Performing self-replication.

Ines Weizman (architect/ theorist),

Dave Clements (scientist/ cosmologist)

Wilfredo Prieto (artist)

This project deals with questions of authenticity, originality, fake, law and architecture.

A 3D printer serves as a prototype to examine its energy consumption and its aspects of entropy through the deviation of form in serial production. 3D printers and scanners have recently become a new challenge to the conventional methods of manufacturing and distribution of goods. In the field of product design and architecture, 3D printers, capable of manufacturing very complicate and intricate shapes present already irreplaceable tools for design, usually as prototypes rather than serial products. But the substitution of manual modelling and the precision, opened by the pairing of 3D scanner and 3D printer also allow for new possibilities of reproduction, or literally copying. Similar to the discussions at the beginning of photography, the notion of the authentic and unique work of art or creative production is held, once again, in suspense, inviting intense questioning. The 3D printing technology complicates the problem of mechanical reproduction as it concerns not only the product, but also the machine, that now could potentially reproduce its own parts. The construction of a

self-replicating machine

is conceived as a mimicry of forgery (with emphasis on its performativity) trying to ‘imitate with obsessive care’ the appearance of the original, i.e. that of the 3D printer. Similar to a copying laboratory, intensifying the pleasurable rituals of learning, familiarisation and invention, drawings and animations of the individual elements of the existing machine will be produced and explored in respect to their function and form with the intention to eventually replicate the machine. Both concepts, the self-referentiality in serial production and the self-replicating machine raise not only questions of form, but also of copyright, intellectual property and patents which will be pursued through writing, mapping and discussions with experts, engineers and lawyers.

AA Architectural Association

Research Cluster

Beyond Entropy / When Energy Becomes Form

Chemical Energy

John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog (Territorial Agency), Amanda Chatten, Nina Canell

Life is structured in many of its most complex forms around the chemical processes of metabolism.

The form-generating processes that shape and define life in its primary traits are transformations of the chemical energy of the covalent

bonds of carbon-based molecules present in the atmosphere. While photosynthesis transforms this energy into forests,

metabolism transforms food into complex living organisms. The research project on the form-generating processes

linked to chemical energy sets out to investigate the transformations of contemporary human environments through an

analysis of their material configurations within complex chains of food and energy production and distribution, at the

territorial and at the individual level.

Today, human life is reshaping and moulding these processes at an unprecedented scale, transforming and recasting

environments within a set of circulations that are often as invisible as the chemical energy transformations that underlie

them. The growth of urban environments and the reshaping of vast territories through new system of control and

infrastructure is directly changing the way we conceive of our spaces of operation. A large polyptych will present a series

of local spatial transformations in one of the regions of the planet most sensitive to changes in the atmosphere: the

North. The spatial transformations at the northern latitudes reveal in an unprecedented manner the sweeping changes in

the architecture of contemporary inhabited territories.

On the tangents of the material and immaterial world, this lingering reverie will be precisely presented in the form of

an enclosed object in which the oxygen level has been slightly raised by an increase of 5 percent.

Furthermore, to exemplify the nature and symmetry of chemical energy at a microscopic scale, Dr. Amanda Chatten is collaborating with

Prof. Henry Rzepa who has developed a method to explore the Laplacian in 3D. In quantum mechanics the Laplacian

is central to the energy term of the Schrödinger equation and when visualized it provides a unique insight into the form

of chemical energy and chemical reactivity. The dichotomy of the contained nature of this sublimated ‘nothingness’

functions as an antidote to the elemental imagination of air in relation to movement (as well as energy and entropy for

that matter). As so eloquently proposed by Gaston Bachelard in Air and Dreams: “…(poetic) images of air, the least

solid of the elements, reveal a fundamental dynamic imagination that shapes our very perception of reality”. This is true,

perhaps in the most direct sense, in the intimate but complex act of breathing itself.

To coincide with this presentation Robin Watkins will stage a sound screening of The Luminiferous Aether: ELF/VLF

recordings of the Solar Wind, recorded in the Arctic Circle (Alaska), and transmitted to the audience via radio waves.

In quantum mechanics the Laplacian represents the kinetic energy term of the Schrödinger equation. When visualised it

provides a unique insight into the form of chemical energy and chemical reactivity.

“Everything has a sound” says Ino Moxo, the magician from Amazon.

“ Tuning up with the cosmic vibration” suggests the induist anticipating of hundreds of years what Plnck

has specified at the beginning of the last century.

Sound and Vibration are a difference,that is produced during the exercise of energy, a friction, a

transformation of a motus, a rest.

Sound and vibration are among the phenomena that belong to an Entropic condition: there are almost

the angel of custody.

How to define a field where the entropic derive of the Universe is controlled, produced and made

visible by the simple human presence?

A big circular antenna defines a pure field where the antenna is

simultaneously perimeter, centre of geometry of influence,sensor that register the alterations.

The interferences between the movement of the individual and the impercettible electric life of an

unimated object are transformed into enrgy that can be heardeven by whom is not wondering yet about

the nature of the field.

As in every exchange, it is not obvious that the the final balance is even: therefore a huge effort can

produce a small increment of sensibility. But sometimes it happens the opposite:

an infinitesimal part of

the whole materializes the totality.

100728

(ok by you peter?)

i like the banality of this image. i like the group of ppl standing by the side of the road, as in any post-event situation. the damaged car in the middle of the road.
special attention should be given to the figures.
it seems some data is missing. i wonder how it will look in model form.
lets see some renderings. 

in the destroyed factory - i particularly like the emptiness. can we send an image to peter?

good luck - it seems like a lot of work...

On Jul 22, 2010, at 5:20 PM, Luis Costa wrote:

> Hello Eyal,
>
> We went through all of the scenes with Steven. Meaning the ones he would be able to provide us. Because of legal constraints and despite our attempt, Steven, comprehensibly, does not seem in the position to provide us more than this.
> Today's scenes are as attached:
>
> - square in Salzburg
> - car test dummy scene with people
> - and the people's scene near on the car crash site (one you had previously seen).
>
> Merlin and I talked about the possibilities of creating either one scene with fragments from different files or on the other end using one of the single scenes available.
> Fragments from the available files could be people taken from their particular scene contexts, street structures such as lamps, steps (with seated people), infrastructures, etc.
>
> Best,
>
> luis
> <1_screenshot.zip>

___
eyal

Beyond Entropy

Electric Energy Group

Autori: Massimo Bartolini, Dario Paolo Benedetti, Riccardo Rossi, Salottobuono

Titolo: Sustain

Didascalia: Uno strumento ancestrale per sostenere ed esperire la capacità di perdurare. / An ancestral instrument to nourish and experience the ability to endure.

Anno: 2010

Copyright: Massimo Bartolini, Dario Paolo Benedetti, Riccardo Rossi, Salottobuono