metal Joint Plate_1 Metal Joint Plate_2 Metal Joint Plate_3

Bolt|D45 mm

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Voranoi Patterned Aluminum composite panels, consisting of 2 aluminum cover sheets and a 0.5 mm mineral-filled core Prefabricated Aluminum Mullion as skylights Double Glazed Glass Skylight Voranoi Generated GFRC|50 mm Waterproofing Membrane|4 mm Thermal Insulation|100 mm

Corrugated Galvanized Steel Steel I-Beam|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm Steel Flat Truss System|2500 mm depth GFRP|2500 mm deep Steel Reinforced Concrete Columns Prefabricated Aluminum Frame Circular, Double Glazed Skylights, Clamped and Bolted to the Structural Beams Toughened Glass fin curtain Wall, held together by Spider clamps and hung from the top

left envelope proposal

Prefabricated Aluminum Mullion Ring

Voranoi Patterned Aluminum composite panels, consisting of 2 aluminum cover sheets and a 0.5 mm mineral-filled core Prefabricated Aluminum Frame Circular, Double Glazed Skylights, Clamped and bolted to the Structural beams

100 mm Gutter Drainage

Steel Shear Studs

100 mm Skylight rim is cut out for drainage

Prefabricated Aluminum Mullion|200 mm

Voranoi generated GFRC|50 mm

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top roof envelope with skylight detail

Prefabricated Aluminum Mullion with 200 mm Gutter system attached to the main system Aluminum Gutter bolted to the Main Structural Beam Steel I-Beam|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm

Gutter System attaching to the main Drainage System Aluminum Gutter bolted to the Main Structural Beam

Steel Flat Truss System|2500 depth

Steel Flat Truss System|2500 depth

GFRP|50 mm

GFRP|50 mm

Neoprene Pad to hold the Glass

Steel I-Beam|Web: 2450 mm, Flange: 700 mm

top aluminum gutter detail

Double Glazed Skylight Steel I-Beam (Secondary)|Web: 1100 mm, Flange: 350 mm

top skylight detail

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2GAX_THE AGE OF POST-HUMAN AND WORLD MAKING HT2200_HT THEORIES OF CONT ARC I SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Marcelyn Gow, John Cooper

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Human…

A word which our species has had the tendency to overuse and even abuse throughout its existence; a notion that carries in itself power over any other living being on this planet to such an extent that it has almost become non-tangible to us even; a word which holds the promise of a future or an end, whichever we may choose to spare.

The condition of being human has granted our society the potential to build a new world within an already formed one, billions of years ago. The perfection of the reality at its beginning stages after the Big Bang1 and formerly the creation of our Planet as we know it was somehow insufficient for ‘humans’.

For some reason, we delved deep into the Creation process itself and slowly but surely started to change our environment, creating a new emergent world, one adapted to our whims, disregarding anything and everything. The world we now know exists and see every day.

‘Human’ has become an instrument of excuse for changing and shaping centuries, species and ‘futures’. ‘Human’ cannot grasp other beings rather than its own technological development and achievements in Creating. So, what does ’human’ actually imply? What does ‘human’ create? What does ‘human’ become in the end and how does it shape our reality and possible days that are ahead of us? Is it even aware of the degree of power it holds in itself?

My paper puts its focus on the problematic of an already existing world vs a potential one that would emerge if this so called ‘humanism’2 is to be turned The Big Bang Theory is a cosmological model of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of very high density and high temperature. Source: https://www.nasa.gov/subject/6890/ the-big-bang/ (Accessed on November 28th, 2019) 2 Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism (Accessed on November 10th, 2019)

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utterly disturbing at the same time. But is it?

In terms of physicality, the head is alive, functionally sustained by machines, therefore it can process information and be of value to science and overall continue its existence, whilst in terms of the human condition and humanity, it fails to process what is

So to what extent do we, as a species populating this planet and having a primarily direct impact on the future of its existence are we aknowledging our own actions? Are we even aware where the technological era is leading us and is it in our own hands or has it already come up to a point of no return?

Figure 2: The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Posthumanism 101: Non-Fiction and Fiction, https://socialecologies.wordpress. com/2014/11/07/posthumanism-101-non-fiction-and-fiction/

Figure 1: Professor Dowell’s Head, English language cover, taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell%27s_Head#/ media/File:Professor_Dowell’s_head_-_bookcover.jpg

In 1925, russian science fiction author, Alexander Beliaev introduced to the world, Professor Dowell’s Head, a novel that willingly or not, touched upon vital aspects of the 21st century reality that was to come and most probably, of future decades that shall surpass us as well. The story is based on professor Dowell and his assistant surgeon Dr. Kern, who are working together on medical problems including life support in separated body parts. Dr. Kern kills Dowell (in a set up car/asthma accident). Professor Dowell’s head is now kept alive and used by Dr. Kern for extraction of scientific secrets3 . Continuing his experiments, Dr. Kern transplants the head of a young woman to a new body, to which Dowell is a direct witness with no power in putting these horrors to a stop.

The plot in itself is strikingly simple it would seem and

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3 ‘Professor Dowell’s Head’ is a 1925 science fiction story (and later novel) by Russian author Alexander Belyayev. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell’s_Head (Accessed on November 10th, 2019)

happening to it. The entire book is read from the perspective of this newly emerged life form trying to understand and find its role within this reality as we know it. Is it still a human being since its pertaining humanist characteristics or is it as we now would call it a post-human?4 Has the change in perception from that newly set up level, constructed a dissimilar perceptibility? And if yes, I would argue to now label our reality as sole, hence it is no longer singular, defined by palpable and somatic experiences.

Starting from Jennifer Gabrys’s statement within the article on Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of This World5: ‘I consider the question of where this world ends, especially through digital environmental sensing technologies tuned to detecting environmental change. How are worlds delineated, and their endings sensed, within a matrix of catastrophic environmental events and digital sensing technologies?’

I involuntarily start to operate and find congruous 4 Posthuman or post-human is a concept originating in the fields of science fiction, futurology, contemporary art, and philosophy that literally means a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human.[1] The concept addresses questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman (Accessed on November 10th, 2019) 5 Jennifer Gabrys, ‘Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of This World’, E-flux journal, journal #101, June 2019. Source: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/101/272633/ocean-sensing-andnavigating-the-end-of-this-world/ (Accessed on November 12th, 2019)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA issues the author writes about in a very nonchalant almost way. Dowell ‘ended’ his ‘existence’ in a matter-of-fact reality but transposed towards an anomalous expansion. His creation was no longer linked to actual space. These worlds were delineated, yes, but to what extent were they divergent to each other? Was it an ending or just coexisting conditions he himself created? Beliaev’s work derived from his illness and his search for an alternate life, if not in reality, at least in fiction. Organ and brain transplants were a myth, a procedure that only became reality in 1954 with the world’s first kidney transplant.6 For the society of the 20th century, the 21st century being would be ‘the post-human’. Then what is ‘the post-human’ in our developed/maybe underdeveloped understanding?

Biological evolution implies that populations and species of organisms change over time. This idea can be directly linked to the naturalist Charles Darwin. He defined evolution as ‘descent with modification’, the idea that species reshape over time, give rise to new species and share a common ancestor. 7

realize that Plymouth Island is a computer simulation created by a child in the real world, to escape his abusive home life and step-father.

All in all, the idea of having a different dimensionality formulated on the basis of specific life cases by means of algorithmic operations within a digital world, offers an alternative and also the hope to a much better future for those struggling with the unvarying current reality. Both examples shown above portray the desire for discontinuity and evolution from a set reality, bounded and framed in singularity, while maintaining ‘living’ characteristics.

Life doesn’t reach ‘an end’, it just evolves into a more complex, neoteric shape. Beginning to exist in one space doesn’t necessarily imply ceasing to exist in the other one. The margin that separates them is literally boundless. We can try to define it and maybe give it tactile characteristics, considering it to be the machine that creates it or even the breathing entity performing the task, but within the sensing technology we own at the moment, this would only be an exiguous interpolation of thoughts and conjectures.

Ontological preoccupations regarding ethical considerations of animality are in direct clash with the idea of using computer technology to enrich the physical limitations of the human body. There are a range of philosophical and ethical movements that are unified by their unshakable belief in the supremacy of human beings. But the truth of the matter is that future development implies radically altered entities by means of implants, bio-hacking, cognitive enhancement and other bio-medical technology. And to some extent, they already exist in the ‘now’. This is the beginning towards Darwin’s evolutionist idea correlated to our current era. Can this dissipate our reality as a whole and produce an accelerated road to world ending as we know it?

2019 was the year screenwriter and film director Steven Knight introduced to the world the neo-noir thriller ‘Serenity’. The main character is portrayed as a fisherman named Baker Dill living on the gorgeous tropical island of Plymouth, who is reunited with a mysterious woman from his past. She has a dark request of Baker. However, as Baker gets drawn into a dark plot, he comes to find that on the island of Plymouth nothing is as it seems.

For the main character as well as the audience, it becomes increasingly clear very quickly that the Island is idiosyncratic and begins to appear less and less authentic as time goes on. We come to

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6 In 1954, Dr. Joseph Murray and Dr. David Hume performed the first living-related kidney transplant at Brigham Hospital in Boston. Source: https://renalmed.com/history-of-kidney-transplantation/ (Accessed on November 10th, 2019) 7 Source: https://www.britannica.com/biography/ Charles-Darwin (Accessed on November 10th, 2019)

Figure 3: Raising of Lazarus, Rembrandt Source: https://plusultratech. blogspot.com/2011/04/why-christianity-transhumanism-are-not. html

These expansions intertwine, weaving a functional network and a bridge between creation. The alternate reality could well be physical as well as non-physical. In her paper on Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of this World8, Jennifer Gabrys suggests that: ‘Navigational meshes (referring to sensing technologies) could even constitute parallel worlds, a matrix of programs and programmability that could be rendered and reconstituted. By devising speculative instruments for tuning into these parallel worlds, it might be possible to sense the limit 8 Jennifer Gabrys, ‘Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of This World’, E-flux journal, journal #101, June 2019. Source: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/101/272633/ocean-sensing-andnavigating-the-end-of-this-world/ (Accessed on November 12th, 2019)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA conditions of extractive ontologies, and to navigate beyond endings toward potentialities for otherwise inhabitations.’

It may well mean that the ‘becoming of post-human’ isn’t necessarily implying the denial of ‘the human’ and the ‘ending’ of a world, but merely a vital evolutional step in a certain point in time, where ‘human’ adopts topical particularities.

‘Human’ as we perceive it, is an insufficient state of being. If judging by its yearning to transcend its survival into eternity, present reality is deficient, already a decline of progress. Gabrys states that these endings might also suggest how the time of the present is ‘already dystopian’9. The timeline of human evolution outlines the development of the human species and that is exactly what 21st century Homo Sapiens is experiencing. Not the descent, but merely an ascension to the yet unknown and desolate.

Fred Moten has suggested in the Undercommons:10 ’...this world might not be suitable for repair and so should not be engaged with through recuperative logics and practices. Rather than extend and maintain this world, its end should be hastened along in order to build something new.’

As much as I agree to some extent with this, I cannot but state the fact our world is the basis to creation of an emergent one. We build on and from whatever legacy we already own. We are not creating an obsolete ending for a Zero-cycle, we are merely naturally unfolding an already existing expansion to a much more refined and palpable reality, easily perceived by ‘human’. The entire struggle of Dowell from Beliaev’s novel or Baker Dill in Knight’s imagination is grasping and interpreting their roles within this non-existing existence, the line between known and unknown. Have they ceased ‘to be’ or have they transcended ‘to coexist’ concurrent to their former materiality? Our existence is already synchronized in different spaces at once.

Our environment, networks, fields of study, art, visual perceptions are shaped to accommodate ‘non-humans’, machines, technology and data accumulation. We have passed our ‘human rights’ further, to ‘post-human’ entities. It is not a question of whether they exist. It is a matter of understanding where we end and they begin or where emergence from two opposite realities happens.

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makes an intricate observation upon

9 Jennifer Gabrys, ‘Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of This World’, E-flux journal, journal #101, June 2019. Source: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/101/272633/ocean-sensing-andnavigating-the-end-of-this-world/ (Accessed on November 12th, 2019) 10 Stefano Harney&Fred Moten, ‘The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning &Black Study’, Wivenhoe/New York/Port Watson, 2013, pp. 86 11 Liam Young, ‘Architecture Without People. Neo-machine’, January 11th, 2019. Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ doi/abs/10.1002/ad.2381 (Accessed on November 25th, 2019)

these phenomena: ‘As we turn our gaze towards the machine landscapes, we need to radically embrace our uncomfortable place in a world where we are no longer at its center. These extra human sites (referring to sites where major online corporations store data and lives) are the precursors of a new aesthetic and formal movement, a technological sublime.’

‘Human’ is no longer the central figure in our reality, it has become complacent. ‘Human’ has ‘evolved’ and deconstructed ‘itself’ in the process of playing with creation. The reality emerged is very much artificial and biological at the same time, preserving characteristics of a breathing body but slowly drifting into a more and more non-physical experience.

Our world is notably non-existent. People on the streets are mere moving figures, guided by phones, mechanics and automation. We are in the ‘here’ but also in the ‘there’. We coexist in different beings, disparate and very much technologically altered.

The Big Bang of some 4 million years ago is making its appearance once more, veiled from our eyes. It’s not going to be ear-splitting or erupting as it once was. The tools of Creation are different. ‘Human’ will slowly drift into ‘Post-human’, allowing for a new era to begin. It will no longer be centralized. It is inevitable, yes. The truth of the matter is that we have unfolded a process, we cannot control anymore. Our lives are bound and emergent from what we have generated. We are no longer same. We are on the ‘edge’ of a world making. Maybe the post-human typology will be able to achieve what ‘human’ has failed to. Wasn’t Big Bang the hope of something new, emerged from clutter and chaos?

An eerie question then immediately arises: how can artificial creation succeed where biological creation has failed in giving rise to ‘human’ in the hopes of a bright future? Have we failed our Creator and brought in chaos and clutter once more in our thirst for creation and outweigh of the mortal human condition?

Big Bang was a mere hope, Post-Human is a mere hope.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. https://www.nasa.gov/subject/6890/the-big-bang/ (November 28th, 2019); 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism (November 10th, 2019); 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell’s_Head (November 10th, 2019); 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman (November 10th, 2019); 5. Jennifer Gabrys, ‘Ocean Sensing and Navigating the End of this World’, E-flux journal, journal #101, June 2019; 6. https://renalmed.com/history-of-kidney-transplantation/ (November 10th, 2019); 7. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Darwin 8. Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, ‘The Undercommons. Fugitive Planning&Black Study’, Wivenhoe/New York/Port Watson, 2013, pp.

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IDD_HOUSE OF HYPER POP IDD_INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL DESIGN SEMESTER: August_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Rachel McCall LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA, USA SOFTWARE: Maya, 3DS MAX, Z-Brush, Autodesk Recap

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A Murakami character we had to re-imagine and re-enstate within our own imagination, vision.

Through the use of 3D modelling software such as Maya and Z-Brush, we were able to change the aspects of known art and challenge ourselves. top interior rendering

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House of Hyper Pop was an expression of popculture diving into the realms of architecture.

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2GAX_PHOTOGRAMMETRY WORKSHOP 2DS1200_DS 2GAX COMP MORPH SEMESTER: Fall_2019, 2GAX INSTRUCTOR: Marcelyn Gow, Casey Rehm, Ferda Kolatan, Rachael McCall, Angelica Lorenzi LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA, USA SOFTWARE: Maya, 3DS MAX, Z-Brush, Agisoft, Autodesk Recap, 3D Printer

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Figure showcasing the final result of a series of processes we used to generate the basis for our project: 3D scanning, vacuum-forming, 3D printing, AI algorithms top plan views before and after vacuum-forming

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The objects suffered a series of transformations after being subject to resin-dipping and spray-painting.

The result is a biological-artificial world unique both in the way it came to life and in the way it challenged our idea of shape inheritance. top physical model

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2GBX_THE UNKNOWN DEBUSSY DS 1201_DS 2GBX GENERATIVE MORPHOLOGIES SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 2GBX INSTRUCTOR: Herwig Baumgartner LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA, USA SOFTWARE: Rhino, Unreal Engine, Processing, 3DS MAX, Z-Brush, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD

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project brief Museums began as private collections, displayed in cabinets of curiosities, which were basically an assemblage of things. The term ‘cabinet’ originally described the actual room rather than the pieces themselves. To this day, the physical objects are gathered and displayed for the world to see and learn history.

What if actual physical objects/artefacts/paintings could become more than just display pieces? What if the observer could have a say in the making of a museum’s collection and thus history/future itself?

Would that become a powerful tool for sourcing out personal experiences in hopes of shaping the future of the art environment?

The project explores the idea of interpolated and intertwined data collection systems that could transform the experience of a modern-day reality museum and turn it into personalized museum experiences. Networks that could scan or understand digitally existing singular pieces of art and display them by allowing the visitor to interfere with the process, incorporate his/her own tastes, experiences and thus create a new way of understanding the original itself. The outcome would be a series of digital circulating highways of exhibit. If enough data/mass is collected, a new singularity is formed.

Each person within the museum could interfere in history and display his own understanding upon the piece of art he is observing.

The project for the museum explores the idea of infinite archiving space, both physical and digital.

How flows of data reticulate rhythmically with indurate architectural structures in an aesthetical overpower in the hopes of altering the way people perceive an exhibition space, a structure overall.

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The Museum of the future means archiving our present, letting the future see into our current reality that shall become our distant past.

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tonality The form language of the building is rigid, mechanical.

The materiality emphasizes the idea of a highly intelligent, processing entity. A series of vertical, horizontal tectonic based extrusions form the outer shell of the blocks and also continue the same architectural expression within the inner spaces. The structure resembles a machine engineered out of millions of individual parts, each carrying a specific functional ideology.

The result is a highly intelligent architectural apparatus, displaying aesthetical morphologies meant to reconceptualize the museum programatic. left top view iteration

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The materiality emphasizes the idea of a highly intelligent, processing entity. top perspective view

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The engagement with the surroundings is meant to allow accessibility from all directions. The site freely exposes unrestricted circulation flows both for visitors, staff and emergency vehicles. top aerial view perspective interior view

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Access to the actual building is highly supervised, emphasizing the importance of the structure and machine-like approach. top facade detail close-up

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Each elevation reveals a distinct side of the form and is meant to engage the viewer with the architectural dialogue wherever he/she may be situated. right turntable iterations

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materiality The materiality of the building derives from the functionality of the structure. Rigid, austere exterior metal panels form the outer shell and the main load-bearing interior structure, creating an immersive environment for the viewer and allowing the sense of unknown to dominate. The idea of danger combined with unfamiliar museum space allows for a futuristic approach. The search engine can be observed on the outside as well, within set geometric enclosures and is continously running, displaying the archive. These enclosures disrupt the rigidness of the structure, which as a result, appropriates humane qualities, almost as a breathing entity. The eeriness is thus even more emphasized. left facade close-up

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The search engine is continously processing the archive of the building, allowing for art to be displayed on the outer envelope of the building top facade detail close-up

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The site plan continues the same architectural dialogue seen on the building. Access pathways are designed to smoothly make the transition between verticality and horizontality, allowing the viewer to experience the building in a varied number of ways.

7 access entries are evenly distributed among the territory, allowing pedestrians, as well as vehicles and emergency transportation to easily come within the inner courtyard type space of the structure.

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The program is divided into 3 main areas, physical and digital archive networks, curated art display blocks and service spaces (administration and maintenance).

The physical archive subdivides into unrestricted and restricted access areas. In addition to having access to high security archive spaces, the visitor is exposed to physical manifestations of art within 3 main blocks of the structure (plug_1, plug_2, plug_3). These carry a separate form language. Access to them is granted from the main ground floor of the building, strictly monitored.

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The connection between the main building and the set curated art display geometries is conducted by means of scaffolding like structures, that challenge the standard vertical connection. Stairs, as perceived in a traditional understanding are replaced by forms that allow circulation in all axis.

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The main elevation, from Wilshire Blvd sets the concept of the project and displays the varied programatic enclosures and the materiality of the building. One can easily observe the main archive space, the set geometric curated spaces and the textured display blocks of the structure.

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The search engine is continously processing the archive of the building, allowing for art to be displayed on the inner envelope of the building top interior showing the search engine

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The inner space is governed by continuously flowing digital data netting on exterior surfaces, displaying the digital archive and in set spaces, get to experience physical manifestations of original singled out pieces of art. top interior views showing the search engine

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The search engine is continously processing the archive of the building, allowing for art to be displayed on the inner envelope of the building top interior showing the search engine

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Exhibition spaces vary in format and thus allow for different curatorial practices to shape, allowing for art display to happen in a very organic way. top interior exhibition space

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The curated spaces vary in size, strolling through 3 storey high, to small, intimate areas. Each interior morphs depending on the viewer and the engine’s search results. It’s never-ending, a continuously dynamic expansion. In some areas, the archive may decide to display classical pieces of art from Monet, to Kandinsky or ancient Rome architecture and in others, the complete domination of technology may be present. The same space could suddenly transmute. Exhibition value shows its superiority to the ritual value. right exhibition spaces

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Digital art display is allowed within specifically designed areas, allowing for curation to happen organically. top interior exhibition space

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Some expansions are meant to showcase the physical and the dematerialization of the same art assemblage. How people and machines configure and synthesize the same idea at the same time. top image processed and displayed by the AI machine

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2GBX_ENCODED EXISTENCE VS 4201_VS VISUAL STUDIES II GR SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 2GBX INSTRUCTOR: Damjan Iovanovic LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA, USA SOFTWARE: Unreal Engine, Houdini, ZBrush, After Effects

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project brief Recent technology and software rapid development has taken over all aspects of what is defined as art, architecture and image space.

Simulations have become part of a culture that extends way beyond the realm of the computer, one that is spreading across generations and striving to interfere with the future. It expands on all social media platforms, acting as a tool for architectural experimentation.

They extend traditional animations and other formats and are slowly taking over, becoming the preferred apparatus for the digital design space and concept, as they offer imense opportunities for creative development.

Once simulations start populating the world of digital creativeness, all other media almost fades away. Its behaviour is unpredictable and this is exactly what makes it so mesmerizing.

The project focuses on creating a world that is about ‘nothing’ and at the same time ‘everything’. It allows the viewer to emerge in this garden of space and make up his/her own meanings, which vary based on time, character and existence.

The work consists of a series of self-playing, open ended simulations of a world imbued with characters and objects. GOFAI models are usedd such as behavior trees to run decision making within the world. Randomness within the formally complete set of rules plays a major role. This brings the human mind to a state of unresolved tension. In an attempt to solve this, the mind starts imposing signals onto noise, developing interpretations. Minds and intentions are assigned to objects, meaning to pure noise and thus continue this open-ended game within the human mind. |148

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The project explores the convergence of AI agents and an artificially construed natural environment. top perspective view

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In order to produce and design the simulations, a series of code based iterations were developed within Unreal Engine, that allowed to bring to life the AI Agents.

NPC brains within Behaviour Trees were created, that were responsible for the way the agents would act within the game. Rotation, movement, frequency and circulation axis were obtained within the world settings of the program and later on, coupled up with particle systems responsibe for varied behaviours within the simulation itself. right work within Unreal Engine

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The project began with the design of a conceptual landscape. Choosing to create the world in space was a personal decision, as it perfectly related to the idea of world creation and exploration of unknown existence, other than human based. Space is thus a metaphor for how AI behaves and develops, within the uncharted. The World that later on was populated with interactive, real-time, non-linear simulations began in Houdini, where a series of codebased iterations brought it to life. Each pass within Houdini was then brought back into Unreal Engine and modelled and refined accordingly. Megascan assets were brought in as well to obtain photorealistic imagery.

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Images showcasing AI agents’ behaviour within the software. The scene started to be populated by them in a linear increment, within varied behaviour trees. top perspective views showcasing AI agents behaviour

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Images showcasing AI agents’ behaviour within Unreal Engine as they start to populate and dominate the scene in a linear exponentiality. top perspective views showcasing the environment and the agents

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Simulations are a shifting and potentialy infinite aesthetic format, where probability and randomness produce a formless, intractable pictorial space. In here, realistic figuration of the landscape can coexist with these cartoony characters and the abstraction of geometric or textual objects, supported by filmic elements. The results are infinite play for the human mind right perspectives with AI agents behaviour

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The AI agents starting to engage in the artificially created environment and populate it according to own movements. top perspective view

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The AI agents starting to engage in the artificially created environment and populate it according to own movements. top perspective view

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Link to video animation of the project https://vimeo.com/407517448

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2GBX_THE X-RAY IMAGE HT2201_HT THEORIES CONT ARCH II SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 2GBX INSTRUCTOR: Erik Ghenoiu, Marcelyn Gow, John Cooper |168

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Figure 1 Image showing an African-American man being attacked by dog while a policeman is holding him. Photo by Bill Hudson.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1963/05/04/archives/dogs-andhoses-repulse-negroes-at-birmingham-3-students-bitten-in.html (Accessed on April 10th, 2020)

In May, 1963, Bill Hudson1, an American photojournalist for the Associated Press took a photo of Walter Gadsden, an African-American bystander in the Birmingham campaign, who had been grabbed by a police officer, while a GermanShepherd was attacking him. The photo was published the next day on the cover of The New York Times, along with appearing in three other major national news publications, including Newsweek, Life and Time.

In her Pulitzer Prize award winning book, ‘Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution’2, Diane McWhorter reflects upon the instigative power the visual reference Hudson produced had, that brought about a historical turn and opened the eyes wide-shut of ‘international opinion to the side of the civil rights revolution’3.

An IMAGE that forever changed existence and ushered into light uncomfortable sensibilities.

It thus stirs a bothersome question: does THE IMAGE hold potentiality to THAT extent? And if so, are we, as architects oblivious to our own apparatus? Is our purely visually pleasing frame, we so eagerly generate in hundreds and thousands of gigabytes per day, in need of a purposefully digested through remake?

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1 Bill Hudson (August 20, 1932 – June 24, 2010) was an American photojournalist for the Associated Press who was best known for his photographs taken in the Southern United States during the Civil Rights Movement. The depictions of police brutality against peaceful protesters that were seen in his widely published photographs helped push public support towards the goals of the civil rights movement. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Bill_Hudson_(photographer) (Accessed on April 6th, 2020) 2 ‘Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution’ by Diane McWhorter is a dramatic account of the civil rights era’s climactic battle in Birmingham, as the movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation. Source: https://www.pulitzer. org/winners/diane-mcwhorter (Accessed on April 6th, 2020) 3 Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p.323

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA Our hard drives store an infinite amount of image data, produced to capture aesthetical characteristics of own conceptual ideas. And after the viewer spears 3 s to look at it, the image dissipates in the recycle-bin or stored to never be looked at again. It no more holds meaning, the message is transitory, short-lived.

Can architecture produce dynamic, politically defying, meaning charged obstructions and not mere aesthetically infused renders? How do we, as architects produce THE IMAGE and what do we choose to do with it?

A PIXELATED HISTORY ‘The poor image tends towards abstraction: it is a visual idea in its very becoming. Poor images show the rare, the obvious and the unbelievable – that is, if we can still manage to decipher it.’4 Hito Steyerl If there would be one way and one way only to delineate the modern world it would be through a pixel, the sample of an image, the core of principle.

the first image captured with a camera in 1824 by Niepce5, to the digital reality we now experience, one could say the message was always the same: materialization of a truth, of an existence. The Image was merely the tool for proof.

Each generation had carried out and enforced a new way through which the Image was evolving.

With the development of digital environment and technology as a phenomena, the tools grew derived and expanded. Each generation brought newness and the amount of data stored started to grow exponentially. There was the need for accessibility.

Everyone needed to see The Image, to comment on it, to experience what it had to offer. The JPEG6 came to revolutionize a generation and is responsible for what we now bear and perceive as normality. The JPEG allowed compression of digital produced photos, making the image be accessed, traded, freely exchanged. It was responsible for the proliferation of the digital image across the Internet, social media.

The history of the ‘pixel’ in the image began in remote antiquity, from the oldest civilizations of the world. Scattered on the walls of caves are stencils, human hands outlined in red; lines, figures, sketched features, animals, proud and evocative remaining of a distant past.

Figure 3 A photo of a European wildcat with the compression rate decreasing and hence quality increasing, from left to right. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG (Accessed on April 15th, 2020)

So, it turns out, that pixel7 deformation and in some way loss of quality elevated the image in such a way as to gain more momentum.

Figure 2 Rock Shelter of Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India. Dated to: 13,000; Clustered in five natural rock shelters, paintings show large animal figures including the Indian lion and gaur, beside sticklike people, Universal Images Group/Getty Images (Accessed on April 6th, 2020)

The human race has always searched for ways to capture its own evolution, in a very involuntary manner, as a natural response to an abscond creation. The need to proof existence of the ‘us’ in time and space has preceded our own selves, we are merely an inheritance of a legacy we never got the gift to spare. From the scribbles on the walls, to |172

4 Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, e-flux journal #10 – November 2009, p.1

5 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), was a French inventor, usually credited as the inventor of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world’s oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_ Ni%C3%A9pce (Accessed on April 10th, 2020) 6 JPEG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. It is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web. Source: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020) 7 Pixel is the basic logical unit in digital graphics. Pixels are combined to form a complete image, video, text or any visible thing on a computer display. A pixel is also known as a picture element. Source: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24012/ pixel (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA Yes, the better-quality image was still predominant and was seen as more ‘successful’ than the ‘poor’ image, in terms of views and the amount of information it could carry, but nonetheless, the ‘poor’ image was a source of much more precious information, hidden aspects of life that could only be caught secretly, through the use of limited number of pixels. Their amount was more or less equal to the degree of importance of the image. They flock to reveal or hide necessary and inconvenient truths.

speculates upon what the manufactured and natural world really consists of.10’

And as Steyerl says: ‘Poor images are thus popular images — images that can be made and seen by the many. They express all the contradictions of the contemporary crowd: its opportunism, narcissism, desire for autonomy and creation, its inability to focus or make up its mind, its constant readiness for transgression and simultaneous submission.

Altogether, poor images present a snapshot of the affective condition of the crowd, its neurosis, paranoia, and fear8.

The image is thus transposed. It no longer is dependent on the pixel, on the aesthetical. A dematerialization of art takes place. The image is now speaking directly to its audience and is narrating its own veracity. Art is no longer perceived as pure art. Art becomes quintessential.

Just like the X-ray machine reveals cracks, abnormalities, diseases, the artist’s HD vision exposes the hidden of our world. Art progresses from aesthetics to palpable disorders, social disarrays and shameful truths. Veasey carries a carefully articulated, acted out optic vision. An artist’s vision equal to possible change.

A ‘poor’ image is easily traded to others. It requires less concealment, for it can easily be overlooked.

And not just that. A ‘poor’ image may be freely produced without the involvement of the highend technology apparatus. It makes it malleable, accessible. And that is its remarkable value.

X-RAYED HD VISION The impact an image, as a singled-out piece of art has upon the day-to-day reality is somewhat controversial and prone to interpretation. When scrolling through our social media pages, ‘poor’ images are disregarded, overlooked. We count on finding substance and quality. But most of what we see is ‘substance-less’, with a 4K facade.

But I would also argue here with my own self and say that instances of depth and exploration do exist.

Moreover so, these amplify the momentum an image carries in itself.

Nick Veasey is a British photographer working primarily with high-definition images (as opposed to the ‘poor’ picture storming the Internet) created from X-ray imaging9. He does more than art. His art is society bare and exhibited in a raw articulation: ‘We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, that beauty is more than skin deep. By revealing the inside, the quintessential element of my art

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8 Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, e-flux journal #10 – November 2009, p.4 9 Nick Veasey is a British photographer working primarily with images created from X-ray imaging. He is the recipient of many photographic and design awards including IPA Lucie Awards, AOP, Graphis, Communication Arts, Applied Arts, PX3 and awards from the D&AD also being nominated for the IPA Lucie International Photographer of the Year 2008. Source: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Veasey; https://www.nickveasey.com/ (Accessed on April 11th, 2020)

Figure 4 Nick Veasey, Stripper, 2014 Source: https://avantgallery. com/collection/nick-veasey/stripper-2/ (Accessed on April 11th, 2020)

It is a separate breathing entity that comes before us and awaits ‘judgement’. It presents itself in a forum of justice, we as society represent. The Image holds so much power over us in this instance, that it almost subdues our capability to fight back. We become naked in front of art, all we can do is watch and witness.

The authenticity of it is the essence of all it encircles and that is transmissible to us from its beginning, starting from the author’s use of metaphor to the history/message it showcases. Thus, in allowing the reproduction to meet us in such a raw and exposed manner, the object being reproduced is reactivated.

10 Music on Walls, Interview with Nick Veasey, September 23rd, 2016, Source: http://www.musiconwalls.com/blog/interview-with-nick-veasey (Accessed on April 11th, 2020)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA But for this instance to take place, HD in an unconventional way of perception is granted power over the ‘poor’ image. Artist is the primary source of meaning. Crowd loses its hegemony.

The Pixel is resampled for precision. It is this that subdues essence.

‘POOR’ MULTIPLICITY One, two, three and count it down to 10.000 pixels and you get one clear-cut, sharp image. The power of one is striking.

But the image is also multiple, grasped and showcased plurally. Each person brings his own value to the table. Each perception decontextualizes the image more. Each time the image is viewed, the pixel is multiplied in an infinite amount of understandings, the message of which must be seized, somehow, by something or someone. The power of multiple is illimitable.

Social media is the dominant outsourcing tool that probably exists today. Continuous, infinite data display is processed daily. Images are digested at a rate we struggle to interpret, but in the melting pot out there, truth lies hidden, awaiting to be ‘fished out’.

Forensic Architecture11 is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London. They analyze varied sources of photographs, videos, audio files to reconstruct and showcase violent events. They work with the image circulating the web, the so called ‘poor’ image, regardless of appearance.

These are the main tools used to investigate state and corporate violence, human rights violations and environmental destruction all over the world.

Architecture that feeds heterogeneous data into an engine of thought consisting of digital, physical models, 3D animations, virtual reality environments to combat legally and politically unjust processes.

‘They might scrape thousands of images of a bombing of social media and match them with material facts to fix facts in space and time, as if with the coordinates of a multidimensional map.’12 Rowan Moore

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11 Forensic Architecture (FA) is a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London. They undertake advanced spatial and media investigations into cases of human rights violations, with and on behalf of communities affected by political violence, human rights organizations, international prosecutors, environmental justice groups, and media organizations. Source: https://forensic-architecture.org/about/agency (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020) 12 Rowan Moore, ‘Forensic Architecture: detail behind the devilry’, (The Guardian, February 2018). Source: https://www. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/25/forensic-architects-eyal-weizman (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020)

Figure 5 Collage of various images taken from Forensic Architecture Website. Source: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/ model-zoo (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020)

And as I’m reading Moore’s thoughts, I cannot help but wonder on the impact a multiplicity of pixelated ‘images’ can have. Opposed to Veasey’s singular HD aesthetical X-Ray, Weizman13 explores a particular way of handling the plurality of a quality compressed image. Outsourcing from a perpetual array of disparate reproductions of reality, diverges the approach towards imagery as known in a traditional manner. An image is now the DNA link within the clash between the discipline of architecture with all its tools, political apparatus and society, as a direct source of information.

Figure 6 Collage of various images taken from Forensic Architecture Website. Source: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/ model-zoo (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020)

‘Image’ becomes a witness to discrepancies, regardless of its provenience or quality technique used to produce it. Each pixel is magnified to offer information, feed invaluable data to engines 13 Eyal Weizman is a Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures and founding director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2010 he founded the research agency Forensic Architecture and directs it ever since. The work of the agency is documented in the exhibition and book FORENSIS (Sternberg, 2014), as well as in Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability (Zone/MIT, 2017) and in numerous exhibitions worldwide. Source: https://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures/w-eizman/ (Accessed on April 23rd, 2020)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA producing 3D animations, digital models of actual events, hidden otherwise from the eye of society.

Singular quality of imagery is no longer relevant, because each pixel is now estimable. The content of the pixel makes the image, not the amount.

Moreover so, its value comes from varied sources.

And therefore, what matters most is multiplicity, pixilation of thoughts. An infinite number of images outsourced from divergent people, moments in time, completely destroy the standard way of grasping reality.

But is this means of processing the image certain? I struggle to answer. However, contemporary masses have always had the urge to bring things closer both ‘spatially and humanly’. Forensic Architecture is just a palpable way of doing so. By engaging the field of architecture with society’s current urge to create selfies at places of eventful circumstances, even crisis I would add, the image becomes once more decontextualized. The image appropriates an afterwards, no longer dependent on preconceptions of how it should function or be portrayed.

THE ‘I’ OF AN IMAGE ‘One of the foremost tasks of art has always been the creation of a demand which could be fully satisfied only later.’14 Walter Benjamin In bringing together the dialogue of the above mentioned, my mind goes back to 1963, when image changed the course of history, and I can’t help but wonder what is today molding for tomorrow.

How am ‘I’, or any of us profiting from what a pixel has to offer. A different nature of things opens itself within a still image than opens to the naked eye, if only because an unconscious world becomes a substitute for a vivid, lucid it seems reality. The enlargement of a shot doesn’t simply render more precisely what was visible, it reveals entirely new structurality of the subject matter.

Each rendered frame encircles the ‘I’ of whoever took the snapshot, the ‘minute’ of an unfolding, ‘the testimony’ of a crucial moment in time. Image is appropriated by meaning, political and social components that drag the aesthetics out of it. Visual bliss metamorphs into nonentity.

Weizman and Veasey use opposed techniques of handling an image, of viewing a pixel. One gives total power of depiction to his masterpiece and the other let’s real life actors provide him with the meaning, he then appropriates. But one thing their art has in common is SINGLENESS from the usual, standard image use today. And this is what I believe truly matters. Dissecting image to its core for meaning. Doing it DIFFERENTLY. If ‘I’ as an architect could redefine what ‘My’ |178

14 Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p.16

understanding of image use can become, would ‘I’ be able to redevelop what art is able to achieve?

Would ‘I’ bear in the society ‘My’ truth? And if yes, would that be an apparatus of ‘my own’, disparate from aesthetics, but created from it to produce new expansions of social possibilities?

Each generation has waved a vail from the hidden in some way or the other. Image has been dissected to new meanings and given tools to engender change.

The ‘I’ generation is no different. ‘My’ art and tools must comply and condemn at the same time. So ‘I’ must appropriate ‘image pixelation’ to catalyze change.

Have ‘I’ figured it out yet? ‘I’m’ still searching within my pixels, but one thing is certain: the denial of imagery as coarse aesthetics. ‘I’ reach for my camera to snap shots/renders daily, thus understanding the relationship between hand and apparatus engulfs potentiality for progress and future.

Each of the ‘I’ in images can produce transformation. The question of how, is also dependent on the ‘I’ in the each of our images.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Wikipedia, ‘Bill Hudson (photographer)’. Accessed April 6th, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Hudson_(photographer) 2. The Pulitzer Prizes, Diane McWhorter, ‘Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution’. Accessed April 6th, 2020. https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/diane-mcwhorter 3. Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), p.323 4. Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, e-flux journal #10, November 2009, p.1 https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/indefense-of-the-poor-image/ 5. Wikipedia, ‘Nicephore Niepce’. Accessed April 10th, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nic%C3%A9phore_Ni%C3%A9pce 6. Wikipedia, ‘JPEG’. Accessed April 23rd, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG 7. Technopedia, ‘Pixel’. Accessed April 23rd, 2020. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24012/pixel 8. Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image, e-flux journal #10, November 2009, p.4, https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/indefense-of-the-poor-image/ 9. Wikipedia, ‘Nick Veasey’. Accessed on April 11th, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Veasey https://www.nickveasey.com/ 10. Music on Walls, ‘Interview with Nick Veasey’, September 23rd, 2016. Accessed on April 11th, 2020. http://www.musiconwalls.com/blog/interview-with-nick-veasey 11. Forensic-Architecture, ‘Forensic Architecture’. Accessed on April 23rd, 2020. https://forensic-architecture.org/about/agency 12. Rowan Moore, ‘Forensic Architecture: detail behind the devilry’, The Guardian, February 2018. Accessed on April 23rd, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/feb/25/ forensic-architects-eyal-weizman 13. Goldsmith, University of London, ‘Professor Eyal Weizman’.

Accessed on April 23rd, 2020. https://www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures/w-eizman/ 14. Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p.16.

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3GAX_WIN IT! DS4000_04 DS VERTICAL STUDIO SEMESTER: Fall_2020, 3GAX INSTRUCTOR: John Enright SOFTWARE: Rhino 6, 3DS Max, Corona

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project brief The Vertical Studio led by John Enright during the Fall Semester is an opportunity to explore an array of real projects that are part of a series of worldwide competitions.

A total of 3 projects were designed as part of the brief in a short amount of time, allowing us to explore architectural space and ideas within realworld limitations and requierements: The Future of Home, School in Senegal and last but not least, The Cambodia Retreat Huts. |183

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COMPETITION_01_FUTURE OF HOME memoriae The project is concerned with the idea of memory as a formal devise to explore the potential of “Home” as a collection of memories of multiple types of residential/social experiences manifesting in one’s environment both digitally and physically. ‘memoriae’ explores the idea of a Singularity construed moment in the future where the concept of home is sustained by technological development, where one is able to juxtapose the physical and psychological planes. “Home” is established through a person’s memories of spaces, moments, visual images. The individual is actively producing the architecture he/she inhabits through his/her own consciousness, carrying it within the functionality of the daily. The inhabitant’s mind becomes the holographic instrument that designs for the inhabitant himself. ‘Home’ becomes detached from standard design techniques and typologies. Becomes fingerprinted. left architectural environment of memoriae

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By exploring how ‘retained moments’ can manifest into the physical environment of the residential space, a series of significant moments/items specific to the author of the project were 3D scanned by applying photogrammetry as the main technique and were later on transposed into the 3D modelling extent with the help of Agisoft Metashape, an AI based algorithmic software. right 3d scans of objects|items

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The environment of the future HOME consists of an infinite, unbound space that is established by existing physical laws (the metal structure that holds it) and the non-physical, digital memory projection of the individual who inhabits the space. The extent itself changes each time based on the memories held and delineated by the user. These can be varied, from moments in time, to objects, to people but they all fluctuate and adjust the space accordingly. top 3d scans placed within the model

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‘memoriae’ translates with the use of photogrammetry, 3D scanning and Point Clouds, significant moments in time specific and private to the user into the architectural environment he/ she inhabits, redefining and thus challenging the idea of the standard residential space. top perspective views

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COMPETITION_02_SENEGAL SCHOOL The Senegal School Competition was aimed at building a school in the remote area of Marsassoum, Senegal, Africa.

The project posed a difficult task of building an educational environment with locally sourced sustainable materials, which would apply construction techniques that do not requier any prior skills in construction, so that the local community may be able to replicate the process and help further develop the village long after the competition is over and the NGO sponsoring it, is gone.

left perspective view

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The focus point of the project while striving to attain the functional goals set forth by the competition brief was to pertain an aesthetic displacement of the geometry. Each corner reveals a continuity of linear elements that are distinguishable as form. Horizontality becomes an aesthetic tool, while dealing with material and financial constraints.

This was obtained by conducting tests with GAN based algorithms that produced the Z-depth pass of the image, allowing the designer to see the layout in a clean manner in the first stages of the design. top GAN generated z-depth passes

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The main construction technique is based on using rammed earth. Rammed earth provides superior thermal mass, temperature and noise control, strength, durability, low

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maintenance, fire proofing, load bearing and moisture resistance. top perspective view right exploded axon|construction

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The site is divided into 3 main buildings, A1, A2 and A3, giving the possibility of constructing the project in two phases if needed. Each corner reveals a continuity of linear elements that are distinguishable not as form but as materiality. Horizontality becomes an aesthetic tool. left ground floor plan_0.000

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The common area is encompassing the existing tree on the property, access being granted by a 4x2 m gate. top perspective view

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This project offers a simple and elegant series of walls and planes that form a fluid and open relationship between covered teaching areas and intimate outside spaces. top perspective view

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COMPETITION_03_CAMBODIA REMOTE HIDEOUT HUTS The Cambodia Remote Hideout Huts competition is a collaboration with The Vine Retreat, a health and wellness retreat, located in the idyllic rural countryside between Phnom Vour Mountain and the south coast of Cambodia.

For this competition, the design asks for a series of self-sustained hideout huts to be located in The Vine Retreat.

The hut’s main purpose is to give guests a chance to live completely isolated within a community-based concept. left exploded axon

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This project uses two different types of spaces to create an environment that aims to transport the cambodian yoga hut user towards a transcendent state enhacing the experience of meditation. top perspective view

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The project consists of 2 main volumes. One is a horizontally expanded glass corridor which acts as the main access towards the residential volume and is characterized by use of specular reflective surfaces, allowing light bounce, color burst, creating a medium intended to stimulate conscious-expanding experiences. It is a kaleidoscopic environment.

The second volume is a clean, clear-glass box, 5x4 m, designed for passive activities. top left elevation volume_01

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top right interior volume_02

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ACCESS TO PLATFORM_ LEVEL +2.000

RESIDENTIAL RESIDENTIAL

The expanded glass corridor acts as the main access towards the residential volume and is characterized by use of specular

KALEIDOSCOP ENVIRONMENT

reflective surfaces, allowing light bounce, color burst, creating a medium intended to stimulate conscious-expanding experiences. left ground floor plan_0.000

MAIN ENTRANCE

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ACCESS TO PLATFORM_ LEVEL +2.000

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kaleidoscop environment Volume No.01 is characterized by use of specular reflective surfaces, allowing light bounce, color burst, creating a medium intended to stimulate conscious-expanding experiences.

It is a kaleidoscopic environment, designed to trigger emotions, states which vary from person to person. left interior view_volume 01

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The first indoor experience of the architectural space is characterized and designed to trigger emotions, states which vary from person to person. The environment is malleable and flexible, alternating for an integrated neuro stimulation, allowing to user to explore himself or herself. top interior views_volume 01

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A series of explorations (through rendering, dithering and anaconda scripts) that dealt with materiality of the building were conducted in order to obtain the outer and inner shell of volume no.02. right studies of materiality: color, reflectivity

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Two linear pathways create entries that form light filled paths that blur and reflect the environment in a kaleidoscopic manner. top interior view_volume 01

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RETRACTABLE CW_RESIDENTIAL

The second volume deals with an environment designed for complete disconnection from the outside.

RESIDENTIAL AREA

It is a clean, clear-glass box, 5x4 m, designed for passive activities. The main 3 glass walls are designed to enclose the individual and offer security, being also retractable to the upper walking platform to reveal open green indoor space when needed. The volume is sunken beneath level 0.000, allowing the user to experience indoor but also outdoor views. top left interior view_volume 02

SMART GLASS

right elevation, axon

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One single material, white matte but also reflective of the outside is predominant and allows the volume to blend within its constraints, giving it an allure of abstruseness and inaccessibility. top elevation

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3GAX_THE INTERFACE EFFECT AS2810_01 AS PHYGITALITY SEMESTER: Fall_2020, 3GAX INSTRUCTOR: Peter Testa SOFTWARE: Anaconda, Python, MiDaS Monocular Depth Estimation GAN, Processing, Photoshop

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The Syntax Automation project is a collaborative online image making process that collapses physical and digital worlds into a shared imagespace. Image formats are unflattened through a variety of algorithmic and manual processes to encode more information than two-dimensional serialized color values, creating a scene of richly interacting layers of content.

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This Layer explores what constitutes a Scene within an image.

Concepts of ground, enclosure, backdrop, setting, repetition, boundary, frame, composition, and more come into play.

The Scene layer strongly influences the perceived depth, orientation, or flatness of the overall collaborative composition. top left 3d depth image generated from 2d image top right dither iteration

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The initial image of a scene, object is being input within the MiDaS script and Anaconda to produce a depth generated map (b&w) which is later on altered with the help of color channels and dithering techniques in order to produce an image that can be read by the Processing Script later on. right GAN generated images_phase 01

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the composite image Using the Syntax Automation Processing Script, the composite image is the result of a series of images/layers obtained earlier on with different techniques mentioned above. The composite image is a new way of creating imagery in a 3D environment from an initial 2D, flat view.

The result is an encoding of several layers of information into a single image, formatted for use in Phase 3’s collaborative compositing process. left compsite image iteration_phase 02

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Phase 02 uses encoding of the previously obtained images to create a single image, multichannel formatted. top a series of iterations obtained within the Processing Automation Script

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Phase 02 uses encoding of the previously obtained images to create a single image, multichannel formatted. top iterations obtained by applying modifications to the Processing Script

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The initial 2D image is transferred within the 3D environment, allowing for object manipulation and multiple camera movements. top composite image iterations

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The interest was to obtain a z-depth pass able to transform the initial 2d image into a multilevel 3d environment, allowing for space formation. top composite image iteration

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3GAX_LE MUSEE IMAGINAIRE AS3222_01 AS DESIGN DOC GR SEMESTER: Fall_2020, 3GAX INSTRUCTOR: Herwig Baumgartner, Brian C Zamora SOFTWARE: Rhino, PyroSim, MassMotion, Octane

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project brief This course investigates issues related to the implementation of design: technology, the use of materials, systems integration, and the archetypal analytical strategies of force, order and character.

The course includes a review of basic and advanced construction methods, analysis of building codes, the design of Structural and Mechanical systems, Environmental systems, Buildings service systems, the development of building materials and the integration of building components and systems.

The intent of this course is to develop a cohesive understanding of how architects communicate complex building systems for the built environment and to demonstrate the ability to document a comprehensive architectural project and Stewardship of the Environment.

- course syllabus

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le musee imaginaire_design development The facade of the building was divided into 4 main systems, each with a specific assembly technique and structural component. left double-skin facade assembly detail

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The building posed two main issues: the structural system and the facade assembly. The structural system was solved with the use of standard load-bearing concrete column-beam, only in this case, the beams were replaced by applying a bubbledeck slab system. The facade was divided into 4 assembly techniques, that entertwined in a very organic manner, allowing for the architectural concept to take shape. top assembly detail close-up

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The project demonstrated an intensive research on how a building is developed within the environmental and mechanical systems and how geographic criteria dictated by the region of the construction site influences upon the built environment. top mechanical and environmental systems

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The building facade systems explored a series of specific techniques that would allow for the architectural concept to manifest, including the use of GFRC panels, digital printed glass and a doubleskin facade system. right assembly details close-up

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3GBX_MEMORIAE HT2743_01_HT PHARMAKO-AI SEMESTER: Fall_2020, 3GBX INSTRUCTOR: Kenric McDowell

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Figure 1 The Severan Tondo, AD 199, depicting the portraits of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna and their sons Caracalla and Geta.

The face of one of Geta has been erased, as a result of damnatio memoriae ordered by his brother Caracalla after assassinating him. Source: https://almarsad.co/en/2019/11/12/a-libyan-hero-septimius-severus/portrait-of-the-family-of-septimius-severus/

DAMNATIO MEMORIAE 1 The phrase damnatio memoriae – a ‘condemnation of memory’, modern in origin, captures a broad range of actions posthumously taken by the Roman government against former leaders, their authority and reputation. Most prevalent during the Republican and Imperial periods, this tactic encompassed the defacement of all visual depictions and literary records of a distinct individual the authorities decided to condemn. Damnatio memoriae was a severe punishment method and also a way to enforce dominance and interfere in the course of history, of the progression of things.

The actual physical manifesto implied a collective act of expression which would erase the person from within the ‘memory’ of the society. Memory was seen as the ultimate long-range antagonist threat restraining new, desired changes. Memory was a tool for shaping a dissimilar, neoteric vision, an antithetic, altered, carefully induced truth. Cognition of a society was the omnipresent God, the corporeal invocation of power, both within and without. In the ancient times, memory equaled a vicious form of tyranny that translated to an infinite abyss of unexplored possibilities, unascertained power.

The damning of memory phenomenon could be traced back to numerous historic records, such as The Cancelleria Reliefs2 , which depicts Domitian’s

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1 Damnatio memoriae is a modern Latin phrase meaning “condemnation of memory”, indicating that a person is to be excluded from official accounts. There are and have been many routes to damnatio, including the destruction of depictions, the removal of names from inscriptions and documents, and even large-scale rewritings of history. The term can be applied to other instances of official scrubbing; the practice is seen as long ago as the reign of the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut in the 14th century BC. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae (Accessed on December 3rd, 2020) 2 Cancelaria Reliefs are a fine example of imperial Roman propaganda art. The setting where they were discovered indicates that they had been discarded in the late first century. Both reliefs display a “classicizing” style, an obvious contrast to other

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA military campaign, yet the head atop the body of the emperor is not that of Domitian but of Nerva, who succeeded Domitian after his assassination and subsequent damnatio memoriae. Or, The Severan Tondo3 , a panel painting depicting the Severan dynasty. The face of Geta is deliberately erased, after his assassination by his brother, Caracalla, part of the damnatio memoriae.

it. Memory was an Umwelt in itself, treated as a receptacle of power and if rendered to our current reality and modern technologies, memory could potentially fill in the role of a disparate world, characterized by behaviorism; a complex outer meaning-carrier.

The subjective universes that exist within each person’s brain capability is immeasurable, with a huge promise of potential, in varied fields, which used ethically, may become new outlines that advance our knowledge, environments, perception of self-behavior, more than current tools ever could.

WORKING MEMORY6

Figure 2 Cancelleria Reliefs, a set of two incomplete bas-reliefs, originally depicted events from the life and reign of Domitian, but were partially recarved following the accession of emperor Nerva Source: https://www.rome101.com/Cancelleria/

Every single thought that could potentially develop into short/long-term memory begins with sensory information. Our brain is able to capture it during a sensory register process, which is essentially a short activity lasting a few seconds, amid which visual and auditory cues passively appropriate the stimuli and transform it into thoughts.

auditory or tactile stimulus. So, all in all, what we get to observe with our eyes on a daily basis holds potential for what we later on could possibly carry on to a new, unexplored environment.

The prospect of appropriation of these certain layers in their initial stages, before formation or even after, holds unparallel potentiality. Each of these layers is processed by one individual’s neural system to its best abilities and based on certain constraints, be that environmental, social, economic, etc. What if these layers could be captured and processed from a more technological point of view? What if future automation knowledge was to focus on the possibility of reading and refinement of these sensory ‘enzyme’ originators? Could this be the gateway to a different Umwelt creation?

Within our brain, different parts serve as different information processors to create memories and subsequently store them. Each of them has varied functions associated with certain types of memories, therefore the process of reading the exact moment

‘Infidels claim that the rule in the Library is not “sense;’ but “non-sense;’ and that “rationality” (even humble, pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak, I know, of “the feverish Library, whose random volumes constantly threaten to transmogrify into others, so that they affirm all things, deny all things, and confound and confuse all things, like some mad and hallucinating deity.’ 4 Jorge Luis Borges ‘The Library of Babel’ ‘By exploring the Umwelten of other organisms we add to our own a host of different worlds; and the richness of our own world will increase in immeasurable ways. While physics is bound to impoverish the average thinker’s view of the world, biology will enrich it beyond measure.’ 5 Jakob von Uexkull ‘The Theory of Meaning’ Being able to freely manipulate and interpolate a person’s memory encompasses a series of prodigious possibilities. Historically, this came as a result of power and physical labor such as destroying monuments, erasing images and overall deforming the communal memory; it was condemned, a way of reshaping the narrative of the past, not completely drowning

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art of the same period such as that on the Arch of Titus. Source: https://www.rome101.com/Cancelleria/ (Accessed on December 9th, 2020) 3 The Severan Tondo is one of the few preserved examples of panel painting from Classical Antiquity, depicting the first two generations of the imperial Severan dynasty. Source: https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo (Accessed on December 9th, 2020) 4 Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel, (Argentina: Editorial Sur, 1941), p.117 5 Donald Favareau, Essential Readings in Biosemiotics, Biosemiotics 3 (Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2010), p.88

Figure 3 Dickens’s Dream, also known as ‘A Souvenir of Dickens’, oil painting by Victorian artist Robert William Bus. The painting features Dickens in his Gad’s Hill Place study, conjuring up his characters while he sleeps. Source: https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/ dickenss-dream-191221

Essentially, human memory and as a result thought formation, comes from within a field of assorted layers which fuse or at least cohere, simultaneously working to avoid meaning blindness and inspire the individual to take one or another type of action.

These create the physical world the individual inhabits, allowing for object formation as a result.

Each single thought held in our memory holds the physical outcome of the environment around us.

These layers begin to create our Umwelt before the actual physical manifestation of it. A new physical ambiance begins its existence in the initial sensory information the individual acquires from a visual/ 6 Working Memory is a multi-component system which includes the central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop and episodic buffer. Source: https://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html (Accessed on December 5th, 2020)

Figure 4 Amygdala location and function. Source: https://www. thoughtco.com/amygdala-anatomy-373211

of recognition by a third party could potentially be problematic. However, biology does grant us hope.

The amygdala7 is the part of the brain located in the temporal lobes responsible for emotional and sentimental reply, which is then directly linked to memory formation. The process that happens within it deals and helps with long-term episodic memories.

When certain information reaches this part of the brain, only a few seconds are needed for it to be passed into sensory memory. Once it has passed the sensory level, the individual already is capable of understanding the subject, form a response to the stimuli and pass it on for storage. It has already been processed. This operation is solely performed 7 The amygdala is a limbic system structure that is involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. It is involved in the processing of emotions such as fear, anger, and pleasure. Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/amygdala-anatomy-373211 (Accessed on December 15th, 2020)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA by our brain mechanism. It captures, reads, processes and then stores. Whichever idea we have about the environment, conclusions and reactions happens here. We more or less visually create a new idea by understanding and analyzing our existing environment. Human brain is a finite, biological system with limited possibilities as we now understand it. The prospect of having an outside augmented mechanism, able to collude with it might become the gate to a new world understanding.

At the moment, each individual contributes to our society by means of his/her world understanding based on his sensory abilities and memory formation in some shape or form. It is an involuntary act. But what if the world each individual perceives and stores on a daily basis could be interpreted not by the individual himself but with the help of a third party system, able to dissect the layers of biological memory formation, be that by reading each of them separately and uniting them as an end system at the cell level or by reading a part of these layers, ones more accessible to our current and developing technologies combined with visual/auditory data stimulation directly captured in the shape of images/ sound waves. Would the understanding of the exterior entity become a pathway to divergent opportunity? Would this ‘alien’ form be able to reproduce and remodel what each of us holds dear within our biological ‘case’ we call our body, our memory, our past and transform it in transitional physical environment we could actually inhabit?

Every single thought, event, place we have felt on an emotional level could potentially become the basis on which a future dwelling environment is built, ‘other’ but also familiar.

In ‘A Souvenir of Dickens’8 , an oil painting by Robert William Bus, the artist depicts Dickens as creating his world, his characters within a ‘dream’, his own ‘dream’. The ‘dream’ was present with him everywhere. It wasn’t a physical manifestation per se, technologies were lacking potentiality, however, from a metaphysical aspect, Dickens had his memory, sensory visual world always present within his corporeal existence and this is how he was able to create new Umwelts. It was through this two-world collision that a unique, dissimilar reality was able to protrude and exist. What if artificial intelligence was able to become the bridge between these worlds and physically manifest each of our ‘dream’ worlds within our current realism, sensibility and environment.

Would this change the spaces we inhabit and thus continually vary our world understanding? Could this process potentially become a feedback loop9

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8 A Souvenir of Dickens, an oil painting by Victorian artist Robert William Bus. Charles Dickens is asleep in his study surrounded by a crowd of his characters standing on furniture or floating in mid-air. Source: https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/ souvenir-dickens/ (Accessed on December 18th, 2020) 9 Feedback Loop in learning is a cause-effect sequence where data (often in the form of an ‘event’) is responded to,

for new genesis, antithetic from each other and in continuous transformation?

mechanism is equivalent to the creation of a whole new set of space linguistics.

LAYERED MEMORY

AI processes information through a set of undefined tools in terms of direct observation, separate from a human being perception. But if the brain-computer interface was able to recreate a space or object within a space or even 2/3rds of an image the individual sees and further process it from a machine learning point of view, the initial environmental expansion would appropriate new meanings.

Disciplinary typologies of a room, house, street known to us would be lost and new meanings could start to emerge. That would be the basis for a new 3d world opportunity or even virtual reality, one that would differ from the initial data being fed into the machine and one holding potential for new typological meanings.

In an experiment conducted with the scope of investigating the neural mechanism and emotional memory formation within the amygdala, scientists subjected 7 epilepsy patients to an episodic memory task with emotional stimuli. The responses from the amygdala were recorded by local field potentials.

In short, the memory task consisted of two phases: an encoding phase, during which participants were rating emotionally a series of visual images and the retrieval phase, where the same images had to be rated again from an emotional stand point by the same people. The tools that were used to closely monitor and register these responses were computational mechanisms that could distinguish and visually record such components as oscillatory power, phase synchrony and phase-amplitude coupling. A classifier was later trained on the basis of high-frequency activity inputs to be able to predict the participants’ emotional response towards one

Figure 5 Pattern formation and separation from emotional memories within the amygdala. Source: https://www.brainpost.co/weekly-brainpost/2019/4/16/eqit5415f85822p4sq5f56hyvgvzc9

or another image and see if it stayed consistent throughout the two phases.

The possibility of acquiring data from brain activity and reading emotional responses of an individual towards an image, space, object, etc. he/she encounters in the daily life holds extensive promise.

Feeding visual captures with heterogenous properties taken out of an architectural environment the individual experiences and mentally stores as long/ short-term memory depository for example, to an AI10 based on recognition of an outcome and that data is used to inform future decisions in similar or analogous situations. Source: https://www.teachthought.com/learning/what-is-a-feedbackloop-for-learning/ (Accessed on December 18th, 2020) 10 AI is intelligence demonstrated by machines, unlike the natural intelligence displayed by humans and animals. Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of “intelligent agents”: any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. Colloquially, the

Having a mechanism able to interpret yourself at an emotional level at the same time you experience an environment, situation or object would give you feedback upon your own perception. As an example, one might be able to observe a vase with flowers and visually reproduce its features: crisp lines, yellow in color oval shape, etc. in one way. The same object, viewed by machine learning systems would probably be perceived in an ontogenetic way. But the result is a new environment, it does hold the same initial meaning we were able to take from within the real world, store into our brain but it has acquired a different physical typology. It becomes a new object, a new visual stimulus, ready to be processed again and again in order to give new meanings.

And the importance of a mechanism able to accompany individual users is vital. Each individual is unique. Each individual perceives spaces and events differently. For each individual, specific things are important and worthy of attention. The input (images, objects we remember, spaces we recall) is particular. Therefore, the output would also be distinct to that particular person. If I were able to take all my experiences, emotional responses I have attributed to them and feed the AI with my own sense of perception of my own world and as a response receive a new virtually modeled world of objects, colors, emotions on the basis of what I have encountered, I would obtain and procure a neoteric habitat exhibiting just that. The way this environment would manifest might vary. It could come in the shape of holographic, three-dimensional projection within my existing home for example, or an interior, a space, object I deal with or it could even be physically built with the help of future or even current technologies. I could choose how I wish that my own term “artificial intelligence” is often used to describe machines (or computers) that mimic “cognitive” functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as “learning” and “problem solving”. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence (Accessed on December 18th, 2020)

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA emotional perceptions of my own world start to build the thread needed to elevate a new linguistics of built typologies.

to be generated by the AI. Once complete, the model can be forwarded for additional layer processing.

IF YOU CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT So, is it possible?

Is brain-computer mechanism even viable?

The latest experiment11 conducted by three research teams on auditory perception and AI symbiosis was successful in turning data obtained from electrodes surgically placed on the brain into computer-generated speech. Using computational models such as neural networks, they reconstructed words and sentences, which were intelligible to human listeners. The researchers monitored parts of the brain which were responsible for sensory stimuli capture while people either read out loud, listened to recordings or mouthed speech. The information was fed into neural networks, which passed and analyzed the data through a series of complex layers of computational ‘nodes’ and allowed it to learn by understanding and adjusting the connections between these layers/nodes. The data fed within the network was varied, either actual brain responses to auditory stimuli, or speech or recordings the person produced or heard. The output were words from unseen brain activity. 40% of the words that were outputted by the AI were understandable.

Capturing a visual image on the basis of visual stimuli holds the same potential and technical complications. But, dividing the process into layers of recognition is allowing for palpable results. In terms of generating a new environment on the basis of an existing neuro stimulation within an individual could manifest in two possibilities: The first one is to feed the neural network a data set consisting of images holding specific importance to the individual.

In the following images, 3D scans of significant objects that trace the author’s memory path are showcased and translated into a visually accessible, digital environment. Metashape12 , the software used to process the data from the images taken, makes use of the GPU, as well as AI. The addition of artificial intelligence allows for faster data processing.

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Figure 7 Image depicting how a set of image data is fed within the software (Agisoft Metashape) and further processed to create sparse, dense point clouds and 3D model as a final outcome.

Source: author

Figure 8 Image depicting dense point clouds of 3D physical objects that were first scanned from an existing, real-world model and then processed by Agisoft Metashape. Source: author

The next mechanism/neural network is responsible for processing the data obtained and the output of a new, divergent outcome of the image it has been fed with. Here is where the initial object, environment

Figure 10 Images depicting a series of second layer GAN processed dense point clouds obtained within Agisoft Metashape and placed within an existing, 3D interior environment. The result showcases the formation of new potential interior typologies that can be read and translated to workable 3D models. Source: author

The process begins with the user importing a series of photos of a static object (scene, interior, etc.) into the appropriate software (Agisoft Metashape), he/ she then establishes a varied set of measurements and inputs and then waits for a workable 3D model

Figure 9 Image depicting the outcome of GAN processed dense point clouds, initially obtained from Agisoft Metashape. Source: author

11 Kelly Servick, Artificial Intelligence turns brain activity into speech, Science – January 2019, p.2 12 Agisoft Metashape is a stand-alone software product that performs photogrammetric processing of digital images and generates 3D spatial data. Source: https://www.agisoft.com/ (Accessed on December 18th, 2020)

loses its typology and acquires new meaning.

Placed within a physical setting, the new ‘something’ is dematerialized. It becomes a ‘future’ typology of an already known ‘entity’ which is alien however to

the individual.

The image obtained as an output through the AI process becomes an invaluable source of potential, as it holds a divergent Umwelt13 , that can manifest in 13 Umwelt – In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning “environment” or “surroundings”) is the “biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal”.The term is usually translated as “self-centered

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA one’s reality either as a holographic projection within the existing environment or built through digital tools that might be available in the future and actually become palpable.

However, even though the process might seem finite and singular, it is not. A feedback loop is established between the user (which in this case is the partial generator of the outcome) and the neural network.

The output attained and now visually manifested within the user’s real interface can again be perceived, understood by the stimuli receptors and as a result, taken through the same process that allowed for its initial formation again and again.

The second possibility, and the more convoluted one, implies identification of brain activity on a series of levels within the amygdala and hippocampus as a first step. Reading each of the layers as oscillations, color patterns, etc. as a response to emotional valence requires a series of systems, each responsible for distinct tasks. Each algorithm is responsible for certain aspects of image, memory formation and each produces an output. In order to be able to unite and analyze each of these separate problem formulations as a whole, a complex system is needed.

E2E or otherwise known as End-to-End14 learning ‘refers to training a possibly complex learning system represented by a single model (a Deep Neural Network) that represents the complete target system, bypassing the intermediate layers’ we have mentioned above. What Deep Neural Network represents in essence is an artificial neural network that consists of multiple layers between the input and the output.

In order to be able to ‘read’ the image from sensory receptors present in an individual’s brain, the network must be trained on multiple layer sensibilities.

Each of these being responsible for one specific aspect of what makes the input. What makes an image within the sensory receptors of our brain is dissected at a scale smaller than the image pixel, where color input is seen as binary data set, shape detected as vector coordinate in 3D space, all of which are detected at cell level, by the visual stimuli receptors etc. Subsequently, all the stimuli captured by the electrodes attached to this process are then translated into data, for the AI to assimilate into palpable information and actual data. Similar to how the brain works, each DNN layer can be trained to specialize to perform intermediate tasks necessary

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world”. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt (Accessed on December 18th, 2020) 14 End-to-end (E2E) learning refers to training a possibly complex learning system represented by a single model (specifically a Deep Neural Network) that represents the complete target system, bypassing the intermediate layers usually present in traditional pipeline designs. Source: https://towardsdatascience. com/e2e-the-every-purpose-ml-method-5d4f20dafee4 (Accessed on December 18th, 2020)

to read the initial input and then as a whole, generate a transcript able to completely change the perception of the object-subject.

As an example, the trained system architecture used to autonomously drive an automobile consists of 9 layers. Each has been trained using real data recordings.

Yes, as a process in itself, it is a fairly straightforward operation. From a human ability point of view however, at this point in time of our reality, the possibility of understanding and reading the human mind with the help of a machine at such a deep level is somehow over the horizon line still.

But…not unreachable. The prospect of braincomputer interface collaboration in order to reveal new latent worlds already existing within each individual’s perception of the current reality is beautiful and enticing, worthy of exploration and ‘atonement’.

Figure 11 Part of the CNN system used to autonomously drive an automobile. Source: https://towardsdatascience.com/e2e-the-every-purpose-ml-method-5d4f20dafee4

Yes, reading human brain neural signals is different than a standard data set fed into an AI system but it does hold the same principal as a basis and, as current reality reveals, has been achieved at some level.

All in all, the process acknowledges itself as fairly straightforward: - the individual identifies an object, space, shape, etc. able to produce strong emotional sensibility, by using sensory receptors within the different parts of the brain (in this case, visual); - stores this information as either short or long-term memory; - electrodes attached and able to read the sensory signals within the different brain compartments are then forwarding the impulses to an AI mechanism (DNN), consisting of a series of multiple varied algorithms; - the AI is given the opportunity to read these signals, understand, analyze and conclude them in its own machine learning perceptional ability and output them as a new environment in the form of an image, vector coordinate data that is then directly translated into the real environment the individual resides in.

The final output will most probably be in the shape of a holographic projection or built entity that completely changes the existing space. As a result, the individual begins to appropriate new understandings of new realities, acquire new visual stimuli and thus continuously feeding the system with new information and data. A feedback loop is formed between the user and the architecture of the algorithm, always in motion, always renewed, with endless material prospects.

Figure 12 Diagram showcasing the possible process for new environment typology formation based on sensory receptors from the individual. Source: author

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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1. Wikipedia, ‘Damnatio Memoriae’. Accessed December 3rd, 2020; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae 2. Dr. Francesca Tronchin, ‘Damnatio memoriae – Roman sanctions against memory’, Khan Academy, last modified May 2018.

Accessed December 3rd, 2020 https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-artcivilizations/roman/beginners-guide-rome/a/damnatiomemoriaeroman-sanctions-against-memory 3. Eric Varner, ‘Mutilation and Transformation: Damnatio Memoriae and Roman Imperial Portraiture’ (E.J. Brill, 2004) 4. Rome 101, ‘The Cancelleria Reliefs’. Accessed December 3rd, 2020; https://www.rome101.com/Cancelleria/ 5. Wikipedia, ‘The Severan Tondo’. Accessed December 9th, 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severan_Tondo 6. Jorge Luis Borges, The Library of Babel, (Argentina: Editorial Sur, 1941), p.117 7. Donald Favareau, Essential Readings in Biosemiotics, Biosemiotics 3 (Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2010), p.88 8. Saul McLeod, ‘Working Memory Model’, Simply Psychology, last modified April 2012. Accessed December 5th, 2020 https://www.simplypsychology.org/working%20memory.html 9. The Human Memory, ‘Human Memory Storage’, November 25th, 2020. Accessed December 7th, 2020; https://human-memory.net/ memory-storage/ 10. Shireen Parimoo, ‘Hippocamus – Amygdala Communication Supports Pattern Separation of Emotional Memories’, 2019.

Accessed December 15th, 2020; https://www.brainpost.co/ weekly-brainpost/2019/4/16/eqit5415f85822p4sq5f56hyvgvzc9 11. Regina Bailey, ‘Amygdala’s Location and Function’, July 2019.

Accessed December 15th, 2020; https://www.thoughtco.com/ amygdala-anatomy-373211 12. Old Book Illustrations, ‘Souvenir of Dickens’, December 2014.

Accessed December 18th, 2020; https://www.oldbookillustrations. com/illustrations/souvenir-dickens/ 13. Terry Heick, ‘What’s a feedback loop in Learning? A Definition for teachers’, August 2020. Accessed December 18th, 2020; https://www.teachthought.com/learning/what-is-a-feedbackloop-for-learning/ 14. Agisoft, ‘Agisoft Metashape’. Accessed December 18th, 2020 https://www.agisoft.com/ 15. Wikipedia, ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Accessed December 18th, 2020; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence 16. Kelly Servick, Artificial Intelligence turns brain activity into speech, Science – January 2019, p.2 17. Wikipedia, ‘Umwelt’. Accessed December 18th, 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt 18. Felp Roza, ‘End-to-end learning, the (almost) every purpose ML method. Can E2E be used to solve every Machine Learning problem?’, May 2019. Accessed December 18th, 2020 https://towardsdatascience.com/e2e-the-every-purpose-mlmethod-5d4f20dafee4 19. Casey Reas, Ben Fry, ‘Processing’; https://processing.org/

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3GBX_An uh log y Dig et. al.

DS5000_06 DS VERTICAL STUDIO SPRING SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 3GBX INSTRUCTOR: Devyn Weiser SOFTWARE: Rhino 7, Grasshopper, C4D, Redshift

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project brief Within today’s globalized art world, ideas about what and how museums of modern and contemporary art and design collect, exhibit, and address their audiences are changing. These institutions are critically discussed and problematized as Eurocentric and predominantly white institutions, insufficiently aware of, or insufficiently apt to respond to, the interdependences between modernism and colonialism, as well as how such interdependences intersect with other concerns of critical discourses.

The studio kickstarts the project through graphic techniques on the new release of Testa & Weiser’s Gameboard platform, a Graphical User Interface to re-see, re-make, and re-name architectural objects/assets. Across this playful digital and analog interface, designers will consider morphological and syntactical elements that make up non-historical and non-referential architectural compositions.

Questioning the sufficiency of digitality, the studio introduces and explores techniques of presentation that shift established hierarchies between image and object. Where a typical CAD model represents objects with standard viewports (top, bottom, left, right) the Gameboard platform has an arbitrarily defined twelve square grid, where three-dimensional objects are arrayed, duplicated and shuffled to create approximate compositions of positive and negative space. Objects enter the Gameboard one at a time. Each object has its own ‘view’ defined by a specific type of orthographic projection.

Transformation such as rotating, moving, zooming, cropping, and masking are applied to existing artifacts and attributes. Elevations and/or sections are automated up to fourteen picture planes.

Variable line types and strokes, color fills, and graphic patterns may be applied to create different architectural readings.

-course syllabus

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The project kick started with a series of script manipulations to obtain a singular, geometrical and functional composition. left 3d composition iteration within the Gameboard

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The project kick started with a series of script manipulations to obtain a singular, geometrical and functional composition. left 3d composition iteration within the Gameboard

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The modified 3d iterations were later on extracted and imported within Illustrator to readjust the functional layout of the building acording to the project brief. top composite image iterations and layout schemes

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The final iteration was obtained based on the discourse of the project. Within the Game, only one asset is being used, manipulated to visually transform and transition. left final scheme composition; plan view

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The final iteration was obtained based on the discourse of the project. The green screen becomes then the space for a political statement to be made. left final scheme composition; elevation view

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The project examines modern art display as an artistic intervention that could restore and bring the imbalance between private and public to a zero. What is private and public manifests into the idea of ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ ‘thesis’ and ‘antithesis’, object vs partial object on the Gameboard.

The Gameboard is manipulated to cut, boolean and use line thickness as an ‘x-ray’ tool.

top seen vs unseen parts of the museum close-ups

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the Main museum The project frames the discourse within the 2 sites available: the Main Museum on the left and the Hidden Museum on the right, with accessibility for users, staff and service. The Ground Plane space is divided (as mentioned) between the right and left platform. Some of the tiles play a Game of War, but this time, each flip of the asset is revealing a hidden part of the private art collection, letting the user define the lines of communication, revealing them and thus transforming the private-public relationship.

What is unseen becomes seen but only for a split second. The user is able to visualize the art but isn’t able to interact with it directly.

The Main Museum offers space layout schemes which interconnect with the Hidden Museum and allows for staff to curate and maintain all art pieces at once. left building asset of the Main Museum

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The museum operates as one apparatus. However, it’s double narrative plays into 2 models of game: on the left (public display) and on the right (private display).

The unseen is revealed to the public user visually only.

No physical interaction is possible on this level. top museum layout

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seen vs unseen; private vs public art display On a service level, the museum functions with the idea of interconnection between public vs private curatorial practices.

The Main Museum offers space layout schemes which interconnect with the Hidden Museum and allows for staff to curate and maintain all art pieces at once. The public does not have direct access to this level and can only interact with the ‘reveal’ space on a Ground Floor plane.

Public art display is the ‘seen’, while private art display, partially hidden in freeports, takes the role of the ‘unseen’ in this 2-player game, choosing to hide its pieces carefully for the ‘opponent’ (the public eye). Art becomes available only when the battle between these forces (and mainly power and legislation) is lost.

left left and right platforms of the game_private vs public

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The architectural object obtained with the use of the Gameboard is portrayed disimilar to itself within the limitations of the right game platform by altering its dimension, spliting it from the original and showing it as a ‘partial object’ as Melanie Klein states. top cross-section displaying the partial object

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The public does not have direct access to this level and can only interact with the ‘reveal’ space on a Ground Floor plane. top cross-section exposing the hidden museum

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The architectural object obtained with the use of the Gameboard is portrayed disimilar to itself within the right platform by altering its dimension, spliting it from the original and showing it as a ‘partial object’ as Melanie Klein states. top cross-section exposing the hidden museum

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Within the Game, only one asset is being used, manipulated to visually transform and transition. The green screen becomes then the space for a political statement to be made. link to project animation: https://vimeo.com/ showcase/8251717/video/538984868

top ‘partial object’ perspective

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The space ‘reveals’ itself to the public visually, trying to set itself ‘free’ and abandon the physical impossibility of doing so. The Pompidou collection that longs to challenge the boundary between private and public. top hidden museum

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3GBX_STATE IT OUT LOUD LA8037_01 _LA DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 3GBX INSTRUCTOR: Timothy Morton

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA ESSAY_01_MOVEMENT AND STILLNESS “…beauty isn’t there or here, it’s in between…”

Timothy Morton “…there’s a dance between the human and the object and we don’t know who’s in charge…”

Timothy Morton It was nighttime and we were returning from a long and tiresome road trip. I was anxious to get back home, so the feeling of uneasy and frustration were slowly crippling in. Right when there was 1 more hour left till our final destination, Siri announced us in her detached voice, a 40-minute delay was underway due to a car crash on the highway. I could feel my entire body being succumbed in this unsought after state, anxiety, the feeling of wanting to escape and rest and all these truth-feel emotions slowly loading within me.

I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, so I might as well just give in to this whatever it was. I reached out for the car stereo, put Hans Zimmer on, reclined my seat way back and lay down with my eyes opened, looking at the world around me, moving at the speed of the car, somewhere out there, in the night, far away, in another dimension, not in the ‘here’ next to my being but in the ‘there’, a ‘there’ I was unaware of a few seconds prior.

extremely ‘unfamiliar’ but that was also making me FEEL. And I felt beauty.

There is no way of describing, it’s a causality of shared worlds, that is not interdependent on anything but the within of the in-between.

As Kant implies, “there are no rules by which someone can be compelled to judge that something is beautiful. Judgements of beauty make a claim to “universal validity”. And that when making a judgement of beauty of something, one takes it that everyone else who perceives that something, ought also to judge it to be beautiful”.

This was true in my case. I took out the camera and filmed this short episode I witnessed, as a token of my capturing of beauty, if I could even state that. It’s not for sure but I felt it is in a way ubiquitous. This sharing of ‘beauty’ by ‘recording’ it is proof (at least in my unconscious ‘me’) of my being having an awareness that it is ‘worth’ putting it out into the world, that this dance between particles in a causality formed space is what others shall also experience truly and unconditionally as beauty. That causality is aesthetic. That causality is a priori, ‘almost’ beauty.

And yes, ‘almost’…

The shadows of the objects outside of ‘my universe’ were somehow translated into ‘my universe’ on the car ceiling. They were dancing to the music of the stereo and I slowly started to realize I was being driven into their dance, almost me dancing along without moving an inch of my body to a rhythm that was silent but also existent and very vibrant.

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The object was static somewhere ‘there’ and also ‘mobile’ ‘here’. So, was it actually vibrating to a millionth of a second as to allow it to be constant ‘there’ but roaming ‘here’ or was this a displacement of my interaction with the idea of the mobile music/ object creating my perception upon it?

And whilst this ‘interaction’ between ‘spaces’, ‘particles’ of both worlds was emerging, even pre-existent almost, I felt elation, tranquility. I was observing a physical manifestation of beauty within the dance of the object’s shadows and I wasn’t even aware of it. It wasn’t dependent of how I felt, no way, beauty doesn’t come from anxiety, right? So, it couldn’t have been me the sinner of this happening. And certainly not the cold, static, visible outside world either. At least I think so, because it had left me motionless for almost 6 hours prior. It was this fidgeting, vibrational strutting of something that was causing an in-between ‘something’ again,

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA ESSAY_02_ACTING AND APPRECIATING As a professional in the architectural field, it is ‘expected’ of me to detach from my personal ‘ego-self” and ‘zoom in’ to my client’s own ‘dancing particles/molecules/his own quantum physical persona’ (if I were to quote in terms of the philosophical microcosm), which most of the times are divergent and offbeat to my own. I am a creator after all and as all creators are to some extent, I am particular…; a red-letter in a stream of ‘off-red’ ones.

(And yes, I am aware that the slight sarcastic tone in my voice is quiet dominant in this instant. It has solid reason for existence).

The moment the client’s vision comes to life is the moment your own vision as an aesthetic maker ceases to exist. You are no longer in control of the disparate ideas within you; they become appropriations of an ‘other’, unmistakably different from the ‘you’ you own and all the spaces inbetween will be permeated by ‘the other’.

So, when playing with the subject of creation and what it means for it to exist, I can’t help but wonder, do I, as an originator of aesthetic genesis die each time I share my creativity with others? Do I become an appropriation of my own self and do I reborn my inner fragments, tiles that make up me in order for creation to continue to exist?

Her statement may not necessarily and directly be in regards to the creation aesthetic process but it definitely touches upon an idea of Ego death, which is essential for creation to exist.

New doesn’t manifest in the entanglement of Old. New cannot spur visible light without the canvas being dark in the first place.

I am laying out my thoughts in an attempt to understand ‘me’ and kill the ego in my being, so necessary for another ‘me’ to come into being.

I create for an end, an end that is the genesis of another end and another and another till the final end, which maybe isn’t an end after all, but a mere flip of the coin.

Spielrein argues that ‘an individual is basically a ‘dividual’, a being that is divided. Spielrein’s death instinct would not seek the annihilation of the individual as a whole, but rather the destruction of the Self.’

Each time I create, I am aware of the outcome, the fragmentation of the bigger piece but I repeat it over and over again in the same pattern somehow.

As she states, the event acquires emotional tonality only insofar as it could stimulate emotional tonalities of previously experienced events, hidden within the unconscious.

I destroy the Self the minute my design is handed in for ‘judgement’. And yes, judgement it is. Making an allegory with Judgement Day as described in the Bible, the death occurring in the moment of creation is the birth of a new, manifested something. My ego ceases to exist, I let go and thus disintegration occurs only to instantaneously regroup into an existence belonging now to someone else. The death of my ego is the birth of beauty.

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Spielrein states that since there is no coming into being without destruction, the preservation of the species would lead to dissolution and assimilation, without which we would have no creation of new beings. The self-preservation drive would not create anything new, seeking always to maintain the inertia of the Self.

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|COTRUTA CRISTINA ESSAY_03_COMPUTING AND THINKING “Assimilate” comes from the Latin prefix “ad” (meaning “to, towards”) and “similis” (similar), transformed into the late Middle English “assimilat” (“absorbed, incorporated”).

The idea of assimilation of or incorporation of something into another is an interchangeability that is parallel to nascency and dissolution simultaneously.

Svankmajer’s classic short from 1982, “Dimensions of Dialogue” brings forth the image of disintegration as a result of integration and synthesis of divergent spectrums. As opposite as they are in the beginning of the “game”, the “opponents” find a way to weave into the other, instances of themselves, thus perpetuating this episodic action to an infinitum. A loop of undefined movements and undertakings of scraps, remnants and pieces of the old into the unique, unfamiliar ‘new’. What makes me particularly curious about the sequences is the continuous ‘eating’ of the ‘new’. The ‘new’ is in no shape or form rooted, it is on the contrary very fluid, ambiguous and unstable. It pertains mercurial properties almost. And at the same time, the ‘new’ is opposing the ‘old’ while being intrinsically based on it.

It is an antithesis to an already established thesis, a negation of an affirmation. But with this jelly-fish motion, it perpetuates continuous change and a secondary antithesis to the antithesis of the thesis. A loop of negations to an existing.

Art responds to the need to make it accessible to the larger public and either we admit it or not, the individuals who enter public spaces of display determine how this art is talked about.

It becomes a continuous loop of agreements, disagreements, perspectives, interpretations, denials…an array of disorient splashes of ideas that engulf the image/art item and slowly but unfailingly make it invisible, cruelly different from the original ‘thesis’ intent.

In a way, we arrive to what Boris Groys mentions in his essay ‘Art Power’, that every new modern art piece is an opposite response to an ‘old’, but then the ‘new’ is a nascent and also a dissolution simultaneously.

Allowing public access to this ‘dance’ of interpretations, almost leads to the erase of the initial intent, a dissimilation.

Svankmajer’s video puts forward the question of duration of assimilation and going back to the idea of private vs public art display, I cannot help but ask myself: how long is too long enough and how do we, as a society that wants and has to build a democratic, future environment for ourselves allows for public access to ‘image’, existing ‘old’ art without denying it the right to freedom and peace of mind, freedom of initial intent and freedom of speech in its original form?

I became ardently aware of the idea of image in modern (or if I may be allowed to call it ‘act-alike’) society and the role of the individual in perpetuating emergence of image/art for future generations, future ideologies and future understandings of us as a socium.

The research in studio led me to an opposition of ideologies in terms of art display. Public vs private and what consequences the manifesto of each has on a larger scale, not just the image itself but on issues pertaining politics, social inequality and even environmental blockages.

My voice spoke for the art pieces hidden within the Geneva freeports and the imprisonment of more than 1.2 million works of art in storage boxes, containers and metal doors; how the image is available to only an insanely small percentage of the capital world giants and how image becomes appropriated and assimilated into modern culture based on just a few narrow perspectives. Image is blocked and isn’t allowed to reveal itself to the world to be ‘judged’ and I believe it deserves to be ‘judged’.

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But a part of me also understands that displaying art publicly makes the image vulnerable to dissimilation.

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3GBX_ART DISPLAY HT2410_01 HT THESIS PROJECT RESEARCH SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 3GBX INSTRUCTOR: Damjan Jovanovic SOFTWARE: Adobe After Effects, C4D, Redshift, Agisoft Metashape

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project brief Thesis is the culminating project of SCI-Arc’s curriculum that prepares M.Arch 1 and M.Arch 2 graduate students to make a statement and form a commitment that establishes their orientation to future architectural work.

Every thesis project tackles questions and problems which are urgent to the discipline of architecture in 2021, making an attempt not only to synthesize the practice of design as it is now, but as it might become. This means taking account of the situatedness of every thesis project in relation to its many entanglements with the history and theory of the discipline, society, and environment, and projecting them forward into new possible futures.

In the spring, the Thesis Project Research seminar will develop initial thesis propositions through research into situated territories of inquiry with critical questions and effective methodologies that lead to new speculative architectural proposals. The deliverable pivots away from the conventional separation of design proposal and written statement to the development of a strong and argumentative position articulated from within the work of speculative design in the act of making a statement. The vehicle of this design statement, due at the culmination of the seminar, and refined through weekly meetings and multiple reviews with design advisors, history/theory cultural agents, and external coconspirators, will be a thesis broadcast.

-course syllabus

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Art curation began with the first 16th century private cabinets of curiosities to later on develop into a dependent system of curation and display within such intricate institutions as the first public built museums. Art display became accessible to the larger public, establishing itself as a social entertainment device. This spawned a question towards the liability and also the level of accessibility of art items

top public art display

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Private collectors and dealers began to invest in art works and constituted a structure of security around public art display, known as the freeports, making it inaccessible to the larger public. Over 1.2 million art items are stored privately, neatly tucked away from the public eye within these institutions. top Geneva freeport

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Art display took a new meaning with the emergence of social media and online platforms. Technology allows for different curatorial solutions. top art curation

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Non-fungible tokens are stored in block chains and are used to represent ownership of unique items.

Contemporary art curation sees art choose itself upon how and where to be displayed. Art pieces curate themselves based on new curatorial grounds and the familiar space of curation is altered. top

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Beeple “everydays’

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My thesis explores the idea of image self-curation and tries to question the contemporary approach on the collectible artifact. By taking scans of an x number of physically existent art items and bringing them into the digital area, the art item is ‘re-seen’ and ‘re-established’.

top 3d scans of personal assets as example

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3d scanned art display The idea is to allow for the images to create their own environment of curation. The result would be an unknown to us but a known to them. link to video broadcast: https://youtu.be/Xct9_yvLmJo

left 3d scanned environment of the San Francisco ‘Palace of Fine Arts’

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3GBX_BUSINESS START-UP AS3230_01 AS PRACTICE ENV GR SEMESTER: Spring_2020, 3GBX INSTRUCTOR: Michael Folonis TEAM MEMBERS: Rob Leising, Dharsini Kalaiselvan, Jinyu Rao, Runhuan Wang, Shivani Udayakumar SOFTWARE: Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel , Adobe InDesign

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project brief This course focuses on the organizational and managerial issues to carry an architectural design from concept to implementation. It explores principles and concepts essential to managing projects applied to a variety of design and project delivery cases. Cases focus on specialized practice, the role of the architect in new forms of project delivery, resolving design conflicts between the community, project team and the client, collaboration; making contractors perform, working in another country, and the use of new technology in design and management.

Topics including human factors, planning, scheduling, cost control, risk management, design and construction management and latest developments in information technology for project management are presented. Topics discussed answer such questions as how clients select architects; how architects find commissions; how projects get publicized and published; how to obtain/maintain your licensure, keys to selecting and working with collaborators; engineers, consultants, and contractors. How to start your own practice; working with owners, contractors and developers. Students can expect to learn the skills needed to make design, management, and technology decisions in the building of their own practices and in the roles as project architects.

-course syllabus

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architectural services The project proposes a series of developments meant to explore a real-life office work proposal and understand how communication with the client happens in order to secure the design project.

left architectural services proposal cover

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We defined a series of assets to be developed to be handed in to the client as a design proposal

top scope of work and scope of architectural services

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The client needed to understand the level of experience our company has, therefore, a series of already designed and built projects were proposed as examples. top work samples

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A very important aspect is the financial one, so our team proposed and showed the complete financial situation of the project, as well as the timeframe for the project being completed top financial schemes

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Our business plan focuses on the idea of developing design services starting with small commercial design projects, interior design works and gradually moving growing towards a bigger market of urban housing.

We wanted to start with a smaller team that can grow eventually top

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business plan

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Our company aims at incorporating 4 main principles: diversity, inclusion, communication and experience and focuses its marketing strategy on the idea of networking, community involvement and considers social media to be a focal point for success. top business plan

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© 2021 Cotruta Cristina All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher and author.