Silvia Kacic 1.1a
Field compositions can be an effective technique to express certain experiences. Xenakis captured the desired effect of a field, such as rain, and created an acoustical equivalent (101). In my curiosity of seeing the experience of rain as a system, I tried to visualize the sound through local rules. When listening to rain, both a constant shower of varying intensity and individual drops of varying pitches are heard. The individual raindrops, while still heard themselves, also create an overall sound from their local relationships.
The reading suggested to view architecture with a fluid, bottom-up approach instead of the traditional top down forms (101). I thought about ways in which use and behavior can give information for a possible shape. A bottom-up approach may begin with listing needed activities of a lifestyle or home and the relationships of overlap creating a system. Patterns may form from desired viewpoints and gathering locations within a landscape that can shape the designed element from our behavioral tendencies.
Contrasting elements like stagnancy and movement are actually more interwoven than separate since “stations and paths together form a system” (102). Each movement and object is individual but in interaction, patterns develop. A point of movement with velocity and set distance from surrounding objects would interact with a stationary obstacle by moving around it. Commonly walked paths can shape a building, or a building can dictate the paths around it.
In every trial, flocks form from just the three rules and, “without repeating exactly, flock behavior tends toward roughly similar configurations” (99). A pattern forming by reacting to its immediate surroundings instead of a designed composition gives the field a life-like quality. The organic imperfection is beautiful since it still seems familiar but it’s a unique product of the moment and each interaction. Now I can see how that quality is in everything around us. The natural tendency towards consistent routine paralleled against inevitable change.
“Authentic and productive social differences thrive at the local level and not in the form of large scale semiotic messages or sculptural forms” (97). Insight from studying fields can be applied to so many different subjects, and it’s good to challenge traditional beliefs that may have not been the most effective. This can change how we approach architecture, a work office dynamic, community building, and how we think of equality. Using the strength of local interaction seems to have more depth creating efficiency from differences instead of imposing uniformity. My diagrams explore what patterns naturally form from social differences.
