Posthuman Gestures II

Loren Adams & David Fedyk

Studio Outline:

To suggest that architecture has a vested interest in the body is neither new nor ground-breaking; but for what bodies does our architecture truly cater? Despite an increasing shift away from the universal metanarratives of modernism and towards an architecture of heterogeneity, our representation of the body in architecture remains conspicuously homogenous. The dominant architectural body – the favoured body – is a healthy body; a productive body; an obedient body; a tranquil(ised) body.

But, are there not other bodies; other valid bodies?
Are there not violent bodies; lustful bodies; exhausted bodies?
Where are these bodies in our architecture?
And, how might we develop an architectural language that brings such bodies to the foreground?

Our agenda calls for a momentary lapse in our collective allegiance to this singular, modernist body. It is an experiment; a hopeful speculation about the possibility of an architecture that resists the dominant paradigm of corporeality and strives to make space for other bodies.

RECOMMENDED BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE:
Students are required to have a working knowledge of Rhino 5.0 and Grasshopper. A prior understanding of programming languages is helpful but not required. Students must also have access to a laptop with Windows 7 OS or higher.

IMAGE: Mandel, Mike. 1985. “Robot (1984).” In Making good time: Scientific management, the Gilbreths
photography and motion futurism, 65. Riverside, California: The California Museum of Photography.

Studio Leaders

LOREN ADAMS is the Coordinator of the new MSD Robotics Lab. She has a background in architecture, with an undergraduate degree from Curtin University and a Masters degree from RMIT. Loren recently relocated to Melbourne after 3 years living and working in Los Angeles, during which time she assisted in the design development, documentation, and fabrication of numerous complex, high-spec public and fine art projects. She specialises in digital fabrication, with particular emphasis on rationalising early schematic designs into geometry suitable for fabrication, shipping, and installation.
http://lorenadams.squarespace.com

DAVID FEDYK leads the Machine Workshop at the MSD Fabrication Workshop. With an architecture foundation and a life-long curiosity of making, he has over 10 years of professional architectural fabrication experience. He enjoys combining digital fabrication methods with traditional woodworking techniques, across different disciplines, to realize his projects.
www.davidfedyk.com

Learning Outcomes:

This studio aims to introduce students to formal design methodologies using multiaxis programmable robots, through a series of structured drawing exercises and coded manipulations. The emphasis will be on developing a library of machine-gestures to interrogate notions of “drawing as architecture” and “architecture as prosthesis”. Through emulation, exaggeration, and interpretation of anthropomorphic drawing gestures using robotic technology, students will be prompted to unpack the relationship between the human body and its mechanical counterpart – the 6-axis industrial robot arm.

Throughout the semester, students will be presented with a collection of readings, audiovisual material, artworks, and architectural precedents (built and unbuilt) to prompt discussion, critique, and production of spatial outcomes. Hands-on engagement with multi-axis industrial robots and other machinery within the MSD Fabrication Workshop will form a key component of the assessment criteria, and students will be expected to produce a vast array of robotic drawings and physical models. Using the robots as a pseudo-anthropomorphic technological prosthesis, students will be invited to examine the way in which architecture is complicit in the commodification of the human body – and, subsequently, explore alternative modes of formal production.

Reading and Reference:

Gilbreth Motion Studies, Étienne-Jules Marey, Mike Mandel, Stelarc, Arakawa & Gins, Loie Fuller, Inspector Gadget, Donna Haraway, Elizabeth Grosz, Cameron Robbins, Perry Kulper, Nat Chard, CJ Lim, François Roche

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-qm2s8KZo8&feature=youtu.be

ST1/28 Monday 9:00am - 12:00pm, MSD Room 240
ST2/28 Thursday 9:00am - 12:00pm, MSD Robotics Lab

Contact Handbook Key Dates