Internet Reading

Unfortunatly i can't read my own notes on this page. My handwriting is very bad. So i just took a photo of the page.

Keyword

Movement

My Essay is about the new designs of the early 20th Century being the driving forces of nations, Modernism driving the West, and constructivist art and architecture driving Russia to abandond the old and completley review all concepts of definition.

Therfore the driving words behind Movement are direction, nation, new and change.

Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers

Dragon technology, speaking to a computer; New Zealanders tend to mumble words compared to other English speaking countries. Having background music may distort readings.

Computers that will read hand movements or body movements; readings will be distorted as something unpredicted enters the area; A Child is playing in the background.

Jackets with iPods in them, but what do you do when it becomes too hot to wear the jacket; no iPod?

Watches should be adaptable to do what we do, along with other such gadgets. Watches should withstand more, not be precious commodities.

Wearable computers as a means of control.

• Monitoring, Imbedded chips,
• Cameras Tracking devices
• Behavioural Monitoring devices, such as for use in prisons
  

Privacy issues

• Big Brother
  

Steve Mann is a leading inventor of the wearable computers

Lecture on Technolgy

• Consumerism as a weapon against Communism.
• Consumerism as a distraction.
• Aluminium the material of the war. Houses were built more like military houses.

We can change and rearrange the house as a plaything.

The Push Button House [It starts off as an ordinary shipping container, but throw a switch and ninety seconds later the Illy Push Button House has magically expanded into a five-room abode. Architect and designer Adam Kalkin created this jack-in-the-box-like dwelling, whose sections are unfolded by powerful hydraulic cylinders controlled by a computer in the kitchen section. The house is made out of recycled materials, and has a dining area in the centre, surrounded by a bedroom, living room, library and kitchen. This mechanized hydraulic contraption is on display now at New York's Time Warner Centre until December 29th, in hopes of demonstrating how prefabricated houses can be placed in, say, a disaster area and quickly assembled in a matter of seconds. Now if Kalkin could just figure out how to include a roof in this design, we think he might be onto something.]
A house made from a shipping container. The Wife can control the house at the push of a button from the kitchen.

Objects produced that we don't actually need, i.e. Fluoride in water, do we actually need it? Or an electric tooth brush as opposed to a normal one?

The Car is like a moving home, treating it like a living space.
TV screen as our Window into the World, but it isn't because its actually artificial, and yet people treat it as such.
Drive Throughs.
Americas strength is compared to how many appliances they have, not how many Nucleor Weapons they have.

DIY multi talent embrace of technology.

Graphic Digital Artist; Romoki
People need to get away from buying completely useless stuff.
- “Why do we need to mess with electronic devices and call it art?”
Romoki designed objects that have no use and provide minimal entertainment.
Taking consumer products and presenting them as art in a different context, i.e. Cell phone converted into a toy racing car. Taking old consumer products people put too much emphasis into and turn it into art.

Open sourced software.
- Human readable code is distributed freely to anyone who wants to modify it

Criticality of Art Design

Ren Koolhaus

"Peirecing analogues apparently incongrous ideas and creating something industrial"

Richard hamilton, Marcel Duchamp - Representing ideas as art. presenting something in a different way i.e.

Andy Warhole - Campell Soup

Frank Gehry

Drooy Design

Salvador Dali

Sex Pistols - Punk

Gorden Matta-Clark - Creating Voids through the buildings, making cuts in the unodorned buildings to show beauty.

Networks

About horozontal, charcterised by flat space, or infinite space. British group of Paper Architects [Paper Architects produce work that is not built but more a political proposal] called Archigram; 1960's


-Their ideas included plug in cities that were mobile, and entire cities that were moveable as if they walked, a city that was more like a network of connections. it was more like utopian idea.






New Babelon; 1969














Archizoom; 1969 - Non stop city ( A plan that looks like a circuit board).

When the city becomes a circuit, a moving network. Users contribute to the design, many people adding a small peice, adds to the whole project.





Superstudio; 1969
- Architectural model for urbanisation




Wikipedia
- Open sourced network.

Binary Opposition

Post modernism, opposition of made form. Post modernism made awareness of 'other' disabled access. To design in the 1950's: Richard Hamilton: Just what is it that makes today’s houses so different; 1956 Pop art; Art is for the masses! "Magnifying glass" 1962 1970: Abstract Expressionism; painting about how one felt at the time he painted it. Hippy movement, design, music, clothing. In the 60's society stopped needing and started wanting. Needs vs. Wants. Explosion of mass consumerism.

Moon landing, Sparked allot of 'moon design' i.e. TV’s shaped like helmets, futuristic "space looking design"

Ettore Sottsass, Started Memphis movement, highly post modernism. No innovation in time at crisis

No innovation in a time of crisis as there is any money to buy. [1971 Nixon suspended conversion of U.S dollar into gold]

Paris [1968] - Student uprising, the students did not like what they were being taught and by who, so they started protest which led to riots and many arrest but finally they were able to choose their lecturers


Post Modernity Building


X Y Z Buildings, Alienating with its mirror glass "Curtain" Walls which don't allow passer bys to look in yet they don't know if they are being watched...

Robert Taylor Homes
Chicago Housing Authority 1964, His buildings turned into slums, housing drug addicts and crime, which eventually turned into murder...
Therefore his buildings were demolished.


Le Corbusier wanted streets within the levels of the buildings, yet on hindsight we can see this created slums as these streets could not possibly police all the streets.

The Architects' dream 2001, Collage, VSBA Rutter Thomas Cole, demonstrates principals from Learning Las Vegas, Learn from what is on the highway. A building with a sign sells what the sign says, it doesn't matter what the building looks like. Poetics of space

Structuralism

- Levi strauss. Foucault Lucan, Bathes

Word is meaningless, it is just association, and post modernism is only significant.

Essay Draft

When society needs to be rebuilt on new principals a visual aspect is used to drive the thinking of the ‘new’, a call for this can happens due to wars or changes in government, WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative design in the early-mid 20th Century, when a new art is called upon to reflect the new direction, and Design, as creative problem solving evolves due to and is used as a propaganda tool for conflict and war. WWI was a time people never wanted to return to, so a new design was used to reflect this new ‘rational’ society. The reaction to WWI was the ‘new’, the modernist movement, driven by architects such as Alter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a time when the old Tsarist regime was overthrown and all the ‘old ways’ were tossed aside to create free country, a new art was used to express the direction of the new communist government, one of dynamism, direction and power; Constructivism, founded by Kasimir Malevich by works like Black Square and Red Square and driven by such as Vladimir Tatlin.

Many designers and architects saw WWI was a loss of rationalization, where people simply ‘lost their heads’ which they thought may have been attributed to the common style of the time, with a largely ornamented style of pointless decoration full of eclecticism that cluttered and complicated the life of the working man. Therefore they wanted to change the way of thinking through design, and to wipe clean the slate of society and start anew, a ‘New Architecture’ expressed by Le Corbusier’s work Towards a New Architecture led by architects and Designers who tried to rationalize their art to create a more rational society, as they believed that a person could be changed by his surroundings. William Morris created Art Nouveau like flower designs for Wallpapers which he believed could create better morale people by creating better surroundingsThe Russian Revolution was symbolized by the murder of the Tsar, it was the murder of all the traditions of the Tsarist regime as well, the art was no longer for the rich to admire, Art was to be free, free from the burden of the object, free from the denotations of class, it would be integrated into the lives of all, including the working man. The architecture too was abandoned, it was now an architecture of direction, design without fruitless ornament or cluttering decoration, Art was stripped down to its basic geometric proportions, free from the object and expressed pure emotion of human nature, as constructivist artist Aleksandr Rodchenko demonstrated in his various illustrations where he dismissed ‘pure art’ for an art that became a social tool, widely used as propaganda by the new communist government. Vladimir Tatlin’s Proposal for the Monument to the Third International
Would pave the way for constructivism and set the mark for what constructivist would aim for, to pierce the heavens and strive for direction. Although like many early Soviet projects it never made it past the planning stage. Constructivism would break past the barriers and restrictions old, it was the ‘new’ that modernism was built on too, both had similar means but to different ends. Constructivism was to symbolise a new direction of their country and a new Government, Modernism was to reflect a rational society, free from such inhumane acts as war and was seen as a solution for poverty, although put in practise, some of Le Corbusier’s urban city designs created hotspots for poverty living in its; elevated internal streets. Maison Radieuse (Radiant City) was a complex that was pulled down after it became the slums of Rezé. William Morris’s designs for wallpapers, believing nicer spaces create nicer people, but there is still a lot of controversy about such philosophies.


Both containing roots in each other, Modernism and constructivism, were new, original, and at their time extremely radical due to the ideas they rejected and principals behind the design philosophy. These styles originated due to the reaction of a major conflict or huge social upheaval, they abandoned all the styles before them, no more borrowing from the past styles of eclectic decoration and ornament, both Russian Constructivism and Modernism looked only forward. Yet they were accepted because they were driven by a few leaders of the movements, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and William Morris found themselves in a public spotlight as city planners and established designers, where their designs were getting out, and winning competitions and were controversy, were able to express the new movement and pave the way for modernism design. This group of fathers of Modernism wanted to steer society in their direction, they were shocked by the world war and wanted to fix society to avoid such a catastrophe again, which meant the old style of thought wasn’t working; it failed when WWI started, so something new was needed. Constructivism was a solution to another problem, but ultimately similar to modernism in that it rejected styles of the past, and aimed for a new direction, but the difference is, Constructivism symbolises the new direction, Modernism is what is being used to create the new direction.

True innovation arises from a problem. Design is creative problem solving, as when there is a conflict in society. It can be used to symbolise, direct and express using design for architecture, furniture, wallpaper and art, and reflects greatly the society it portrays, and greatly influences the mindset of that society. Design and architecture, as social tools and not pure art, adapt and reflect society to express meaning and significance, giving solutions to such social conflicts.

Bibliography: Cook Catherine, Fantasy and Construction, London, Architectural Design, AD Editions, 1984 Cook Catherine, Russian Constructivism & Iakov Chernikov, London, academy group, 1989 Corbusier, Le, Towards A New Architecture, (1923) Meuser, Phillip, New Revolution in Russian Architecture, Singapore, Page One, 2006 Saunders, Gill, Wallpaper in Interior Design, London, U&A, 2002

Design and Postmodernity

Post Modernity - is everywhere, from literature, design and philosophy.

Modernity - Renaissance, Modernity because it is now.

Modernism was all about meaning, it had a value system.

- ities: Describe the whole system, that ideology.
- ism: Are the qualities associated with these ideals

Post modernity: State or ideology of being postmodern, 1950 - 1960's, late modernism (or early Post Modernism)
Max Buildit, director of HFG School of design. 1955 -1968. Post modern design is innovated into the lessons.
America - post war 1940 - Ideas for modern buildings, Bauhaus moves to America to modernism is accepted.

Levithown House, 1955, was built. 17400 houses all identical were built, urban district where nature was suppressed. Women were also suppressed.
Post modernism was about choice; Feminism too, is about choice.

History of Industrial Design 271 Thesis

Thesis proposal, Out line;

Design as creative problem solving, evolves due to, and is a solution for, conflict and when a society is in need of change; WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative design in the early-mid 20th Century

Position: That true original design shifts only occur through extreme conflicts

Opposition: Post Modernism which occurred due to a reaction against Modernism, a style which did not originate from conflict.

Argument: Modernism was the result of a new way of thinking after the World war, it was original and seen as a rationalization of art and thinking, post modernism was simply a reaction to modernism and embraced what Modernist rejected, making it un-original.

Thesis Proposal

Huge shifts in design occur when such a time calls for it. When society needs to be rebuilt, and this happens due to wars or changes in government, when a new art is called upon to reflect the new direction. WWI was a time people never wanted to return to, so a new design was used to reflect this new ‘rational’ society. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a time when the old Tsarist regime was overthrown and all the ‘old ways’ were tossed aside to create free country, a new art was used to express the direction of the new communist government, one of dynamism, direction and power.

Many designers and architects saw WWI was a loss of rationalization, where people simply ‘lost their heads’ which they thought may have been attributed to the common style of the time, with a largely ornamented style of pointless decoration. Therefore they wanted to change the way of thinking through design, and to wipe clean the slate of society and start anew, a ‘New Architecture’ led by architects and Designers who tried to rationalize their art to create a more rational society, as they believed that a person could be changed by his surroundings.

The Russian Revolution was symbolized by the murder of the Tsar and his family as the final heirs to the thrown, no one could now claim dominance over Russia, it was the murder of all the traditions of the Tsarist regime as well, the art was no longer for the rich to admire, it would be integrated into the lives of all, including the working man. The architecture too was abandoned, it was now an architecture of direction, design without fruitless ornament or cluttering decoration, Art was stripped down to its basic geometric proportions, as constructivist artist Aleksandr Rodchenko demonstrated in his various illustrations where he dismissed ‘pure art’ for an art that became a social tool, widely used as propaganda by the new communist government.

Both these new and original, and at their time extremely radical due to the ideas they rejected, styles originated due to the reaction of a major conflict or huge social upheaval, they abandoned all the styles before them, no more borrowing from the past styles of eclectic decoration and ornament, both Russian Constructivism and
Modernism looked only forward. Post modernism is seen as a new style, a reaction of modernism and constructivism it may be thought of as an idea that originated not from war but another style. But because it is merely a reaction against these styles it simply embraces the ideas modernism and constructivism rejected, it was not original and had no aim to create a movement which reflected the direction of society, making it un-original.

True innovation arises from a problem. Design is creative problem solving, as when there is a conflict in society, Design and architecture, as social tools and not pure art, adapt and reflect society to express meaning and significance, giving solutions to such social conflicts.

Bibliography:

Cook Catherine, Fantasy and Construction, London, Architectural Design, AD Editions, 1984

Cook Catherine, Russian Constructivism & Iakov Chernikov, London, academy group, 1989

Corbusier, Le, Towards A New Architecture, (1923)

Meuser, Phillip, New Revolution in Russian Architecture, Singapore, Page One, 2006

Saunders, Gill, Wallpaper in Interior Design, London, U&A, 2002

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

Revival Of Handicraft

There was a growing demand for handcrafted goods even when unornamated. Regret for the lack of labour made goods and there were drooping spirits about machines replacing all hand labour.

Machinary vs Handicraft's affect upon the arts. Although people regretted the loss of handicraft, most the public didn't really know what sort of work went into the process of manefacture.

Capitalist which controll the market force the people into putting up with poorly made goods, because "the needs of the public are suboardinate to the intrest of the capitalist masters...
therefore individuality is a sham"pg 188

The age of "Pure Handicraft" pg 190 the workman worked for himself, then the division of labour came about in the 18th century and there was a loss of skilled labour as each man contributed to a part of a product but didn't understand the process of the whole

The loss of handicraft to machinery is down to capitalist demands, trashy ornamated design, the elemtary design for the peasent man is easier make than the geometric and proportionate designs for the civilized man. Beauty in handicraft is becoming lost to the mass producing machines, if we could have beauty in hand craft in ages of war and turmoil, why not now in this age of peace?

Idea to re-build the world after WWI, 29th cont...

Modernism History [continued from last two post]

Industrialization
Machine is a key part to this movement

• Remake peoples values
• Design could educate people

Modernism started to move widespread, and modernist architects became city planners, who were now in a position to express this "new architecture" a new spirit, movement toward: "the new"

Bauhaus: New movement took practical form

• Work
• Creativity
• Value

Breakdown of art and workmanship
Art was not just for the rich, everyone should have access to good design.
Value: Art was not just for museums, it seperates its aesthetic value from everyday life
Bauhaus wanted to integrate these three principals, and integrate them into everyday life and society.
Form Follows Function
Design language ie; Handles, different fuctions (kettle, door) Different forms.

Nazi's closed Bauhaus as a purge of modernism, in generally moved to the United States

Searching For a Utopia: 29th Continued...

Modernism History [continued from last post]

WWI was seen as a loss of rationalization, they believed: "If they become more rational with their design, it would create a more rational society" they wanted to create art into life

Russian Constructivism

Due to the Russian Revolution led by Lenin and the murder of the last Tsar; Nicolai Romonov II and his family as the only hiers to the thrown, this brought about an age of re-construction for Russia, an age of building where they were no longer held back by the restrictions of the Tsar

1919 El Lissitzky. "Beat the Whites with the red wedge" Graphic art using very basic geometric shapes.
1925 El Lissitzky. "The Constructer" A self portrait of Lissitzky, the hand of god across his face but not his eye.
Structure is expressed
Reduce everything down to the barest geometric shapes, 1920 Aleksandro Rodchenko's Spiral construction no 20.
Tatlins Tower, monument to the third international 1920, lage dynamic form, basic geometric shape, no ornamentation.
Katazyna Kobra, "Art was not something to be viewed at from a distance" you should walk through it, experiencing a sculpture

Italian futurism
they were intoxicated by the possibilities of the machine, imangined a world shaped by technology, even poetry was delivered in way to express a machine like quality in the readers voice.
Umberto Boccioni - 1913 sculpture of a man running, space and form become one, no seperation.

Modernism: Designing new Worlds - 29th

Modernism History

Modernism Came about after the World War. Architects and Designers dreamed of a world free of war or class, They believed design and technology could shape society.

Baroque Period 1600 - 1700

Ornamation in design, a more expressive style of design wich showd faith power and pristigue. ie Château de Versailles.

Industrialisation
James Watt's: Watt Steam Engine 1775 still retained classical elements in its design ie; the columns. The machine still didn't have a style yet and was still influenced by decorations such as from the Baroque Period.

Joeseph Paxton Crystal palace 1851
A modern glass and steel building used in an exhibition showing highly decorated objects inside, Design style was still: "What sort of ornament should we apply here"

William Morris was the founder of Modern Design, defending simplicity in a time when design was ornamated and full of eclectism. He was said to have been influenced by Gothic designer Pugin Augustus. Radical stripped back chairs, Sussex Rush-seated chairs (consided bare of ornamentaion) Morrisbelieved he could change society for the better through his designs, he made wallpaper designs which were flowy and were mostly designs of flowers.

There was a stripping back of materiality; Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, Joseph Hoffman (Sitting machine 1908). The Deutscher Werkbund - Henery Van der Veld and their theory of rationalization

Then came the World War