EXPERIMENT 2 - quotes

1. Stephen Hawkings:

"We shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God"

from his "A Brief History of Time", p233.

2. Jane Goodall:

"It can seem as you look out that it's just chaos and that we behave in terrible ways and we never really seem to get better. But we have to remember that compassion and love and altruism is equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage. They are just as evident in chimpanzees as the brutal, aggressive side of chimpanzee nature. We humans, therefore, have a choice ahead of us, we don't have to go the aggressive route. We can push and push and push towards love and compassion. That is where I believe human destiny ultimately is taking us."

from http://www.uksociety.org/jane_goodall.htm

3. Florence Nightingale:

"I stand at the altar of the murdered men, and, while I live, I fight their cause."

Lewis, Jone Johnson. "Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)" http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/quotes/a/qu_nightingale.htm

Animation 3

This last animation for some reason didn't work on youtube, so I've uploaded it through blogger.

Animation 2

Animation 1

The completed model, with a couple of sections...

frank lloyd wright

My tutor James suggested I have a look at some of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses to make my ground plane a bit more interesting. I searched for images of his most famous works and noticed a pattern: they all had certain elements which extended longer than they needed to be. I thought I'd integrate a similar concept into my design, with the ground plane extending infinitely into the distance. As soon as I tried this, I realised that this linked with my 'below ground' word, abandon, in that the plane extending into the distance gave the model a sense of abandonment in the space. Below are a couple of images that inspired me.

http://architecture.myninjaplease.com/?cat=41&paged=12

http://www.flyawaycafe.com/green-architecture-before-its-time-frank-lloyd-wright-taliesin-west/

http://www.north-by-northwest.com/

18 original sketches

Here are my best 18 original sketches, it's crazy to think that these were the starting points for the final product!

The artists and their methods of production

Patricia Piccinini's "The Young Family"

Piccinini's sculpture entitled "The Young Family" is an artwork which depicts the changing relationship between what is natural and what is artificial. Upon looking at pictures of the piece, it seems to me as though Piccinini would have used leather, hair, and synthetic materials to create her sculpture. I would imagine she would have sculpted the piece using a different material to the ones we see on the surface to make the actual shapes and then covered them in leather and hair. Piccinini's piece exhibits a lot of very precise detail; the human forms within it are incredibly accurate, and would have required careful and detailed sculpting to achieve.

Sidney Nolan's "Kelly and His Armour"

Nolan's painting is one which centres around the theme of identity. He used oil and enamel paint on a composition board for this piece and employed a bland range of colours to convey the dark themes expressed by it. Nolan used very large, non-restricting brush strokes in his painting, using darker tones to outline the main shapes. Enlarging the picture, you are able to see some light brush strokes going horizontally across the naked man's body. I think this effect would have been created by simple brush strokes in a lighter colour across the painting. The manner in which it was painted and the colours used gives Nolan's piece a dark and sombre feel to it, reflecting the themes conveyed in the painting.

current model with textures...

textures used were warm (above), transparent (above for the staircase) and abstract (below).

36 custom textures!

(L to R, top to bottom): shiny, soft, malleable, transparent, metallic, wooden, monumental, sharp, warm, reflective, porous.

(L to R, top to bottom): smooth, hard, rustic, liquid, glittery, flamable, dense, synthetic, corrugated, homogenous.

(L to R, top to bottom): dull, rough, strong, opaque, organic, abstract, brittle, uniform, static, bumpy, toxic, hairy, grainy, cold, crystalline.

Sketchup model 2, with stairs

this very simple idea (bottom sketch) led me to create...

futuristic, abandon

Stair sections

(above two stairs) futuristic, abandon

(above two stairs) vulnerable, surreal