GESTALT of the image and the Mind

Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Window, 1920 (MoMa, NY)

In Leon Batista Alberti 's treatise De Pictura (1435), where he discusses for the first time in western literature the concept of optical perspective, he mentions, in relation to art that, "it is impossible to take anything away from it or add anything to it, without impairing the beauty of the whole."

Illustration for Book 2, p.15

More recently, the American poet William Carlos Williams, talks about what he calls action “pruned to a perfect economy”, and goes on:

" To make two bald statements: there is nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words. When I say there’s nothing sentimental about a poem I mean that there can be no part, as in any other machine, that is redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy. As in all machines its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character. In a poem this movement is distinguished in each case by the character of the speech from which it arises."

I believe the same applies to the concept of design, which is, like Williams says, a well tuned machine, made of all the necessary elements but nothing more, since, by logic, anything not essential would be taking the place of what is. A place where form and function are interchangeable and indiscernible from each other.

Alberti said, in his famous visualization of painting as a window that the observer, from a fixed point of view looks 'outside'. The role of the artist/designer, is to establish the continuity between those two seemingly separate worlds, breaking so to speak, the metaphorical glass that stands between them.

Now, Alberti was not refering to the surface of the painting as a whole as the "window", but rather to the square, quadrangolo de retti angoli, that you draw as a boundary, limit or predetermination of the shape, size, proportion etc where the outside will be seen, like a hole punched in the very fabric of reality.

I only wanted to share these thoughts to make you think about that window, about the possibility to break it, once you know it is there. Is it possible to maintain the coherence or continuity without it? What happens in our media world where the view is fragmented or distributed around millions of tiny windows that together are more than the sum of their parts?



All images, except Duchamp's Window are from The Painting of Leone Battista Alberti facsimile that you can find at the Science, Engineering and Technology Linda Hall Library

WELCOME!

Welcome everyone!. The following project structure is intended to provide you with a methodology to be both specific and help you track the progress and meet your milestones. Since individual projects vary widely some points might not apply. However, you can use it as a roadmap to define/clarify your goals and go back to it frequently and methodically.

It has four distinct phases:

DISCOVERY

This phase helps you understand the big picture and the opportunity to achieve the main goals of your project; to take an idea from conception to completion in the most effective manner.

Brainstorming, sketch scenarios, analysis and feasibility assessments.

Define the requirements, scope, timeline, budget (your time and resources) and benchmarks for the project.

Synthesis:

• Produce a final script with the discovery result.
• Develop a production plan and a storyboard.
• Present a timeline and a budget estimate.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes! invent associations, structures, forms, silences, sounds.

DESIGN

During this phase, create the look and feel of the story. Develop the story requirements, the creative components, the technical design and the infrastructure that supports the project.

Creative Design:

• Storyline and character creation
• Script
• Storyboard
• Art Direction
• Audio Design
• Production Design

Technical Design:

• Equipment requirements
• Set/backgrounds/location/plates
• Lighting diagrams
• Special efx design
• Models, costumes and makeup

PRE-PRODUCTION

Develop and integrate all the creative, technical and information components.

• Research, research, research!
• Location Scouting
• Set design
• Casting
• Graphics, 3D video/audio production needs
• Technical integration

PRODUCTION

• Lighting
• Rehearsals
• Systems testing
• Problem resolution 
• Cinematography
• Sound

POST-PRODUCTION

• Media Management
• Editing
• Sound Mixing
• Color Correction
• VFX
• Title Design

DEPLOYMENT

Live environment:

• Projection
• Audience Test performance and feedback

• Implement promotion/communication strategies

Showtime!

That's all folks!

1-Quality: the true nature of things, the peculiar and essential character

All Illustrations custom made by Rich Powell

GUI for Processing

In response to Francesca's post here is a little sample of a GUI that can control x parameters by simply feeding the value of the sliders into whatever you need to change. Thanks Anton for integrating Zoog with Handles:-)

For now only the first two slides do something (change the size of the head) but you can download the source, open it in Processing and assign the other sliders to change color, position or whatever you want in your project. For example in the code:

ellipse(300,70, handles[0].length * 2, handles[1].length *2); handles[0] (the first handle) changes the size of the head in the X dimension and handles[1] in the Y

The reason it is multiplied by 2 is simply to extend the range since in the original code the handles are only giving values from 0 to 89 which was too small a change for the head. Experiment with that. Enjoy

Source code: Handles_Control

To Rise Above Yourself

Ever since Juan Sebastian Elcano from 1519-1522 circumnavigated the world for the first time, humans have taken the challenge of sailing, flying and even walking (David Kunst) around the earth. Bertrand Piccard talk about his next project is, I think, a great inspiration that we can all put to use in our own personal endeavors. I think his metaphors are accurate and what I like most about them is that they don't stay in that realm but are actually acted upon to become realities and shape history, the way all circumnavigators have done before.

FOODTRACER

Adding to the culinary thread started below this is a project which is very related to what we have been talking about in class. Take a look:

Food Information Transparency from gusepo on Vimeo.

Transparency and Sustainability

Image Source:http://graphico.free.fr/hfr/pollution.jpg

Last class we briefly mentioned the issue of responsibility as designers, and I asked about the carbon footprint of an avatar (which you can see here) as an example of the kind of issues which designers/engineers of this New Millenium must be aware of.

Leonardo Bonnani who teaches Future Craft: Radical Sustainability in Product Design at MIT Media Lab has created Sourcemap, an open source project that is a model of transformative Design.

Where do things come from and what are they made of?

The broken window

Marcel Duchamp, Fresh Window, 1920 (MoMa, NY)

In Leon Batista Alberti 's treatise De Pictura (1435), where he discusses for the first time in western literature the concept of optical perspective, he mentions, in relation to art that, "it is impossible to take anything away from it or add anything to it, without impairing the beauty of the whole."

Illustration for Book 2, p.15

More recently, the American poet William Carlos Williams, talks about what he calls action “pruned to a perfect economy”, and goes on:

" To make two bald statements: there is nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words. When I say there’s nothing sentimental about a poem I mean that there can be no part, as in any other machine, that is redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship. But poetry is the machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy. As in all machines its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character. In a poem this movement is distinguished in each case by the character of the speech from which it arises."

I believe the same applies to the concept of design, which is, like Williams says, a well tuned machine, made of all the necessary elements but nothing more, since, by logic, anything not essential would be taking the place of what is. A place where form and function are interchangeable and indiscernible from each other.

Alberti said, in his famous visualization of painting as a window that the observer, from a fixed point of view looks 'outside'. The role of the artist/designer, is to establish the continuity between those two seemingly separate worlds, breaking so to speak, the metaphorical glass that stands between them.

Now, Alberti was not refering to the surface of the painting as a whole as the "window", but rather to the square, quadrangolo de retti angoli, that you draw as a boundary, limit or predetermination of the shape, size, proportion etc where the outside will be seen, like a hole punched in the very fabric of reality.

I only wanted to share these thoughts to make you think about that window, about the possibility to break it, once you know it is there. Is it possible to maintain the coherence or continuity without it? What happens in our media world where the view is fragmented or distributed around millions of tiny windows that together are more than the sum of their parts?



All images, except Duchamp's Window are from The Painting of Leone Battista Alberti facsimile that you can find at the Science, Engineering and Technology Linda Hall Library