12.05.2008

Take that Venice Beach

This is by far one of my FAVORITE green-ings of daily life. This video was made by GOOD magazine. This wonderful man made the first official ecogym. It's reminiscent of what the first Olympians might have been stretching and flexing on. The brilliance behind this idea is that we might not need to "re-invent" the wheel, but just figure out how it was done in the first place. A dash of comedy and salt is always enjoyed.

11.23.2008

Level One part 4

Recently I have been working projects that contribute to my idea of the inhabitable organism. I origianlly broke it down in to certain steps.
Level One consisted of
1. Noise Recycled into the System
2. Nesting/BioMimicry/BioMimetics
3. Existing/Exploration of Materials
4. Pattern Recognition and Accumulation

This latest endevor has been focusing on Level One part 4. (It also works with Level One part 1 to a degree. )

I have been having "happenings" during lunch time in Los Angeles. The project "Mass Collection 1" is about well that. Mass collection! The medium is chewed gum and plexi glass. I stand in a specific spot for 3 hours and ask people to come and chew a piece of gum and place it where ever they feel it belongs on the plexi. If some one is passing by with gum already in their mouth, I ask them to place that piece on the plexi and I give them a new piece. The gum is a Mexican brand of Chicklets and come in a variety of flavor and colors. This piece also is about mark making and territory. So far, I have had 2 of these happenings.

The first site was Downtown Los Angeles by the Public Library. There, the demographics of the crowd was mainly people in suits, bike messengers, and some homeless. There were even some tourists in the mix. Here are some of the photos of the piece and the making of it.

This is the final composition for that session::
The other site in front of a coffee shop in the Arts District in Los Angeles. The accumulation was completely different. People were more apt to changing and adding to previously placed pieces. This piece was more graffiti like. People also felt compelled to draw and be creative with it, saying "I don't know what to draw/I don't know what to make." The only direction I gave (for both pieces) was to place the gum where ever you saw fit, preferably on the plastic. This piece was also more 3dimentional, where people would add to each others mounds. People were also bringing up a precedent gum wall in Northern CA.

Here are some images from the wall in San Luis Obispo::

The next stop is Chinatown. Other sites are heavy pedestrian places... I might be in Venice Beach tomorrow doing it so come

10.13.2008

don't burn on re-entry

Having conquered the world made of bits, you need to reform the world made of atoms. Not the simulated image on the screen, but corporeal, physical reality. Not meshes and splines, but big hefty skull-crackingly solid things that you can pick up and throw. That's the world that needs conquering. Because that world can't manage on its own. It is not sustainable, it has no future, and it needs one.
-Bruce Sterling

It's about time I returned out of retirement and continued in my pursuit. (I hit some unfortunate events and one unfortunate vehicle hit me...)

But alas, returned.

I am in Minneapolis right now for the week. I am attending the ACADIA conference on silicon and skin. They focus on bio materials in digital design in architecture. Some of the speakers are a few of my favorites:: Sanford Kwinter and Francios Roche. Others I am interested in are :: Jerome Frumar, Charles Lee, Jelle Feringa, Aaron Westre, and of course who would be talking at this conference? RAMESH! my first computer modeling teacher from Carnegie Mellon University. Oh the days of FormZ. More to come as I attend.

I am reposting my final (sofar) video later today. It up loaded incorrectly before. Sorry about that.

8.07.2008

SNEAKY PEAKY....


Here is one of the renderings. This one isnt used in the film. But you get the idea of what is happening. This is all you get for now. The film is to be presented in... 48 or so hours.. so it will be online after wards.. stay tuned. and WATCH OUT.
Thank you to Jenna also for helping me make this... AWESOME.

7.23.2008

Almost a party favor...

I didn't want to make any fun-guy jokes. This little bugger is a fungus from New Zealand. Ileodictyon cibarium is the name of this amazing growth! It forms this structure formally is reminiscent of coral and a vonoroi script.

I stumbled across this while looking for images for the film I am making.
Think of this being in the "structure catagory/ the scaffolding.


"Fruiting Body: Initially a whitish "egg" up to 7 cm across, attached to white cords; rupturing, with the mature fruiting body emerging as a more or less round, cage-like structure, 5-25 cm across, forming 10-30 polygons; arms about 1 cm in diameter, not thickened at the intersections, white underneath the olive brown spore slime; the egg tissue creating a whitish volva, but the mature structure detaching from it." _Kuo, M. (2008, July). Ileodictyon cibarium. Retrieved from the MushroomExpert.Com Web site: http://www.mushroomexpert.com/ileodictyon_cibarium.html

7.22.2008

grow lichen this?

you want to be a super (foods) model?

Here is the most recent processing script so far. We have 3d space. We have movie out put! We have a movable environment. This code is built off of what Valentina Vasi and I presented for Roland Snook's Swarm class last semester. Granted most of the origional code work has to be contributed to Mr. Snooks. He's amazing. This script uses the kVec and kGeom libraries that he and his other partners at Kukkugia developed. I also have to address Mr. Baoquoc Doan (aka mr. WOK) for helping me so far also, especially with the video out put.

I will be posting some of the interview footage soon.

7.21.2008

Green walls && growth walls


This is an installation made by Jesse Harlin and the Shadow Observatory. Growth Interactive installation consisted of music generated by user input on two gravis gamepad video game controllers. A large image of CG leaves were projected on the wall that responded to the music created by the user.
I wrote him an email and he got back to me (in only a few hours!) Jesse is currently working on a 14 ft. tall organism that will detect human proximity and motion, temperature and light levels to ascertain an "emotional state" and then communicate that emotional state through 16 speakers over 8 discrete channels. Pretty groovy. He is using arduino and max/msp. He is making a "symbiotic music organism." Very similar to Marcos Novak's Navigable Music but the music its not just the void in the space, it is the thing. (I need to get my installation rolling along.. but thats another story. ) Here is the video footage link he sent me:

Imaging if this also could happen with actually green walls?

7.18.2008

le interviews...

Interviews start in a few hours.. the line up is.. well lining up...
First I am presenting them with my thesis....

Here is my thesis statement for what we can go off of....

Current culture is now polluted and propagated with escape routes and throw rugs of green and sustainable design, offering penny pinching game plans to move towards the illusion of tree hugging in Prada. Buildings (dwellings) can not be fully sustainable until they can assimilate and integrate themselves into the contextual biospheres, self utilizing the excess materials through a symbiotic metabolism. Though as every object/particle could be argued as having its own agency and possible realities, their reaction via their observed system has the potential for being dynamic through time and scale. The goal of the matter is to chisel towards and ideally define what is an Inhabitable Organism, and thus developing the model for which it is entitled and can be communicated across the rhizome.

and here are some of the questions:


What does it mean (to you/your practice) to be sustainable?

What do you think the repercussions might be for buildings having metabolisms?

What do you think about the potential for buildings to be Inhabitable Organisms that work in symbiosis with its inhabitants?

What is the potential for self organizing space that has an active reaction to its users?

Interviews will be no more than 10 mins as this final film will be oh .. 10 mins.. I want to see what everyone has to say.. the model is coming along...

Here is a still from one the scripts I am messing with. I am making a composite with another one and getting it to be 3d...I should just use the swarming kokkugia code from last semester but....

How does your home grow...




Just to reiterate how awesome and on point this project is....
Thanks Terreform.
Thanks Mitchell.
and Thanks

Artist Edina Tokodi. Green terrorism! Reminiscent of the Knitta Please...

7.16.2008

BOOKCLUB-broods everyWARE

In Octavia Butler's book, Lilith's Brood, (of course in a human led apocalypse) the survivors must "choose" to adapt to their new circumstances and environments and merge with an alien species, the Oankali, or face extinction. As the original title suggests, Xenogenesis is an origin story, about a completely new beginning for humanity in which essentialist conceptions of identity are immediately put into play with alienness. In the last part, the character Jodahs's body drastically responds and adapts to its environments wishes and is no longer be alien to anything. The body can choose to truly inhabit any other body, any environment and therefore is a transformation of the understanding between subject/object. Humans are drawn to its appearance, which morphs to align with their own desires. Ultimately Jodas is the interface where increased chance of survival is coupled with the fulfillment of deep inner desires, as its own body can shift to become whatever another longs for, transcending and commanding categories of definition such as sex, race and form. Humans are given the chance for something they themselves have agency to help define and construct and live symbolically with.

Similarly yet closer to our realms of recognition, in Adam Greenfield's book Everyware, the Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, we are looking for this interface that keeps "face." His book is broken down into 81 thesis(s), one being "Everyware is information processing embedded in the objects and surfaces of everyday life." The point of the Inhabitable Organism is part of this embedded info processing. It is the matter of the data that is rendered visable or just "digetstable" (no pun intended) to its users. An important facet that I would like to exploit out of this is that the Everyware is also the user not just the used, and the "users" are also the used. The dialog between those increases while in flux.

While discussing this book for the class I have with Benjamin Bratton, I realized what is necessary for the InhabOrg to actually work::RIGIDITY! Aka conflict is structure. (Bits vrs atoms or bits and atoms ) This new form of building/growing can not exist as a democratic system. So thus it has to have the scaffolding to grow and and repeal against. The interface of the the Inhaborg has to to be embedded and interlaced with other interfaces... it is not just fungus growing on a wall, it is fungus growing on a lattice structure with a copper battery and led and sensors that then shift and shock the new "skin/muscle" to react to what it senses (people/animals/things/environment/etc)

response and alterations...

Current status of the thesis presentation:
I have the packaging sequence story boarded out. I have employed a friend of mine to help visualize that part. I am currently PHYSICALLY growing fungus (not the lichen that I would like but we are starting with some mushroom action. ) I am currently scheduling interviews with people who are working on the lines of this idea. I will post the questions soon. I am almost done with the processing script that will be used to help visualize the growth of this thing.

I sent my thesis statement to Pia Ednie-Brown, a professor at the SIAL.
In her response she pinpointed out somethings.

What does it mean for environments to "assimilate and integrate themselves into the contextual biospheres, self utilizing the excess materials through an auto- metabolism."?

To my own criticism of my statement, I do believe that most systems and environment already integrate themselves into the existing context, eventually if not immediately but their relation and integration is not communicated and understood but the users all the time. Overall, I guess this statement of them assimilating and integrating is pushing towards a stimulus with a "positive" outcome that would not have a terribly foreign and dramatic effect on its surroundings. The self utilizing statement runs along the lines of Waste=Food, a concept pushed by William McDonough and Partners, a prevalent designer in the world of green design. (In their Cradle to Cradle Design, they have a term called BIOLOGICAL METABOLISM. "the natural processes of ecosystems are a biological metabolism, making safe and healthy use of materials in cycles of abundance.") One could say we are trying to do that here.

Pia also brought up what the thesis statement lags in in how this model or desire to design to define what an 'Inhabitable Organism" is (or, could be), isn't just a one shot procedure but could be easier of I gradually defined what the value or goals of such a thing is. This way the model is more of what it become or could become.

Also she brought up the point that buildings become "part of ourselves as organisms, like new limbs, skins etc as we inhabit them – ie they are organisms to the extent that they are part
of living ecologies. If you are (as the sentence above suggests) seeking a building that is autonomously an organism (to the degree that living creatures are autonomous) then I imagine we could not rely on them in the same way as we do our rather solid conventional dwellings. But could they offer the world something else, and what would this be?"

Good question! (It's funny that Pia refers to the building being an extension of ourselves much like a limb and etc due to it was the extension of ourselves that brought me to architecture as a scaler jump from fashion initially. just a side note) I think its more to make the building autonomous away from a larger support grid. (of the grid .. etc. ) But supporting it with the inhabitants. So you could come home and feed your house sort to speak. You could power your house potentially with a urine battery. Or compost pile. Imagine, you might be able to "power" your house with the ants you could attract from the food left out.

The human interaction and relationship with the new structure is very important and is going to be addressed when this movie is finished. Tali and Peter from Imaginary Forces came in yesterday and talked to us about their work and projects, specifically the Experience Design. The presentation reminded that thats was what it was about in the end. What is the experience of the Inhabitable Organism? How can that be communicated? How can people understand that its ok to want and grow one of these things?

7.11.2008

breeding spaces


A biological life support system (BLSS) can, by exploiting photosynthetic and microbiological sequences, close the circuit of metabolism and energy processes and thus from a self-contained cycle between producer, consumer and composer.

Zbigniew Oksiuta

7.09.2008

im sticking with you, cus im made out of glue...

While studying bacteria to understand the basics of how cells work, microbiologist and geneticist Yves Brun, Ph.D., of Indiana University in Bloomington found a natural form of "superglue" in the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. This glue consists of a sugary substance that does not dissolve in water. The bacteria uses the substance to attach to water pipes and rocks in freshwater streams. Brun performed a test to investigate the bacteria's strength. He allowed the bacteria to attach to a tiny glass tube, then measured the force required to rip them off, using a special microscope equipped with a probe.

Brun's findings reveal that the bacterial glue is several times stronger than commercial dental adhesive or even superglue, with an adhesive force of nearly 5 tons per square inch. This makes it the strongest biological adhesive ever measured. Brun's studies suggest that the glue works in water and can attach to just about any type of surface. These characteristics make the substance an ideal candidate for a surgical adhesive, says Brun, who is now working to understand more about the properties of the natural glue.


7.03.2008

installation progressions....

yikes. So here is a combination of what is going to be going on ....
Here is a mechanical dry erase board project that I found that is VERY VERY similar to my project. The guy who made it, Romado12187 has been a big help so far. Mine will just spray glue versus ink. As to spray the glue... I am going to make it as a tangent to this project. This whole thing has made me a bit nervous. I really hope I can pull this off. I also need to buy a blower...

7.01.2008

el thesis statement...

Current culture is now polluted and propagated with escape routes and throw rugs of green and sustainable design, offering penny pinching game plans to move towards the illusion of tree hugging in Prada. Buildings (dwellings) can not be fully sustainable until they can assimilate and integrate themselves into the contextual biospheres, self utilizing the excess materials through an auto-metabolism. Though as every object/particle could be argued as having its own agency and possible realities, their reaction via their observed system has the potential for being dynamic through time and scale. The goal of the matter is to chisel towards and ideally define what is an Inhabitable Organism, and thus developing the model for which it is entitled and can be communicated across the rhizome.

6.30.2008

for the installation

I am looking for ways to start to design this mechanism....
Bike chain? any one?

6.28.2008

mid term movie...



Here are some of the comments and where I need to take it from here. Ed Keller was there. He is so tremendous! Jean Michel and MarkDavid and 2 friends of his from UCSB were also at the review.
1. ed-what does it mean to be alive? organic/inorganic...
is the brick alive, what does it mean? what does it mean about existing in an inhaborg?
Look back to D&G and the machine of the non-organic life- what are the trends and issues of self regulation- intelligence and force0 the quantity thru flow, what is the META META for life? to exist?
2. what are the boundaries of inhabitation.. what are the rulesets.. what is the model...there is a spray can but it is just the place holder for the device to communicate- control the tools for communication
3. (this is from jmc) he said that i "undermined my credibility with the use of youtube", i need more presices in visual material and though i might be exploring the canvas right now its time for a verticle explorations. what is the new domain? what are the new parameters?
4. mdh- what is the role of the human? (good question right? gees i should have actually put that more in the forefront.. i mean who are we growing this for? oh nina ) so is it man vrs. nature but i m saying ultimately that MAN IS NATURE (i know hard to believe) and that the boundaries can be broken down from the inhabitation and the subject. You can live in something more similar to yourself.
5. also.. nano/quantum levels-bacteria things that break down he boundaries and the illusions of the boundries of existing and proposed.
6. ed again- apple tree anecdote- apple tree and the parasitic vine became one. the sapping- what are the local and global implications and how it actually harnesses the energy(s) around it.. why the vine not the strangle
7. macroscopic and fields .. look at the macro break down in the other fields that operate through the matter/media
8. I NEED A MODEL OF THIS THING>>>>>>>>> MOST IMPORTANTE!.....what is the basic model.. what does it mean to be this THING? where is the feed back loop from the rules...
9. THE FLY!!!
Goldblum takes over the habits of the fly--predistinguish.. there are a catalogue of attributes what is the TAXONOMY of this SPECIES-- where is the TRANS action the mutual exchange between the people and the inhaborg?
10. (here's a kicker) RE DEFINE EVOLUTION... that one is one of my favorites.
what does it mean for evolution to take place? communication to evolve? what is the rule set of communication .. think about Sanford Kwinter's class, how does it integrate to culture and complex life? how does it get there? memes? Temes? memorization systems and habit...
11. micheal serres txt.. ill get back to that... model for how things work in this world irreversible..
12. thermodynamics model and info theory.. how to produce/value its intelligence?
13. noise reaction-- question of level 4 .. how do you know if it is going the right way?
14. jmc-make it more systematic.. work with systems towards the model
15. mdh-making and doing only way to progress the project.. and i completely agree.. i need to start to make some of the experiments.. ben bratton said that to me in the first convo i had with him on this... yep.. its all a big i know you told me so.. i just have to get it done.
my experiments for the model.. what ever happened to me and the scientific method?
16. write out a thesis statement.. (we should have done this in the beginning.. but you know how things are around here)
17. reflect on the media, the biology is the media...medium of communication. (back to the great dance.. iLove that movie)
18. limits of organic life- nasa paper, how would we be come if we didnt know how we got here?
non living vrs. .living
how inhaborg deals with contact flow and information.. what is the pattern recognition. transmition/transactive
19. what are the protocalls/ mattenence of pattern.. but also ARAKAWA AND GINS.. breaking habit.

6.24.2008

DNA


Little bit on the lowdown.

mani-pul-ation....

This is the proposal for an installation I am making for the Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival . This is exploring some of the points in Level 1 of the steps to Inhaborg. This is also for a class I am taking with MarkDavid Hosale. So by the end of it (or at least August 8th) I will know how to get my little arduino board up and running.





Words From Chu



The evolution of life and intelligence on Earth has finally reached the point where it is now deemed possible to engender something almost out of nothing, at least in principle, a universe of possible worlds based on generative principles inherent within nature and the physical universe. For the first time, mankind is now finally in possession of the power to change and transform the nature of biological species, including the genetic make-up that defines the condition of being human. By bringing into the foreground the hidden reservoir of life in all its potential manifestations through the manipulation of the genetic code, the unmasking or the transgression of what could be considered the first principle of prohibition - the taking into possession of what was once presumed to be the power of God to create life - may lead to conditions that are so precarious and treacherous as to even threaten the future viability of the species, Homo sapiens, on Earth. At the same time, depending on how mankind navigates into the universe of possible worlds that are about to be siphoned through computation, it could once again bring forth a poetic re-enchantment of the world, one that resonates with all the attributes of a pre-modern era derives, in this instance, from the intersection of the seemingly irreconcilable domains of logos and mythos.

From Genetic Space, Karl Chu
-

6.21.2008

moving units

Now is time to start thinking about what are these units, what are these cells that are sprouting and spreading? What is this unit we are scripting and coding? How would this happen in reality and not just in the the maya perspective viewer? Let's look at what makes a cell as living or possible to self sustain?
The
Top Ten things that characterize a Cell as Living:
1. Cells obey Laws of Energetics - they transform energy
2. Cells are Highly Structured
with emergent properties
3. Cells have an Evolutionary Origin (from a single primordial cell)

4. Cells Metabolize
possess metabolic pathways, process nutrients,
self adjust to environment via metabolic regulation
5. Cells Self-Replicate (divide)
µ
6. Cells Osmoregulate
7. Cells Communicate 8. Cells show Animation (cyclosis ) 9. Cells Grow, Divide, & Differentiate10. Cells Die!!!! so, this building will not last forever! it be able to change and morph at will. reaction and actions.
Cells transform energy (waste/food) by capturing light and chemical/redux reactions. The cells trans form the energy to do work - osmotic or mechanical or electrical (mmm electrical). Not only do they transform the energy but they give off energy as to maintain a non-equilibrium ordered state.

That's some radical agents. Each cell is a power plant in the spectrum of the organism. Imagine harnessing the energy? There is so much potential out there!

The basic units I will be looking at for now are the following:
animal cell based
plant cell based
hybrid (plant-animal)

Each start off as a unit in a petri dish, or like the The Perfect Human, by
Jørgen Leth. That is how it forms in the computer, the script that lets the code unfold without outside stimuli. Then we take it as (Lars Von Trier did with his 5 Obstructions) , set the code/cell out with new parameters and chance and time and context.

6.20.2008



Eichstatt
This is a reactive hyrid plant that grows, blossoms, and withers. The leaves and flowers are picked from The Garden of Eichstatt, a 17th century botanical book.

Eichstatt is an online version of an interactive installation (with jars and suction cups) shown at the Royal College of Art Show in 2001.

Metaphorical.net is a collection of experiments that explores and extends the passions and fleeing enchantments of William Ngan.

Also

http://processing.org/exhibition/works/bees/index_link.html

6.19.2008

Metabolism= Peeeece of mind

Scientists in Singapore have developed a battery powered by urine. Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology created the credit card-size battery as a disposable power source for medical test kits. Ki Bang Lee and his colleagues have designed a disposable battery on a chip that is activated by biofluids, aka urine, blood, and potentially even semen. All this stuff in our bodies is potential energy! All these fluids contains ions which allow the electricity-producing chemical reaction to take place in the battery.

This potentially low-cost biodegradable battery is not that complex to fabricate. Lee and his colleagues soaked a piece of paper in a solution of copper chloride and sandwiched it between strips of magnesium and copper. This sandwich was then laminated between two sheets of transparent plastic. When a drop of urine is added to the paper through a slit in the plastic, a chemical reaction takes place that produces electricity. (Electrici-pee!)

This little prototype battery produced about 1.5 volts, the same as a standard AA battery, and runs for about 90 minutes. Researchers said the power, voltage, and lifetime of the battery can be improved by adjusting the geometry and materials used. This technoloy can be used to power laptops, mp3 players, lightbulbs, whatever potentially! imagine all the energy that has been wasted! No more black outs in NYC! Everybody Pee!

6.18.2008

list of things...

I have been tardy in getting this out.. but here is the list of 100 projects that contribute to the progress of the inhaborg. Bear with me as this is going to be an unruly list.

The following are key points of projects.:

1. project with goal of recycling waste(noise)
2. reuse cancer
3. reuse aids, dwelling that live of the disease
4. reuse urine as the main power source for heating
5. homeless/nomadic virus pod that attaches and attacks the propelled surface similarly to a leech.
6. pin point on suction technologies and their application.
7. observation of suction and connective tissue in plants and animals
8. additive and interjection of technologies potential in reconfiguring the suction and connective tissues in plants and animals
9. additive and interjection of nano technologies potential in "wall" cartilage for maneuverable environments
10. unit design and coded cells
11. look at collective building systems such as coral and or pollen collection services
12. symbiotic relationships and interweaving of organisms that unite to form the dwelling
13. plant animal hybrid cells?
14. Building out of banyan trees interlaced with internet
15. nesting systems
16. weaving systems
17. reactions to implied force, aka heating and cooling, chemical reactions
18. Endocrine secretions to cause a genetically-programmed death in octopus/dwelling
19. walls with chemosenors, transducing chemical signal to potential action
20. collage and layering of "cells" and eating them away
21. bacteria spray that eats at masonry brick and leaves a residue that allows for new mold/moss growth
22. vomeronasal organ exploited to a surface, reacting and acting on its stimuli
23.looking at how ivy grows on buildings and thinking how to implement that in to a system for an inhabitable growth
24. observations of mitosis
25. cell communication through paxillin
26. start growing plant life homes in obscure urban places
27. start gowning plant life homes in automobiles that live off of exhaust
28. structure from hair
29. structure form shed skin
30. structure from belly lint
31. structure from ear wax
32. structure from cum
33. structure reacts to spit
34. structure that reacts to water
35. material that dissolves in water
36. self organizing space via simple unites and a electrical charge between the connectors
37. morter less brick at the nano level!b
38. Stimergy (information gathered from work in process) and out putting that info for reactions
39. Bernard Convection as a form of information transfer
40. the use of flocking in birds or bee swarming ad a active yet temporary space/field definer
41. metastasis of growing agents from one body(part) to another, more fluid tranfer of the parasite that builds as it eats, builds from its wastes
42. structure that is powered by urine
43. structure that is powered by cum
44. structure in a cemetery that is powered by tears
45. structure that is powered by dead bodies
46. cell energy recycled and moved and die
47. bacteria giving off oil and spitting it out as a polymer base growth
48. investigations in food structures, aka inestinal structureing
49. meringue rigidization
50. calcification of particles
51. increased elasticity under heating (cheese/meat)
52.FUNGUS AMOUNGUS!
53. potato power
.....

6.16.2008

GOZILLA(greglynn) VRS. KING KONG(ericownmoss)

One thing I have to say is that Eric Own Moss is hilarious. Monday night at th Sciarc Gallery, there was a conversation between him and Greg Lynn about the current installation of the Blob Wall. The goal of the blob wall was to come up with a mortar-less brick. Amoung other things in the current public spectrum of architecture, this piece is relative to pop culture through its playful notions but what I would like to say is its potential for mass marketing and sub narration. What if each one of these units were made with googley eyes or had smiley faces much like everything in a Japanese Grocery store. What if it was a collaboration between Takashi Murakami and Greg Lynn Form? The blob wall brick (I wish we had a name for it) isnt far off from Murakami's "Mr. DOB."

Let's return to this intention of "brick". What is a brick? A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, laid using mortar, according to wikipedia. A "brick" from popular culture could be a character in role-playing and other games whose primary role is to sustain damage and act as a shield for weaker allies or just a game not far off from Tetris.

We are interpreting this "brick" as a structural element, though the installation did have a small collapse. Though "mortar-less" this brick did not snap into the next one or relate, it was restricted to a predestined form instituted by the modeling program. Now I do not want to assume here but if this path was taken then great.

What if the brick was used as the bases of a script, the brick was the unit that had its own reactions/wants/needs/desires programed in to its possible behaviors? Even Jonathan Borofsky's Human Structures start to address these points in there own evolution and realization. If the blob wall unit was allowed to expose itself and may be even dissolve into its self. What if he employed the Xfrog Program to let the evolution?

What my suggestion was that the actual structure served as the mortar, the membrane could have a reaction to itself and maybe grow on to its self. Or if an introduction of sunlight via sunlamps or etc and then embedded in the surface is a mold or some bacteria/fungus that spreads and grows exponentially with the sun. Just a suggestion.