#media scape

 | Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

   “Animate Form” by Grag Lynn plays an important role as an initiator and has good potential of playing the role of index of what we try to discover for parametric design thinking. Even it has a clear language, facing with new terminology and new meanings for some phrases was hard for me to understand and comment on it. Especially for the second half of the text I am totally lost even I try reading more than one. If I have to list some phrases that I grasp form the text so far there will be: animation, motion, topology, form and parameters are ones that I may comment on. First aim of animated form is defining two terms animation and motion, clearly the difference between two. Briefly animation is evaluation and motion is movement. Related with this topic “Dagognet describes Mayer as pursuing “movement not moment” in his continuous date recordings.” I believe here “movement “represents motion and “moment” is animation. In my opinion but not sure if it is correct but, there is a process, an evaluation of something and a period of this change is what we see and define as animation. For the notion we experience not the change but movement and action in a period of time. Animation fills the in between of act and react.

   For the topology, we have a form that can be both a perfect geometry but also and, under different forces applied over that outcome is a new form and at the end these two have same topology. So when we see varies forms we should know that they may share the same topology. What we get from knowing is it helps us to decide in what way we are going to treat that form.  When I come to the page 26 I define myself sort of  a chard like much like a loose  group of words: as a star we have a form , with force applied we have new one. This force changes some parameters (parameters are qualities that define the form). Form also includes in itself curved lines and the changes we see on those lines caused by force are what we get as an animation. Further parts of the text slowly get in the computer evaluations. For that part I only able to comment as Mayer’s works are the base of computer animation. Remaining is for now a black hole but when I started to understand what he says I am mesmerized.

   One thing I remember later that there is a term which I read in the text that I cannot relate clearly.  So as I get from readings there is an approach to the state of “abstract”, “abstraction”; while I try to understand whole thing the term “Cartesian” disturbed me. What confuses me is while studying over something to define/ create that does not totally matches with strictly defined properties. Cartesian is same thing mathematically defined but I am not sure how it will be beneficial to start from it to achieve what is not defined before.

   From the “Introduction” part of the Kolarevic’s book, first two things I remember clearly are blobs and boxes. I understand that before all these non-perfect geometry started to studied architects and other fields work with perfect geometry also called as known /used to ones because of the easy of studying with them. They like it because they are able to play with it. They are able to change the way they want with the operations of scaling, multiplication, combining… There is a struggle for these new forms that are not perfectly fit to this “Cartesian” for each of different quality people who works with them have to overcome all those qualities which are new and undiscovered. This digitalization’s very basic and powerful side is, it allow person to discover and learn what we say new.  

   Another subject is the situation of (I’m not sure if it is the wright word but) co-working, inspiration, interaction between different field with architecture. Given first example are ships then airplanes. When I read “From Ships to Buildings” and “Learning from Others” I satisfied by the condition of sharing and learning from others because it opens up new doors for future. Later in the further reading this situation made me feel doubtful and irritated.

   Second chapter of the book “Digital Morphogenesis” works as dictionary of all but for me even I read it twice I am still lost. It helps to understand the background of how we should thing, how we are able to learn. The way he explains elements of this new system is what I really admired of him. All the outline of the book is shaped as when you continue to read you learn step by step, as additions. This second part as I understand tells the brief information about digital modeling.

From the last reading I learn the development of the digital modeling techniques. First new techniques developed for known/used to materials. Also both designs and end products are out of known geometry. With the new techniques it gives the ability to study over new materials. First, for the model production the technique defined by the qualities of the material. Later by the development models were define by the technique and proper material chosen related to that. For producing models at the beginning the main application is subtraction from a plane of material or a mass of it but in further ones material directly come out from machine as it was designed. All these changes give the ability to use unknown geometries before that architects were designing with perfect geometry because they are able to produce those geometries.  New geometry also effect and improve the structural system of the design too so it becomes more than skin of a building. One step further materials became intelligent, materials that are able to detect acts and react to them. All this technology also gives the ability to produce more with variations in less time.