iDMAa 2009

Last day of iDMAa ‘09.  What a long strange journey it’s been… or something.

A little bit of an introduction….

Philip Beesley Architect in Toronto (Beesley’s own architecture firm).  He’s also associated with University of Waterloo (isn’t Waterloo, Canada where the Blackberry is from?).  ”A true renaissance man.”

8:52 – Beesley takes the stage.  ”Responsive architecture” and post-humanist discourse.

Building that follows and absorbs energy from the sun, outputting twice as much energy as it takes in (why is this technology not everywhere?)

Thinking of objects as an anchor; transitional objects & transitional fields.  Babies have security blankets before we understand what it is.  We treat them as a part of us.  These things are with us as we become ourselves; helps separate us from others (does this come from our intense individuality?  Is it that ingrained in our culture?).

Hylozoism – from Lucretius – life comes out of material; it’s not transcendent, but from material qualities.

Chthonian Projects – the deep underground; “the underworld.”  In Canada, the ice has scrapped away the crust and the mantle is exposed.  Presents a unique architectural opportunities.

9:03 – Haystack Veil – Deer Isle, Maine; 1997 – created a “second skin” over the earth; a sort of lattice work over the ground to shelter new growth in a forest.

Orpheus Filter – this is hard to describe… but essentially an artificial lung made of synthetic material; rhomboids connected together in a semi-periodical pattern.  Literally breathes.

Cybele – somewhat similar.  These individual pieces of this and the Orpheus Filter are connected enough to hold themselves up and give themselves structure, but loose enough to allow a lot of movement.

9:09 – Endothelium – robotic geo-textile – individual hooks and barbs set up on tripods (these tripods “cover the Earth”) – driven by tiny motors (like cell phone vibrator tiny).  It then spreads through the field of tripods and grows.

These are funky art projects, and I don’t think my descriptions are doing any sort of justice to this presentation.  And I don’t think Mr. Beesley’s presentation is doing any justice for his actual art exhibitions.  From the looks of things, you really need to see these art installations in person.

9:16 – Carbonate formation in a proto-cell; compares this process to a 1525 painting of a knight transcending into Christ who then transcends into the ether.  In the Carbonate formation, the cells look to be feeding off each other; Beesley anthropomorphizes them.  This anthropomorphization is then further compared to the relationship between Frankenstein’s Monster and the little girl with flowers.  This gets to the idea that we should not hold natural life over engineered life; it’s all life.

9:20 – Implant matrix (another exhibition; from 2006).  Very similar to the Orpheus Filter; however it’s more complex in its “lung” functions.  Utilizes shape-memory alloy wire.  Tracks your position and it sort of “breathes” in waves relative to your position.

Epithelium – displayed in quite a few places (Ball State being one) – tracks your motion and delivers an “emotional” response.  Crowd behaviors.  One part responds and then, like ripples in a pond, it spreads throughout the rest of the installation.

9:27 – Hylozoic Soil – combines many of the systems described so far – “symphonic immersive system” – probe-like fronds listen then respond, and this response, like Epithelium, spreads.  Through weak actions chained together, we get quite coherent motion.  It’s quite beautiful to see the videos.  Very ephemeral.  ”soft, intimate”  It does not do one’s bidding; it will respond to you, but perhaps not the way you intended.  ”…lingering sense of being consumed while at the same time being served…”  Compares the whole thing to a coral reef.

9:34 – summing up – architecture through self-generating systems that appear to be living.  responsive architecture.

Q&A…

Mimicking the deeply inter-woven systems of the human body – a good way to describe his responsive architecture.  Instead of just putting a building in an environment, and having a very disconnected relationship; buildings should be interconnected with their environments.  A mutual relationship.

9:45 – power generation and self-replication.  power inside and outside are a fundamental Q along with how does the environment affect it (and vice-versa).  Even the Osmiotic (sp?) Filter is a basic example; you’re bringing in turbulence which then affects the system

During the Q&A session, I had the epiphany.  The spark of realization of what this technology could really do.  Mr. Beesley is using this tech in art installations to get the initial idea out there, however, I suspect that he has great things in mind for how this could be used more in the future in actual buildings and housing once the tech is more developed.

Final thoughts… Again, I don’t think my blog post does any true justice to Beesley’s work.  Check this out to get an idea of Mr. Beesley’s artwork.