Adolf Loos: Oranament and Crime

Minimal Design, Modernist

The uncultured man, can almost be forgiven for using ornament and decoration because he doesn't know any better.

"Evolution of culture is synomomus with the removal of ornament" Break from the older traditions

Adolf loos was adamant that he would not subside to the argument that ornament and decoration increase the pleasures in life of the cultivated man, would never agree to such a statement.

His architectural style was very minimalistic, but with a complex variation of geometry incorporated into each design, his buildings are based on proportion, the order of the civilized man. In His essay "Ornament and Crime" he attacked the style of the Vienna Secession for its flowering designs.

Le Corbusier: Eyes Which Do Not See, Presentation

Conditions of living during the industrial Revolution were atrocious, it was dirty, cramped and most people lived in the slums:

The new Industries meant a new form of pollution filled the air, as the factories were placed far from the richer dwellings and in the slums, since the poor that worked in factories lived there, they wouldn't have far to go to work.

Le Corbusier was one of the most influential architectural theorist in the 2oth Century, he sought to create a new machinew aesthetic in his Architectural style to create a better, cleaner standard of living.

Le Corbusier had his ideas for a new rational world, not unlike the utopia's people dreamed of,

he invisioned a new paris, devoid of meaningless decoration, but composed of form and function.

Cities had means and the standards were not high enough to fullfill those means, so he sought to establish a new set of rules to encompus the requirements of the industrialized City

He starts, in his reading: Eyes that do not See: Automobiles, to compare thae standards of the parthenon to that of the early automobile. The parthenon is where standards have completed

the means and the building has evolved, the standards need not be increased.

Where as the car is still in early development and needs not quite evolved. at first the car need only provide basic transpotation, but as the means evolved (Resistance, Appearence, Durability ect...) so to did the form of the car as the standards were increased due to needs but also competion.

The link between the two is that one has evolved, the parthenon, an example of selection applied to established standards to create perfection, the car is [was when Le Corbusier wrote Towards a new Architecture in 1923] in its infancy stage, standards are now being pushed as competion comes into development.

The Car has now evolved more so that its needs are not so much addressed as its appearence, which is what Le Corbusier puts as: An elemetrary order, the minute standards have been pushed to the limit as the maker of the car tries to beat the competion with a new style of Car.

Men, Machines, and the World About

The fear here is that machines are going to take over.

Humans can't keep up with machines physically, humans need rest and breaks while, say, in a factory while the machines can be set to run all day and night.
And how well can we control them, the man has to run machines, but what will happen when they start to run themselves?

During WWII he proposes a new scientist. At this time scientist were working on the atomic bomb, yet it may have been each scientist was working on a specific part, which contributed to the whole yet they had no idea they were working on a bomb, his proposal is a reaction against, a new scientist that is aware of the consequences of his work.

Machines have no emotion, so they do not have any fear of dying or concept of pain, this can work for or against us, as in emergencies ie; a fire: a human may not be able to tolerate the conditions or may be to afraid to do anything while a machine will simply do what it is told to do, yet they will of course feel no indifference in blowing up the earth.

Integration of the Gadget

Do we really need the gadget, how nessiciary are electric tooth brushes of electric can openers, we create all this waste in these products for mass consumption when we don't need it.

Needs vs Wants of the machines

We must understand the machine, not worship it, we should use it when we need it but not give control of our lives to these gadets like cellphones and laptops.

We should controll the machine, not the other way around, how long do we spend in front of a screen?
Machines AI can help expand our own knoledge, or they may overpower us, yet they will only have the power to make logical leaps, not conceptual or inovative leaps in design and progress.

Lecture Two 10th March

Computing and media art

Search for the philosophical language

Serve as an international auxiliary language enabling people with different native languages to communicate with each other.

As a scientific language providing a simplified system of symbolism for the exact expression of all actual and possible scientific knowledge.

John Wilkins (1614-1672): Wrote a key text for philosophical language universal language, Charles BabbageAlan.
M Piell for Apple; First commercial computer

1963 Ivan Sutherland published sketchpad
changed the way people interact with computers
Douglas Englebart's NLS demo 1968 (On-line system)"The Mother of all Demos" 1990s.
Apple Power Macintosh
microsoft windows 95world wide web

History of Media Art. Multimedia art. New media.digital art. Art and technology1834. Zoe trope 1831. Phenakisto scope Eadweard Muybridge 1878
Motion picture "the Horse in Motion"
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy-first electronic artistNam Jun Paik 1958 First video artistJohn Whitney-father of computer animation

Le Corbusier: Eyes Which do not See

Le Corbusier. Eyes which do not see: Automobiles

Le Corbusier's bold statement in Towards a new Architecture (1923):"A house is a machine for living in"
It discribed well his stark unadorned avant-garde houses in 1910's & 20's

"..Aim at fixing standards in order to face the problem of perfection"
As standards are established and increased the limit of perfection is increased. When the Wright brothers set themselves the problem of sustaining bodies in the air, the result was what we think of now as disconcerning, a home made plane that few now would want to try, but as standards were increased practical results followed and a more streamlined design emerged.

Competion pushes the limits of standards, as to win you have to excel in every minute point, and as that study is pushed to the limit we have progress.

Le Corbusier uses the Parthenon as an example of standards applied to perfection, standards have already evolved to the point of perfection in this field, yet cars "do not see" yet as they are a design that has yet to evolve