Week 09 | Tooling

The efficiency of process does not change when we shift from 2-dimensions to 3. In fact the designer's (your) level of 'programming' has to become even more attuned to the tools that are available. When lines/curves/primitives act as your only medium, the design is much more reliant on your concept to provide its intelligence. However, the process of selecting tools based on the input and its desired but effectively inconceivable output. The title, Tooling, suggests that the most important decision made in this design process is the initial selection and understanding of the creation tool.

We are only investigating surface tools in Rhino. Extrude, loft, sweep (1 rail), sweep (2 rail), and Rail Revolve. Your charge is to define an 'armor' using only one of these tools. This is not to say that you can only use one tool one time. The basis of this class and also this assignment is discovery through multiplicity. Without the relativity of multiple successes and failures there could be no measure for discussion and therefore, no measure for improvement. The process of armoring your movement from the last assignment is a design of protection and also of resistance.




This image is referenced from theverymany.net. Although this surface was derived from scripting within Rhino, the development of your surfaces should contain a similar logic. There are obviously two systems at work in this image. Sweeping across the larger scale, think about using this technique in forming against the body and then smaller texturing type surfaces create the larger move. A single swept surface could never document the complexity and intelligence of this surface. Remember that multiple layers of information are key to reading into the surface and its purpose.

Stepping back for a moment, consider what this assignment is asking of you and what precedents you could possibly reference. Often we pressure ourselves into thinking that the most modern and digitally advanced ideas we can learn from may be our most promising assets. However, the origins of body and plate armor are highly relevant and should be viewed with as much potential as a scripted Rhino surface.



Consider this, often the most unprotected areas of the body while wearing plate armor were the joints. While understanding the medium available, hammered metal, the pliable areas of the body were made of mail. Mail was a metal mesh of sorts that would allow some protection with little resistance to movement. These areas required a new method, relate this to your own movements and systems of protection. Not all parts of the body in these images will be rendered mobile by the same system of surfacing. This is not to say that one tool will limit you to create multiple systems of surfacing. This is again where the multiplicity of using one tool allows you, as the designer, to re-think and re-program the tool to work in your favor. In other words, know the rules before you break them.

Week 07 | Sequential

This class teeters on the divide of teaching software and delivering you an aesthetic history and technique. You cannot choose one or the other to be a well-rounded designer. You may not necessarily master all programs you use, but must master the understanding of how to use them intelligently. Rhino could allow you to model the hand or the leg perfectly and actually document it in motion, however we are not interested in recreation. The visual representation of motion is indicative of more than just a re-creating of what we can plainly see in front of us.

At the advent of film and motion picture, art movements were striving to attain a similar aesthtic of life in motion. Artists were in search of movement as more that just the body in space, but rather the body in time. Expressionist film and dance were working toward the same goal, using extreme contrast and layers, to express and heighten the complexity of movement.



In this piece, Boccioni puts speed and force into sculptural form. The figure strides forward. Surpassing the limits of the body, its lines ripple outward in curving and streamlined flags, as if molded by the wind of its passing. Boccioni had developed these shapes over two years in paintings, drawings, and sculptures, exacting studies of human musculature. The result is a three-dimensional portrait of a powerful body in action. You can see in the multiple directions of this image, that Boccioni projects multiple dimensions onto the figure. Being able to read this image in several ways is what makes is a successful. The multiplicity of movement was a feature of the body and of time that was an important notion of the Boccioni and his contemporaries – the Futurists.



As the project is called ‘sequential’ we will be confronted with the fact that a certain amount of overlap in motion and that the instance of time, or the photo, is only defined by what immediately precedes and follows it. There are several scales that we will think about while working on these drawings. Quantitative, or the scale of multiples – here we measure by numbers or amount. Relational scale, or a way of organizing information so that the user perceives it according to surrounding data – like a set of tables or bar graph. Lastly, the time scale will be the most difficult to notate.

Your images are documented in a linear – motion, similar to a film strip. But, the aim of this assignment is to map information, not just diagram it. That said, the mapping of your movement may not be best described in chronological order. Remember that your will be creating a multilayered drawing – not a comic strip. This complexity will be of a level similar to that of Boccioni’s charcoal drawing. Movement atop movement.



Let’s think again about the futurists. Their understanding of the visual universe – was the first aesthetic system to break almost entirely with the classical one – their images could properly be understood only in the language of waves, fields, and fronts. The type of movement it was obsessed by were those that created shapes in time, not only in space.

Submission: One 11x17 print, generated in Rhinoceros, composed in Illustrator, saved in .PDF format. You will need to post process the line work in Illustrator to emphasize information you find critical in your study. Use lineweight and linetype to notate these conditions. You may uses shades of gray to assign values to your lines, but may NOT use color. Again, use the filing nomenclature: for student BobSmith, “A06_Smith_B.pdf.” All .pdf files are due in your backpack by 12:00 PM on Tuesday 25 March. Late work will not be accepted.

Week 06 | Follow Up

My apologies again for the technical problems yesterday. The assignment will be reposted today, so be on the lookout for that. Also if anyone is around, there is a somewhat-pertinent event going on this weekend that is highly unacademic but really fun. You may find a kinematic motion your never thought possible. The Kesington Kinetic Sculpture Derby is going on; check out the site, and if you have time go and don't think about kinematics, just soak in the ridiculousness of the body in motion.

Week 06 | Transitional

Kinematics is the branch of mechanics that studies the motion of a body or a system without consideration given to its masses or the forces acting on it, or the study of the positions, angles, velocities, and accelerations of body segments and joints during motion. In kinematic studies of the body, there are specifically defined parts. Profiles, involve the contours of the body, or the most exterior and visible character of movement. Skeletal Vectors, or rigid portions of the body, being the arm, forearm, or leg for example. Joints between adjacent segments explain the range of motion within the kinematics as control points. Lastly, but often the first laid out in a the study is a Construction Framework, or all of the guidelines and primitive shapes required to generate a more complex construction.



It seems easy at first to diagram a bone and a joint, but to develop this three-dimensional motion as a 2d representation is a highly complex lattice of motion, trajectory, and rotation. Movement in space, and movement in elevation are two completely different images. Think of the iconic photos of Edweard Muybridge, without digital post process at his disposal, he placed his subject in front of a datum. These photos are a perfect representation of linear movement. Across a plane and along one axis, these movements seem to move parallel to a flat surface. However, there is movement along several axes in this image. You can image there is movement along the axis running towards us – the woman’s gait causes her to sway from side to side. These sub-motions are critical to understanding the whole kinematic diagram.


Theoretically, we can talk about these general movements as a difference in kind and a difference in degree. Mapping the variety of movements in your images will become a quantitative analysis of difference in kind and in degree. Think of making a fist, each finger moves in the same motion, this would be an example of a difference in degree. As the skeletal vectors and joints are similar, they only differ in degree, such as distance. While the closing motion of the thumb in this instance is a difference in kind – it is making an entirely different movement. Yet while they are all fingers, they do not all act the same in principle.

Another example to consider is Gilles Deleuze's of the racehorse being more closely related to the greyhound than a draft horse. While both of the same species, their functions are completely different. The draft horse, using this model, is more closely related to the oxen. Consider this philosophy when attempting to dissect your images. You will find many similarities in motion, but determine which are similar in kind and those which act only the same in degree.



Rhino will help us to define these mechanic characteristics using primitives - consider primitives as simplistic geometry. In the same way that we learned that Illustrator acts intelligently, such that it knows the image as a 1:1 projection and that the geometric values and equations are embedded within the ‘shapes’ you draw. Rhino acts in the same way. This is not an exercise in tracing…you are NOT to place your photographs as backgrounds in Rhinoceros. Instead, you will need to build a series of construction lines for each image to set up all of the reference information needed to build the 3 remaining conditions:

Skeletal Vectors –lines that notate the internal structure / rigging that supports the movement
Profiles – contour information of the body part / body parts being explored
Range of Motion – the degrees of flexibility dictated by the type of joint / joints

Start with the skeletal vectors first, notating the vectors present. Then move onto the profile information, using primitive shapes as the basis for your profiles. This is also not an exercise in reduction. Turning the profiles of your body parts into a series of iconographic or symbolic traces is strictly forbidden. Your goal is to notate the qualitative conditions of the profiles through primitive shapes. This IS a multi-week assignment that will require patience and concentration in order to be completed successfully. Predetermining the results in your head and trying to tackle too much information at one time will cause you to miss critical information. For Tuesday, you must set up the framework and drawings for at least 2 images.

Submission: One 11x17 progress file, generated in Rhinoceros, composed in Illustrator, saved in .PDF format. You will need to post process the line work in Illustrator to emphasize information you find critical in your study. Use lineweight and linetype to notate these conditions. You may uses shades of gray to assign values to your lines, but may NOT use color. Again, use the filing nomenclature: for student BobSmith, “A05_Smith_B.pdf.” All .pdf files are due in your backpack by 12:00 PM on Tuesday 18 March. Late work will not be accepted.

Week 04 | Follow Up

Please feel free to send questions, samples, ideas, anything. This is NOT easy. And remember this class is about testing _ about process.

Week 04 | Transitional

The idea of transitioning is not defined by either a step forward or a step backwards like progree or failure. This moment is rather a process in which there is a change from one state to another, that something has undergone a change in state. This idea is one that we can relate to common science. The principles between such things as solids, liquids, and gases is a common example of state change. The inherent properties of such elements remain the same, but the state of these properties as well as their method of interactivity change completely. This simple example can help us to understand the intrinsic method of transitioning information from raster graphics to vector graphics and our process for the next assignment.


(left) Block Works Sublimate II 2004 Mild steel blocks 194 x 53 x 30 cm (right) Domain Series Domain XXIX 2000 Stainless steel bar 4.76 mm x 4.76 mm 190 x 57 x 37 cm Antony Gormley describes his two pieces: “The Block Work Series makes physical pixelisations with a rising canon of four blocks, each eight times the volume of the one before, keeping the same 1:1:2 proportion as in the original Building series that only used one block size. They are all evocations of the inside of the body under the skin.” Similarly, the artist states about Domain Series, “I wanted to escape from the delimitation of skin (whether the exclusive volumes of the lead bodycases or the solid volumes of the body forms) and acknowledge of the body as a place of transformation.”

Think of vectors this way, moving away from the limiting factors of image. When we begin this project, the liberation of movement, dynamics, and dimension should become clear. The raster image evokes symbolism and value and image, which is why it was so difficult to move beyond the subjective information in each photograph. Here, with vectors, we will not be 'tracing' but 'mapping.' It may seem as thought we are working in reverse, which is again not reverse at all, but a transition. A change in state.

Look at the image below. The process is evident in the product. There is a coherence in this relationship and it is evident after having seen both side by side. This same value should be placed on our process. We are not creating a new, but rather transitioning between values and relationships. The original image and your mapping of that image should evoke a similar feeling of continutiy and curiosity.

Tim Knowles, Tree Drawing Larch on easel [x4] #2

Vector graphics are made up of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors, which describe an image according to its geometric characteristics. You can freely move or modify vector graphics without losing detail or clarity, because they are resolution-independent—they maintain crisp edges when resized, printed, or saved in a PDF file. As a result, vector graphics are the best choice for artwork, such as logos, maps, or other graphic products that will be used at various sizes and in various output media. It’s important to remember that the basis for a vector is always and underlying equation or coordinate system. Even something as simple as a line will contain the basic geometric information needed to 'plot’ a line. Bitmap images—technically called raster images—use a rectangular grid of picture elements (pixels) to represent images. Each pixel is assigned a specific location and color value. When working with bitmap images, you edit pixels rather than objects or shapes. Bitmap images are the most common electronic medium for continuous-tone images, such as photographs or digital paintings, because they can more efficiently represent subtle gradations of shades and color. Unlike vectors, bitmap images are resolution-dependent—that is, they contain a fixed number of pixels. As a result, they can lose detail and appear jagged if they are scaled to high magnifications on‑screen or if they are printed at a lower resolution than they were created for.


Begin by looking both at the individual instances that made up the composite as well as the composite as a whole for characteristics that interest you. Some suggestions would include looking for edges, changes in direction, movement, etc. you should focus on ONE quality in the end, so determine what is the most powerful quality found in the composition(s) and use that as the system of logic for you next step, the visualization. You are to now draw or “map” the found quality using vector lines in Adobe Illustrator.

One 17” wide x 11” tall .PDF file that visualizes the found quality from your filtered composites. Place your file in your “mybackpack,” making sure to list your instructor as a shared user for the file. Please use the nomenclature “A03_yourlastname_firstinitial.jpg” for the file name. If, for example, your name is “Bob Smith” you will save you work using the nomenclature “A03_Smith_B.jpg.” All files are due to your backpacks by 12:00pm Tuesday 19 February.

Late work will not be accepted. Please also print a black and white copy of your work and bring it to class.

Week 03 | Resolution

New Year's Resolutions are a tradition is based in the hope that reflecting on the past and resolving to make a new will simplify one’s life. If you think about the most common resolutions, they are often removing something from the person’s daily life or habits. In doing this, a new person should emerge! (That is if it's kept) Similarly in digital media, the constrction of an image can be simplified through the means of resolution. Resolving the image into more managable parts can reveal alot about the complexity you began with.



Almost a century ago and without the aid of any pixel-generating computer software, the itinerant photographer Arthur Mole (1889-1983) used his 11 x 14-inch view camera to stage a series of extraordinary mass photographic spectacles that choreographed living bodies into symbolic formations of religious and national community. In these mass ornaments, thousands of military troops and other groups were arranged artfully to form American patriotic symbols, emblems, and military insignia visible from a bird’s eye perspective. Living Portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, for which 21,000 troops assembled at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1918, is the best-known of Mole’s photographs. The image is characteristic of Mole’s work in that it wavers between the compositional effect of the whole (i.e. a portrait of Woodrow Wilson) and the desire to focus upon the obscured individuals who constitute the image, thereby undermining the optical illusion of the totality to a degree.

In our class, resolution also has many meanings. Mainly, we will talk about resolution as the depth of an image. The depth of a pixel-based image relies solely on its quality at the most basic level; here, the image is an unrecognizable pattern of colored squares. When organized into an image, however, these seemingly disparate parts become something much more legible. “Usually we try to produce images that are of sufficient resolution to render these individual pixels imperceptible, but seeing pixels is not necessarily a bad thing. Prominent pixels call attention to the process…”

“Computer Composition With Lines” 1964 This work closely mimics the painting “Composition With Lines” by Piet Mondrian (1917). When reproductions of both works were shown to 100 people, the majority preferred the computer version and believed it was done by Mondrian. This early investigation of the aesthetics of computer art has become a classic and is described in the published paper by A. Michael Noll, “Human or Machine: A Subjective Comparison of Piet Mondrian's ‘Composition with Lines’ and a Computer–Generated Picture,” The Psychological Record, Vol. 16. No. 1, (January 1966), pp. 1-10.

One 11” x 17” .jpg construction at 150 dpi in RGB color mode. This construction should contain the following information: A minimum of one original intersection image, one image index, and five selection filter images generated from the image index. The way in which you layout these individual images to form a cohesive construction is critical if we are to understand your craft and process. Use the grid and guides in Photoshop to generate proper alignments and do not use notations or text. Again, use the filing nomenclature: for student BobSmith, “A02_Smith_B.jpg.” All .jpg files are due in your backpack by 12:00 PM on Tuesday 12 February.

Late work will not be accepted. Please bring your noted image from Assignment 01 to class Wednesday 13 February.

Week 02 | Follow-Up

Most of the work today was moving in the right direction, I'd like to stress again the importance of re-creating the image. Find new meaning to the content, dissect new information from what its original subject was. Take a look at the work of this photographer_ Jenny Okun Photography. She focuses on architectural subjects but overlays these incredible transformations of her original images. They give the illusion that they're almost in motion. It should be worth the inspiration.

Once again, save the 11x17 .jpg as stated in your backpack by 12:00 Tuesday - and print a color version for class Wednesday. Also, if you have drafts saved - print those as well. We'll talk about why those were 'drafts' and why you moved on from there.

Please post comments or questions here, or email me (jacklynn.arndt@temple.edu or jacklynn@qb3design.com). I'll start office hours next week and am always available by appt. after 7:00pm for help. Don't hesitate to ask.

Week 02 | Intro and Conjoin-ing

This semester will take a path that we cannot definitively chart. It’s a process of testing and decision-making. How we move from one project to another will largely rely on the way we resolved the previous project. The class focuses on accumulation and experimentation: each week will build upon information learned prior. We are required to experiment with the media provided, often not knowing where the information will take us.

The image shown below represents possible directions or ‘waypoints.’ These flight plans are a standard and give a series of possible routes to the pilots using them. When in a zone near an airfield, the possible directions of exit or entry are shown as vectors with data attached to each line. The reason for theses nodes of movement and this mapping technique is ultimately the technology in place at each airport. An aircraft would move towards a locating signal and then re-route to the next available signal based on the variables surrounding them (ie. weather, winds, traffic, etc.)



Think of this class as the transition from flat to 3D, from analog to digital, and even from static to dynamic. As a result, the way we think about architecture should be similarly expanded in multiple directions, because there are always various answers and viewpoints. If we loosely define architecture as the articulation of movement, spaces, and materials _ the methods of representing this are endless and do not always resolve themselves in a plan or even in a static image. The representation of an idea should carry as much meaning as the idea itself.

In the 1950's an urban artist group that deemed themselves 'situationists' would wander the streets of Paris without set direction. Sometimes even, they would use a map of London to explore the French capital. Nonetheless, the articulation of these drifts (or derive's) became an important aesthetic to their mission. As a reaction the modernism of the day (think grided city plans and wide boulevards) they felt the emotion of the city was quickly dissolving. This map shows the clustering of zones or 'waypoints' where an investigation should be made and a new direction taken. By wandering, the user of this map discover his or her own abstract unities of the city.



The first project is a blending of supplied photos in photoshop. The goal of this exercise is to examine the ways we can join pixel-based images with the software's tools. The 'seams' conjoining the photos are the space of investigation. These junctures should be stitched with reason and intent – shading, shapes, or any other graphic reason, not symbolic linkages. Focus on the reasons why you've linked things. Keep in mind these three themes: Unite the images, combine the images, associate the images.

First you will use a series of selection processes to orient and crop your images. These tools will allow you to build a foundation on the page. Second, you will want to apply a series of applicable transformations to the series. Managing and labeling layers during this process will also be critical in maintaining image distinction, separating transformations, and in keeping your file organized. For quick tool reference see the Adobe help center online.

Another reference to this method of compositional construction is the exquisite corpse, while chronologically different, the idea remains. Beginning with Dada movement in the 1920's, the exquisite corpse was a playful method of construction. One artist would begin a portrait of a head and go as far as perhaps a neck, fold the page so only a small portion of their drawing remained, and hand it off to the next artist. This transition was their moment of the seam or of conjoining (notice the folds on the image at right). Eventually the image would make a complete figure or an 'exquisite corpse.' The organic process did not always yield beautiful images, yet the outcome was something not one person could have imagined on their own. The product was a direct result of the inconsistent and experimental quality of the process.



It is important to document failure and change within this process. It's good to think about this class as a lab and not a studio. As of this point, there are no right answers. It says in your syllabus that we are not required to make something fascinating, but we are most definitely required to discover something fascinating. This also means that it is not enough to have that one great idea – like you may sometimes have in studio. It’s imperative that trial and error is a part of this class.

Your submitted file should be no larger than 2250 pixels wide and 1650 pixels tall (this translates to 17” wide x 11” tall at 150dpi) saved in .JPG format using RGB Colormode. Place your file in your “mybackpack,” making sure to make your instructor a shared user for the file. Please use the nomenclature “A01_yourlastname_firstinitial.jpg” for the file name. If, for example, your name is “Bob Smith” you will save you work using the nomenclature “A01_Smith_B.jpg.”

All files are due to your backpacks by 12:00pm Tuesday 05 February. Late work will not be accepted. Please also print a color copy of your work and bring it to class.