100218 - time

Real time is more truly an engine, however, than a procession of images – it is expressed only in the concrete, plastic medium of duration. Time always expresses itself by producing, or more precisely, by drawing matter into a process of becoming-ever-different, and to the product of this becoming-ever-different – to this inbuilt wildness – we have given the name novelty. 

- Sanford Kwinter
Architectures of Time, 2001

Architecture is durational at multiple levels – both its actualization (the design process) and its resulting presence or situation in the world draw matter into processes ‘of becoming-ever-different…’ You will now begin dealing with issues of time at the level of actualization by introducing gradients to the wire installation, and at the level of presence by developing animations piggybacking the writing workshop exercise.

Etienne-Jules Marey,
chronophotograph

Bernard Cache,
surface study

GRADIENT

A gradient is a type of becoming.  It does not fix a single condition, but accepts change as part of its nature.  It blends between different states or conditions – i.e. grayscale gradient, black blending into white; temperature gradient, cold blending into hot; and density gradient, solid blending into porous.  Across a gradient, there are many nearly imperceptible state changes that create smooth transformations (see examples above).

Build gradients into the wire installation.  Some gradients will form naturally as the wire stems from variations in the landscape.  Other gradients must be introduced manually by incrementally adjusting the amount of slack in segments of wire bridging between points on the landscape, and by introducing incrementally transforming wire-to-wire connections.  Wire-to-wire connections may be made by crimping or soldering.  Their installation must be procedurally defined.

ANIMATION

Using still frames generated in the writing workshop exercise and animated frames generated in rhino sunlight studies, create a short movie documenting at least two conditions of the landscape that transform in time.  Consider how shifting scales and lighting conditions create different landscape conditions.  Incorporate neologisms into the movie.  The movie should be assembled in Photoshop using frame animation.