Light Canopy

Carbon Walking Machine Drawings - Take 1

Walking Drawing Machine

This weekend I took over Center Space, literally. Finding a way to track the walking movement of my walking machine proved a little more difficult than tracking its antenna. I thought about potentially attaching a drawing instrument to each of the legs but again I did not want to inhibit the natural movement of the legs, so this idea moved to the back shelf. Instead I decided to use carbon paper, from the suggestion of Patrick in a crit last week. Since my walking machine covers a large area I knew I needed a large space with a hard surface flooring (much like Montreal - Black Box), a ceiling that I could hang the 'insides' from, and somewhere that I could turn the lights out for the antenna LED photography. Center Space was perfect!

I bought a package of typewriter carbon paper because it can be used many times and still achieve the same transfer result, and also it is black. I decided to use approximately 100 sheets and laid them out on the floor within the boundaries of which the walking monster could travel, face down on top of 3 large sheets of strathmore paper. On top of this I then laid out 3 strips of tracing paper and taped the seams together to eliminate tripping of the walking monster which would in turn effect the drawing. From here it was simply up to the walking monster to travel around his confined space and draw for me!

I sat with the walking monster for 2 hours of his trip late Saturday night, and then again for 2 more hours on Sunday morning while he finished things off, which for whatever reason proved to be more finicky than Saturday night, requiring the repair of a broken leg attachment (all is better now!). The final result was magnificent, and although more subtle than I originally envisioned the result is still amazing and is a wonderful illustration of the walking motion of my monster.

Light Drawings - Take 1

This weekend the focus was on capturing the actions, movements, tendencies, quirks and personality of my large walking machine, which will be my main focus until the end of term as it is the most developed of the two. The two main actions of the walking machine are its ability to shuffle and stumble in a walking motion across the floor as well as its dynamic antenna which as discussed in an earlier posting have the appearance of flowing grass blowing in the wind.

I decided from earlier experimentation with long exposure light photography that this would be the most rewarding technique to use when trying to capture the movement of the antenna. This method also proved effective to make use of as I did not want to inhibit their natural movement or falsify their natural reactions to the walking motion. By attaching an LED to each of them I am able to track their movement by simply turning off the light, which provides no interference to their motion.

I was quite pleased with my findings, as I knew their would obviously be a tracking of their movements, I did not however realize that even though their paths of travel seemed quite random their was in many cases a pattern to their movements. This repetitive act of movement creates geometric patterns that appear almost as shapes, a kind of helix?

This is only a small sampling of the hours of photos taken this afternoon, more are to come. I am also going to be using the photos overlaid with one another to identify further patterning and continue with my course of tracking movement through drawing!

Drawing...begins tomorrow!

Taking a few days to let Monday's studio sink in a little and digest tomorrow will mark the beginning of some intense days of drawing. I will go further in depth day by day as I progress but the plan right now is to track the movement of the legs of my monsters through a carbon paper transfer technique and to track the grassy limbs on top by using light mapping. It should be exciting!

Pondering & Portfolio

Nothing necessarily groundbreaking or earth shattering to report from the last few days other than portfolio work seems to be moving along quite nicely. I realize it's maybe a tad early to be concentrating this heavily on portfolio already but it seems as though at the end of the semester I'm so rushed that I never get to do as thorough of a job on it as I would like - hence this semester I'm being pro-active and starting early - this is kinda a big deal for me!

While working away on the portfolio I'm pondering the list of stuff that needs to get done this week for studio, or rather simply thought about...not entirely sure...but it's plaguing my thoughts! The following questions need to be addressed -

- What does your monster/thing do?
- What is it about?
- What is its purpose?
- What is its site? (not specific at this point, characteristic)

Also some other items that need to be thought about are -

- Gathering all portfolio material (currently have an ok handle on this...I think)
- Suggest where the 'thing' should go (also addressed above in questions)
- Evolution
- Purpose
- Interpretations and tectonics
- Percenium
- Autopoetic system
- What are its disturbances?
- GOOD drawings
- Light & sound considerations

All of this is in the works, I'll update appropriately!

Research & Prairie Grass

Getting back on track with some quality textual research that will hopefully become inspiration or at least clarity to advance with studio, here are my newest additions...

- Soft Architecture
- Architecture and...
- Modular Growth in Seed Plants
- The Driftwood Aesthetic
- The Kindergarten

Also I'm diving right into information surrounding prairie grasses and what their purpose, function & form communicates which is what the form of my walking machines seem to be leading me towards at this point in time.

To digress, I realize that while in Montreal I felt confused about what the next step I needed to take was and how I needed to interpret the form that had essentially evolved through my process - long extended structures that for whatever reason keep leading my thoughts to grass blowing in the wind (of course along with a supportive sub structure of stick like legs). If it makes any sense all of a sudden everything seems very organic and imitative of nature through not only form but action as well. What I can appreciate about what I have created is that it too is also random, not unlike grass blowing in the wind - unpredictable & confined only to the certain restraints of space or condition, whichever is present. To make the million thoughts that are running frantically through my mind at 11pm on a Thursday night simple - I'm thinking about grass blowing in the wind. Period.

A quick re-cap of the week @ Concordia...in depth details to come!

A quick re-cap of the Black Box week @ Concordia University...each day involved visitors, critiques, individual work, set up & informal lectures or discussions...but here is a brief description of each day, kind of...

Monday ---> Basically a day of set up and checking out the space with organization for the week ahead...see previous post titled 'Inhabiting the Black Box' for a better idea of the
space. Monsters were assembled with my new fabricated pieces, which work and look great.

Tuesday ---> During the morning we had some tours of the Hexagram facility, AMAZING! The rest of the day consisted on more set up but individually rather than group organization. Chris and I rigged up our 'telephone pole' hanging horizontal wire system (which can also be seen in the 'Inhabiting the Black Box' post) for our monsters to be suspended from, which proved effective.

Wednesday ---> I started experimentation with fiber optics after my discussion with Flower to attach to the flowing 'antenna' of my monsters (see fiber optics - light extensions for photos)...as well as progressing with circuitry and getting my monsters to interact with each other.

Thursday ---> Basically a work day again, a lot more progression with circuity...this will have to be explained more in depth with a separate post to clarify in depth...stay tuned! At this point in the week I thought it would be interesting to take my prototypical circuits and make them permanent... perhaps I didn't have enough time for this at this point in the week...ha ha but I did get it done, so I guess that's all that counts!

Friday ---> An overall crazzzzzy day trying to get prepared for 5-7pm exhibition 'Grotesque Perturbations'. At this point I had finished making my boards but they were not yet working perfectly with the monsters, therefore the day was spent in extreme frustration trying to get everything working with the help of Nick and Patrick as some new elements needed to be added to what I had created. The show went GREAT!!!

Back from the Box! (and Toronto)

I survived the Black Box and am officially back in Winnipeg after a quick few day jaunt through Toronto...trust me I needed it after Montreal!

Being at Concordia all week was extremely intense, but in the end well worth it from the amount that I was able to achieve in progressing with the process of my monsters. I had no idea that everything would come together by Friday to produce such a fantastic show, well done everyone! The following posts will be a brief catch up from the week as blogging on top of everyday work was proving to be a challenge, yet I still want to make sure that everything is documented on here as well...better late than never!

Erro Ambulo

Inhabiting the Black Box

The Black Box is a large theatre space within Corcordia University in Montreal of which Hexagram is affiliated with. We basically picked up our studio from Winnipeg and moved it here for the week to work on 'Grotesque Pertubations' - soft architecture / Dedale studio workshop, working along with the Topological Media Lab.

To give an idea of a space - extremely high ceiling with a grid system used for lighting and suspension, a concrete grid floor which is conductive and also have removable panels, black fabric panel walls and one huge white wall for projection purposes.

When we arrived we began to lay out the space for placement purposes and also equipment locations. There are also 3 suspended ceiling truss rigs used for lighting, sound & projection - all of which is integrated into the exhibition using various techniques. Since Monday we have all been working on our individual 'monsters' and introducing a form of interaction to our ideas.

My walking monsters are suspended along a cable system which is attached to two posts secured to the floor. Clamps on each side of the post allow the cable system to be shared by Chris' hanging monsters to futher emphasize the element of interaction. The electronic bodies of my monsters are suspended from the cable system using pullys so that they can walk along the floor. The hollowness of the floor system amplifies the action of the walking motion into a scraping noise, which should work wonderfully with the wireless microphone of which I hope to make use of before tomorrow.

Day 3 @ Hexagram

Fiber Optics - Light Extensions

Components in Context

Components

Diagrams for Black Box Theatre

The following are diagrams for what my machine's are currently capable of, performance wise, after today there will be some additional interactivity between the two sets, but nothing that would change my set up. Basically the two walking monsters and the YMCA elmo move along the ground and require a suspended cable system (horizontal) which can be seen in the sketch below. As far as location in the room a more open portion of the space would work well as there is potential for interaction with the works of others.