11.21.2017
- The Mutual Relations discussion between Khan and Beesley reminds me of Donna Harraway’s When Species Meet. Physical boundaries are arbitrary measures of separation, with psychological and social aspects influencing us at every turn, just as we influence the world around us by our mere presence. At what point can we identify the other? If there is an interdependence between people, objects, spaces, animals, and the rest of the world, at where can we cleanly and consicely declare that something is seprarate from us? How does this change when the ‘other’ is indifferent to us, as the case of nature, instead of manufactured or fabricated explicitly for us?
- Kolarevic’s article does a good job of breaking down various limitations and places where generative design software can succeed when guided by a humanistic touch. I wonder, however, why on p199 he mentions a need for randomness in design algorithims. I’m not arguing against randomness in design, but genuinely curious what role it would play in a system like this. Is it for finding unexpected relationships in forms? is it to introduce organic qualities as in the “annealing process of metal”? What other sources cof data ould be used for generative seeds? Could these be tailored to the purpose to location in a meaningful way?
- I had not explicitly thought of responsive environments as performative before, though I did often thing of the sapces as ‘actors’, so the model fits. But being performative assumes an audience, and spaces do not always have one present, which is why I appreciate how the argument extends into the city itself. The Guggenheim as a performative object in Bilbao, the Kunsthaus Graz’s surface. These are more than just a neat show, they play out their actions for the city itself. To extend the Deleuzian reference on page 210, these become virtual spaces extending into the past and the future. The reality of the present changes the way we perceive the objects in the rest of time. Computers help designers model the effects of physical dynamics on these spaces in the future, but how can we measure and predict the response these performances have on the culture and societies on whom they act?
