Creating Furniture from Forsythe's Choreography
Synchronous Objects, a dance visualization project that explores the structures and patterns of William Forsythe's "One Flat Thing, reproduced" (OFTr) includes an object called the Furniture System.
The motivating idea behind the Furniture System visualizations is to extract the qualities of each of the themes of OFTr (watch videos of the dance themes) and then to convert the salient characteristics into a series of carved foam blocks that capture the essence of these movement patterns and structures. As with the themes in the dance, these blocks can be arranged and combined in different shapes and patterns, essentially recreating the performative nature of OFTr.
The Furniture Systems visualization object includes videos, diagrams and explanations that breakdown this investigation in to the possible relationships between dance and architecture.
To understand how a theme is converted into sculpted foam blocks, it's helpful to take a look at the "Furniture System Matrix" (a large PDF file - 52 MB).
This matrix shows how the qualities of a theme are identified, explained and diagrammed:
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Then, within a 3D animation program, a specific "carving" technique is chosen to mold the blocks to best represent the characteristics of each theme. And a series of blocks, at ten second intervals, are designed.
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After using a 3D animation program to render the blocks, actual foam blocks are created using a computer-driven milling machine:
These physical blocks can then be combined and rearranged in many different patterns:
And there is a brief intriguing clip that shows a glimpse of a home or building that is generated by stacking selected foam blocks:
How Close the Connection Between OFTr and Architecture?
I'm curious how architects might use the Synchronous Objects explorations as a springboard for their own designs. Are the connections between dance visualizations and actual buildings and interior designs supposed to be seen in loose, abstract terms? Or can very "concrete" connections be made between, say, the rhythmic patterns of a dance and a finished home?
Stephen Turk, associate professor of architecture at OSU's Knowlton School of Architecture, writes in a blog post, "Architecture and Choreography,"
By closely analyzing the complex systems embedded in the work [OFTr] the architectural project seeks to make a parallel design that generates effects and perceptual phenomena which resonate and have a strong affinity with Forsythe's dance while avoiding overly reductive translations and respecting the architectural qualities of the newly emergent objects.
I take Turk's quote to mean that the analysis of dance structures is seen more as a motivating, philosophical and process-oriented guide and not so much as a model that will dictate specific forms and functions.
See my two previous articles about this Forsythe-Ohio State University collaboration: "Exploring William Forsythe's "Synchronous Objects" Website" and "William Forsythe's "Synchronous Objects" at OSU Tomorrow."
Posted by
Doug Fox on April 6, 2009 6:35 AM
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2 Comments
Nice post Doug. Great for me to see how you dig into things and create useful guides that invite others into the project. What a gift! This connection to students in architecture will continue to evolve this quarter at Ohio State as 80 sophomore architecture students work with Sync/O to build installations. We'll post results on our blog. -Norah
Thanks, Norah!
I look forward to learning more about on-going explorations into connection between OFTr and architecture.
Also, I enjoyed your live streaming program of launch of Synchronous Objects at OSU last week.
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