Extension - Evolution

pointless ramblings -

Hopefully the title serves as a basic disclaimer for the rest of this post, if it doesn't, I'll reiterate with an explanation. I have not written or blogged or really thought in words about my thesis for some time, this here post is an attempt to get back into the habit of writing. Just a little, but often. So without any further delay I'll get right to some of what I have been thinking about these last couple of months.

Firstly, I have been reading. I currently have 6 books on the go, I'm reading Richard Sennets The Craftsman. Timothy Taylors The Artificial Ape William J. Michell's Me++: the cyborg self and the networked city. I'm also working on Frank R. Wilson's The Hand and Leo Marx's The machine in the garden. Those are the main research oriented books but for interest and inspiration I am also reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Burning Chrome by William Gibson. Frankestien by Mary Shelly and Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Not to mention any of the other articles, blogs, and other thesis that I peruse on a regular basis. But that’s the current reading list so far and I will admit that I have slowed down considerably in the last few weeks, the hot weather has made sitting still at home difficult. Regardless most of these books talk to each other quite nicely some as more of a contrast to others, but I feel like its giving my brain a nice cross-section of the topics I'm interested in.

Currently I have a few too many ideas of what I could do, and less than a clue of how to go about pursuing them. Its hard to reduce these to a single theme that could sum it all up, that is to say I have no idea about the theory of my thesis at this point.  Instead it seems to me that each idea has its own thesis that kind of falls out of it. This being said I think one theme still sits slightly higher than others. Months ago I began to think about the basic theme of architecture as an extension of the human body, It was easy then for me to equate architecture to a tool, because I still feel that way I came up with a title for the thesis, "Extension". Extension is my starting point, my first idea from which I hope to build my thesis around. The pen that I draw with I consider as an extension of myself, it is my primary tool for communication and actually without it I have a very hard time explaining myself.

I find the word Extension very useful to me, it triggers a number of connotations that I will try to explain. Firstly, Extension means to lengthen or extend. I like the image of the axe as an extension of the arm, even as an extended limb, its curvature is even bone like in shape flaring at the ends to allow for stronger points of contact and stress dispersion. (I'm currently carving myself an Axe handle out of ash, I have to still clean the axe head and acquire an oak wedge and a brass pin to finish it, but its mostly there) The word Extension for me applies to a number of basic hand tools we use and have used for a long time. Then by looking at tools as extensions I get to talk about some of interesting evolutionary theories that have emerged in the last couple of years. Taylor writes about how humans evolved because we used tools, and that the use of tools (technology) allowed us to become upright standing, bi-peds with really large brains, not the other way around. This theory of evolution gives me a starting point for my thesis, it gives me first a little bit of scientific background for me to operate within, hopefully it will also give some of my ideas a little bit of early weight. With this I can also start very small. Looking at simple hand tools and basic human needs for survival, tools like axes, knives, slings, rucksacks as a starting point for the current, highly entailed lives we as modern humans live.

Extension as a word is also about addition, increasing the size and capacity of something. As an architect My mind immediately goes to renovations and alterations. This works well for me as I greatly enjoy renovations, conversions. It also plays in nicely to some of the work I did last year pertaining to the re-use of an existing industrial building in Hamilton. I particularly find the idea potent when the thing being converted is a tool, or a machine, Heavy industrial buildings are great for this, but so are simpler things, like hydro mills, barns, sheds, warehouses, and factories.

Extension also has temporal meaning, referring to the extension of a deadline or due date. This meaning is particularly potent considering the reality of global warming, over population, pollution, and rising ocean levels. All of these issues come with a deadline, or timeline. The idea of technology, of a tool, invention or implement that allow us a Extension on this deadline is for me and interesting arena for which to stage a thesis. It does however put a huge stress on the design and designer claiming some kind of miracle idea providing an extension, but really I'm not that crazy, Instead I think it would take a different, alternative look, maybe an outsiders perspective with a critical viewpoint, or even an ironic, tragic, or even satirical perspective. I could use the stage of a "miracle technology" to write a critique about our modern day blind faith in the endless march of technological progress faster computers, smaller phones, etc.. but I guess this idea would be better as a narrative, that comments on the current beliefs that technology is god.

Ok well, I think I'm pretty much outa steam on this post, re-reading I think I might attempt to go back and pull these last paragraphs out into their own post in order elaborate more.

Tablet practice - Tower and Goliath.

I've got CS5 all set up now with my tablet, brushes and short cuts so I have been practicing digital sketching with fun, goofy subjects. Who knows someday I might reach a stage where I can actually design something in photoshop.

Inspirational video - I listened to Mogwai while I watched it

Artificial Ape - Excerpt

This is from Timothy Taylors book The Artificial Ape from p 52.  I really like the 2nd paragraph explaining the theory behind the de-evolution of the native Tasmanian people. As background Darwin (and many other explores) found the Native Tasmanians without composite tools, or clothes, or houses or architecture. Recently however, evidence has shown that the first people who occupied tasmania did have all those things so the standing theory is that they lost the technology though a tragedy or over time. Taylor however has a different theory, that they over a long period of time choose the primitive path for their civilization, editing unnecessary cumbersome, complicated technology and slowly choosing a simpler and simpler way of life. 

"Most modern technology is very highly entailed. A car needs wheels and fuel. Those entail rubber plantations and oil wells, and complex manufacturing, refining, marketing, and distribution processes. Once all the things that cars have to have to be cars are factored in-from metal, tarmac, and glass, through to traffic police, a licensing bureaucracy, test agencies, and so on, each of which comes with its own primary and subsidiary systems of entailment- it is clear that the car can exist only within a modern globalized industrial system. Reverse entailment, although it sounds as if it might be even more complicated, means a type of dissociation, a deliberate unmeshing. To our Habitually entailed existence, the prospect seems strange, the opposite of progress.

Here is the theory of reverse entailment, presented as what is not entailed by the Tasmanian Aboriginal way of life: No Bone tools means no awls means no clothes means no pockets means nowhere to keep tinder and fire-making kit; that means no fire making, which means carrying fire all the time. That means quick fires whenever you want, which means it is ok not to wear clothes, carrying fire all the time means it is safer not to wear clothes, so you don’t catch fire by accident. It also reduces what else can be carried. No composite tools means no aces, so no log boats or all-weather craft, which means no fish – But with lots of sudden storms, why risk orphaning the children when seals can fish and you can eat seals? Inshore, you can grease up and diver for lovely stuff. Naked, of course, because you don’t want damp clothes. You want to get dry and warm as fast as possible by the fire, and eat abalone, wallaby, and tree-harvested possum. Your little temporary rafts can take you to small seabird breeding haunts in fine weather and who wants to go birding and egg-hunting in high seas? Without a complex toolkit to lose, or surpluses to be stolen, or clothes to dry, you don’t really need a house, and since you carry fire everywhere the risks of burning one down would be high. With no houses and little personal property, there’s not much hierarchy. That means no need to make loads of stuff, like thrones and crowns. Accounting is unnecessary, so you don’t need writing or numbers, or pens or paper or money. You have no maps, but you are not lost. You know where absolutely everything you need is. And because you don’t have to look after it, you can get in when you want it. " - Timothy Taylor from The Artificial Ape 

Definition - Reach

reach |rē ch |verb1 [ intrans. ] stretch out an arm in a specified direction in order to touch or graspsomething : he reached over and turned off his bedside light.• ( reach for) make a movement with one's hand or arm in an attempt totouch or grasp (something) : Carl reached for the phone.• [ trans. ] ( reach something out) stretch out one's hand or arm : he reachedout a hand and touched her forehead.• [with two objs. ] hand (something) to (someone) : reach me those glasses.• [ intrans. ] be able to touch something with an outstretched arm or leg : I had to stand on tiptoe and even then I could hardly reach.• ( reach out) extend help, understanding, or influence : he felt such an urge to reach out to his fellow sufferer.2 [ trans. ] arrive at; get as far as : “Goodbye,” she said as they reached the door | the show is due to reach our screens early next year.• attain or extend to (a specified point, level, or condition) : unemployment reached a peak in 1933 | [ intrans. ] in its native habitat it will reach to about 6 m in height.• succeed in achieving : the intergovernmental conference reached agreement on the draft treaty.• make contact or communicate with (someone) by telephone or other means :I've been trying to reach you all morning.• (of a broadcast or other communication) be received by : television reached those parts of the electorate that other news sources could not.• succeed in influencing or having an effect on : their fresh sound and message reach people who may never set foot in a church.3 [ intrans. ] Sailing sail with the wind blowing from the side, or from slightly behind the side, of the ship.noun1 an act of reaching out with one's arm : she made a reach for him.• [in sing. ] the distance to which someone can stretch out their hand (used esp. of a boxer) : a giant, over six feet seven with a reach of over 81 inches.• the extent or range of application, effect, or influence : the diameter and the reach of the spark plug varies from engine to engine.See note at range .2 (often reaches) a continuous extent of land or water, esp. a stretch of river between two bends, or the part of a canal between locks : the upper reaches of the Nile.3 Sailing a distance traversed in reaching.PHRASESout of (or beyond) reach outside the distance to which someone can stretch out their hand. • beyond the capacity of someone to attain or achieve something : she thought college was out of her reach.within (or in) reach inside the distance to which someone can stretch out their hand. • inside a distance that can be traveled : Rocky Mountain National Park iswithin easy reach of the city of Denver. • within the capacity of someone to attain or achieve something.DERIVATIVESreachable |ˈritʃəbəl| adjectiveORIGIN Old English rǣcan; related to Dutch reiken and German reichen.