Introduction

On Measurement, Technical Images, and Craft

The story of measurement is the story of knowledge, or, in other words, of our collective desires to demystify, regulate, and replicate the natural world. And we measure everything, from our daily steps to our carbon footprints. Our impulse to measure is to sort the normal from the anomalous, to calibrate, and to produce value. Often our measurements are means to control, segregate, and denigrate those that do not fit the arbitrary standards that enable modes of power. While more often they are simply a means to maintain stability of networked relations and cultural memory. These measurements are often invisible, structural, and sacrosanct, only made apparent when challenged by absurdity or the need for invention. The First Image of Mars and Other Stories of Measurement collects three stories that through intention or accident reveal a set of underlying questions to the standards of measure we take for granted.

This class will examine the ideas and queries introduced by each of the three stories through exercises that draw meaning in the relationship between technical images and crafted objects. Technical images are visual artifacts, often the product of apperati, used to depict data and ideas through their own construction as images. Different from an illustration, these encoded images and the information they carry are active agents in the transfer of knowledge. Aesthetic and compositional qualities, while present, are secondary and often the by-product of the technical procedures. Crafted objects, such as textiles, mosaics, and prints, share with the technical image a rigor in the procedures of making. Thread, ceramic tile, and other materials are the carriers of information networked to a broader collection of relations and histories. Our interest in the two will be to consider the presumed objectivity of one -the machine-against the presumed subjectivity of the other-the hand-while muddying their distinctions.

Episode 1: On Scale

John James Aububon draws every bird in North America, 1827-38
In 1827, John James Audubon, enlisted the aid of British engraver Robert Havell to translate for reproduction a collection of 435 North American Birds drawn to scale. The drawings were a product of a decade of amateur ornithological research hunting, skinning, and painting birds across America on 30” x 40” sheets of watercolor paper, the largest size commercially available at the time. The water color drawings were meticulously translated to finely etched lines and aquatint color washes onto the largest available print size, a double-elephant portfolio. Under the guise of objectivity, these birds, represented at scale, reproduce a set of fictions authored by the amateur and his engraver. Due to paper size limitations, large birds are drawn from study skins are contorted and positioned awkwardly as if in flight on imagined backdrops. Further, once removed from the original bird of study, the engraver Havell invents intricately etch textures not present in nature to translate Audubons washes to sharp lines. The map is not the territory.

Episode 2: On Depth

JPL and the First Image of Mars, 1965 

In 1965 engineers working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the first transmissions of images in the form of raw numerical data from the Mariner 4 spacecraft orbiting close to the surface of Mars. Having yet to develop the software to process this data, engineers printed these numbers using a stock ticker on thin strips of paper, assembled them with tape, then hand colored the numbered data with pastels. What resulted was something novel, a “picture” of a place unseen by the human eye, depth flatten horizontally along with its recording artifacts on a paint-by-number surface. While images like this of the far reaches of the outerspace, gathered and processed, are now familiar parts of the public imaginary, this image made by hand, and connected materially to the economies of our planet remains a unique reminder of the reification our constructed view of the expanded universe.

Episode 3: On Time

Whitney Houston Sings the Star-Spangled Banner, 1991 

In 1991 a 27-year old Whitney Houston opened Super Bowl XXV with a rendition of the US National Anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner sung in four beats per measure - 4/4, a metre common to Southern Gospel and Soul music, rather than the song’s traditional 3 beats per measure - 3/4, a metre typical to the Waltz and other classical European compositions. The words and notes are the same, and yet in form and context its completely different.  Against the backdrop of the first Gulf War and rising domestic tensions around race and policing that would inevitably boil over the following year, this simple shift in structure dramatically changed the meaning of the song and its understanding of nationalism.

Appendix

Tutorials

Grasshopper
    a. Quick Start

    b. Adding Plug Ins

    c. Data Flow: Trees and Lists

    d. Clusters

Coursework

Episode 1: On Scale

    a. Quick guide to AggregateFill_v002.gh

    b. File preparation: Bitmap “etching” and Photoshop Actions

    c. Details: basic physics, PhysX and Kangaroo

a. Quick Start

1. Refer to many sources for tutorials. Every instructor and designer uses the software in a different way.  The tutorials here will emphasize building tools for design. It’s best to watch the introduction video to both refresh basic concepts and to see what details are highlighted.  You can find several tutorails on the Grasshopper3d.com website.

2. Jump straight in and do not be afraid to break things.  Grasshopper has a very generous community of makers that will post their definitions (gh term for script) on Grasshopper3D.com, the discourse.mcneel.com, and other personal websites like this.  Download the definition, read forward and back, then try to remake it from scratch.  When you are feeling a bit more confident, try to combine two found definitions.

3. Start with simple tasks that you might otherwise do in Rhino. This is the best way to learn how to navigate the various tabs and components of grasshopper.  Starting suggestion: make a grid of lines.

4. Pay attention to the terminology used in the tutorials. This will help you make effective searches when you get stuck.

5. Teach or tutor a peer what you’ve learned, even without mastering the software yourself. This will reinforce the knowledge and understanding you have of how the software works.

grasshopper3D.com - The original community website, this has a vast archive of useful material.

discourse.mcneel.com - Most of the discussion boards from grasshopper3d were carried over here to consolidate all of the Rhino product forums.

Food4Rhino.com -  A fantastic source of Rhino and Grasshopper plug-ins.  In the next few years, most of these will be added to the Package Manager described below.

Modelab’s Grasshopper Primer - A super clear pdf describing the core components of grasshopper.

b. Adding Plug-Ins

Plug-Ins are an essential part of extending the functionality of Grasshopper, and for Rhino as a tool that can compete with other advanced digital softwares.  Most plug-in are created by members of the Grasshopper community independent from McNeel, the makers of Rhino.  They are updated regularly and require independent tracking of those updates for new components and function.  Plug-ins will be formatted as .gha or .ghuser files. The former are library plugins, the latter “User Objects.” These will get installed in different folders described below. There are two common ways of finding and installing plugins, the first (and easiest) is through the PackageManager command in Rhino. The second is by finding the plugin on Food4Rhino.com and manually installing into the plug ins folder. Follow the instructions for each below and/or watch this video.

c. Data Flow - Trees and Lists

The most difficult to learn but fundamental aspect to understanding Grasshopper (GH) is how data in the form of geometry, numbers, and text flow through a Grasshopper definition. This is what makes the tool powerful - the ability to moderate and direct extremely large quantities of information. Grasshopper does this with what it calls a Data-tree path.

The Tree represents the overall organizational structure of the GH definition. Think of everything starting from the trunk, our state {0}. Each Branch is a sub-group within the larger tree structure. There can be an unlimited number of sub groups within sub groups. This is represented as {0; 1; 1; ...}, each number from left to right is the subgroup with the subgroup. The last subgroup with in the tree structure contains a List of items - geometry, numbers, etc. that are in a linear order. Think of this as the leaves on the branches.

+ note: the list order of objects always begins with 0 rather than 1. So a list of 10 looks like “0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9”

d. Clusters

Grasshopper definitions get visually complicated fast. Clusters are a way to nest chunks of a definition into a single modular component. This practice helps when problem solving errors in large definitions. You can quickly track the flow of inputs and outputs to identify issues.

To create a cluster, add Cluster Input and Cluster Output to input parameters and output parameters. Select all components, middle-mouse button click, and choose the Cluster Icon.

You can rename the parameter input/outputs to have them labled in the cluster. 

Clusters can also be converted into UserObjects, which saves an icon component in the tabs for commonly used definitions. Select the cluster, and in Files choose Create User Object

Episode 1: On Scale

a. Quick Guide to AggregateFill_v002.gh

download the file here

This definition requires the follow plugins pre-installed:

PackageManager: Corgi, Dendro, Elefront, Faerie, Fennec, Heteroptera, Human, Stripper, VoxelTools, Weaverbird, Wombat

Manual Install: Bitmap+, MeshEdit, PhysX, Pufferfish, Rooster

+ plugin install directions here

b. File preparation: Bitmap “etching” and Photoshop Actions

Using Photoshop, this tutorial will show how to set up Action scripts and process ‘etching-like’ bitmaps.

c. Details: basic physics, PhysX and Kangaroo

d. Details: Slurry Filler

This tutorial shows how to use Volumetric modeling (voxels) in grasshopper using Dendro to quickly model irregular geometrys.  We’ll combine it with an agent based plugin Faerie to model wormholes through a solid.

e. Details: Thick Bitmaps

Here we’ll use the plugin Bitmap+ to create noise based animations that can fill the interior sections of your aggregate. 

Episode 2: On Depth

a. Digital Weaving Resources

FiberArt.com - digital jacquard, custom color palettes
Weft.com - digital jacquard, limited color palettes, varied weave patterns
WOVNS.com - digital jacquard, fixed color palettes
BYBORRE.com - 3D knitting
KnitUp.io - custom knit (low res) images 

b. Photocomposites

We’ll first collect and composite photographs in Photoshop into a densely saturated image. 

c. Indexing Colors

Download ACT or ACO swatch libraries that match the digital weaving vendor’s color line:
FiberArts
WOVNS

d. Image Threading

This quick grasshopper script requires the plugins: Bitmap+ and Human. Install prior to opening.
ImageThreading.gh

e. Weaving Pattern

This quick grasshopper script requires the plugins: Bitmap+ and Human. Install prior to opening.
WeavingPattern.gh

f. 3D Image Weaving

This step uses the Weave3D.gh script found here. You will need to install MeshTools, Human, Weaverbird, and Wombat prior to opening.

g. Weave Object

h. Weave Animation