Search: Advanced Algorithmic Techniques
Search: Advanced Algorithmic Techniques
Spring 2009 Visual Studies GSAPP
Toru Hasegawa & Mark Collins
TA Ruth Benjamin (rtb2110@columbia.edu)
This workshop will explore generative design methodologies through the application of algorithmic techniques – we will be looking at fundamental coding principles (recursion, feedback, modularity and I/O) while working within an object-oriented framework, opening the door to complex simulation and animate formation. Artificial life, material intelligence, interactivity, and other second-order principles will be approached from the vantage point of “dynamics” and “search” – or the introduction of directed intelligence into a dynamic process of making.
Development : A process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage.
Behavior: The aggregate of responses to internal and external stimuli.
Behavior and development are understood to be a sum, or aggregate, of a multitude of innocuous decisions. Each is a ‘dynamic’, or a process ‘in time’ that necessarily feeds-back and regulates procedures to promote higher levels of form, organization, and movement. Students will develop a focused inquiry into a specific area of algorithmic dynamics. Here, “dynamics” is meant as a inclusive term for all kinds of activity: formal development, flocking, embryology, automata, FEA, fractals and l-systems are all examples of time-based recursive practices. The class is meant to flesh out a vocabulary and structural understanding of a wide array of algorithms, to look for correspondences among dynamics, mapping and search heuristics. By casting a wide net, we hope to see opportunities for portability and the development of a critical stance towards algorithmic ‘tooling.’
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a crucial part of the seminar’s approach to algorithms. Modularity is the key to moving beyond simple ’scripting’ operations, which necessarily focus purely on geometry, towards a behavioral architecture; we wish to provoke architecture into a robust dynamism, to look for correspondences between formal and spatial articulation, environmental factors and other mediums of agency. To achieve this, we must exploit platforms such as Processing that can support spatial research at a speed, intensity and multiplicity beyond that available in the scripting languages of Maya or Rhino.
The workshop will consist of two short projects: a generative procedure and a system of valuation. As a last step, we will be using meshing as a means to translate various types of information into topologically complex form. This workshop is an exploration of algorithmic design methodologies rather than a scripting tutorial and although some prior scripting experience will be useful, NO scripting experience is required. We will be interested in the economic deployment of short, modular pieces of code that become inter-operable and give rise to complex structures and novel behaviors.
Please see www.proxyarch.com/wiki for previous work and more information. Software introduced will include Processing (www.processing.org) and Maya MEL, as well as several 3rd-party meshing tools.
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