Fabricated Drawings

3 units

The course will focus on digital fabrication tools, techniques and image theory to uncover new methods of producing physical images. Images are built in a myriad of methods including physical media or from data. Physical images, as defined in the context of this seminar, will be transcend a 2D limitation to develop thickness. The increase to 2.5D or 3D opens opportunities to investigate the use of digital fabrication tools to construct images. In particular, the class will focus on the way information technology continues to have a profound effect on the way we perceive our built environment and the way we represent it. The images that surround us are becoming increasingly easy to generate through information technology. Access to technology both in terms of digital design and output affords the opportunity to reconceive the nature of images. Images are developed through analog, digital or hybrid processes. Their generation is a collaborative interaction between intuition and information processes through clearly defined rules. The scientific theoretician, Peter Galison, discusses the tension between intuition and information on the nature of images in the arts and sciences. Images reveal the intricacy of relations and knowledge, but they are simultaneous deceptive because they bypass the mathematics of pure science. The tension in the arts tends to be between the intuitive, interpretive ability of images as representation versus the image as evidence of a computation-based process. Architectural theoretician Mark Linder talks about how images in architecture are moving away from representations of something else toward a more literal and non-idealized result of a procedure. The image is literally the process of making visible the end result of an operation. Therefore, images are the evidence of the process by which they were generated. As such, the class will develop innovative processes for our digital fabrication equipment to construct images. The projects will develop new methods to use the CNC mill, laser cutters, knife plotter and 3D printer. New tools may need to be developed and built to enable the image fabrication process. In parallel with technological development is material experimentation. Students will be highly encouraged to test new materials to program their behavior and interaction with technology.