THREE STARS AND A WINDOW IN OUTER SPACE

studium generale | eindhoven university of technologyapril 20, 2011

ronald van tienhoven lecture

The Right StuffPhilip Kaufman

(1983)based on the novel

The Right StuffTom Wolfe, 1979

capsule vs. spacecraftoccupant vs. pilot

(language as litmus test for assessing art & design engineering empathy)

i s i t a b o u t s a f e t y ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t e x p e r i e n c e ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t e m p o w e r m e n t ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t s t a t u s ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t m e t a p h o r ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t s u r v i v a l ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t p l a y ?y e s

Alan Shepard’s Apollo 14 Spacesuit (x-ray)

04:55:23shepard mercury flight duration

To put the matter differently, "play" (and its associated behavioral variability) is not purely entertainment or a luxury to be given up when things get serious. It is itself a highly adaptive mechanism for dealing with the reality that the context for behavior is always largely unknown.

Paul Grobstein

AMHA Website: http://www.amha.id.tue.nl/

520 DAYSmars flight duration

My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight...I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language...Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world - qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them.

Italo CalvinoSix Memos for the Next Millennium (Cambridge,1988)

spirulina gnocchis

potato and tomato mille-feuillesmartian bread and green tomato jam

r i c e

o n i o n s

t o m a t o e s

s o y a

p o t a t o e s

l e t t u c e

s p i n a c h

w h e a t

s p i r u l i n a

i s i t a b o u t s a f e t y ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t e x p e r i e n c e ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t e m p o w e r m e n t ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t s t a t u s ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t m e t a p h o r ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t s u r v i v a l ?y e s

i s i t a b o u t p l a y ?y e s

antic ipatoryart & design

science

method and metaphor

system and serendipity

antic ipatoryart & design

science

Richard Buckminster Fuller - 1895-1983

500.000 BC - 1850

(against forces)

1850-1950

(transitional)

1950 >>

(natural)

m a n o n e a r t h : t r a n s p o r t s p e c i e s

“Most of my advances were by mistake. You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't.”

“How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.”

“My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by emergency. When they are needed badly enough, they are accepted.”

Richard Buckminster Fuller

S A G A C I T Ythe quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted,

in two directions, and standing firmly in the present.

past future

fine-tuned deductionomni-tuned serendipity

S E R E N D I P I T Y“In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind”

(Louis Pasteur)

(...)the camel is lame, blind in one eye, missing a tooth, carrying a pregnant woman, and bearing honey on one side,and butter on the other...

S E R E N D I P I T Y“In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind”

(Louis Pasteur)

Johann Friedrich Böttger(1682-1719)

KAlSi3O8 - NaAlSi3O8 - CaAl2Si2O8

feldspar

Al2Si2O5(OH)4

kaolin

e u r o p e a n p o r c e l a i n

p o s t - i t

g r a v i t y

p e n i c i l l i n

s i l l y p u t t y

r a y o n

v i a g r a

c o r n f l a k e s

a m e r i c a

“....research directed toward the test of one hypothesis [yielding] a fortuitous by-product, an unexpected observation which bears upon theories not in question when the research was begun”

Robert K. Merton, 1958

Freud’s desk, London, 1938

past futureE V E N T H O R I Z O N

"Possibly we will discover that the very same logic underlies both mythical and scientific thinking, and that Man always has thought equally well."

"Peut-être découvrirons-nous un jour que la même logique est à l'oeuvre dans la pensée mythique et dans la pensée scientifique, et que l'homme a toujours pensé aussi bien."

Claude Lévi-Strauss - Anthropologie structurale, p. 254

E V E N T H O R I Z O N

Event Horizon Sequence: the Event Horizon as Point Of No Return

Hokusai Katsushika - Blind monks measuring an elephant, 1819

Hokusai Katsushika - Blind monks measuring an elephant, 1819

chance & necessity

chaos & chance

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."

Henri Bergson

“The eye sees only what the mind is willing to comprehend."

....

“The eye sees only what the mind is able to comprehend."

....

wil l ingnesspreparat ion

abi l i ty

humancase study:

anatomy

Tibetan medical painting: blood vessels, 17th century

Female anatomical statue, 1600 (Roudillon collection)

Jacques Gautier d´Agoty - L’Ange Anatomique, 1746

Female anatomical representation, 2007 (as perceived by hugh heffner)

The Visible Human ProjectThe U.S. National Library of Medicine

(1986>)based on the novel

The Right StuffTom Wolfe, 1979

“All too often beauty is nothing more than the by-product of an everyday enterprise.”

Joseph BrodskyFondamenta degli incurabili, 1989

wishful design process diagramdiagram becomes metaphor

statement of the Eames Design Process by Charles Eamesfor the Louvre show “What is Design”, 1969

Chris BurdenMetropolis II

2009

Alexander McQueenSpring|Summer 1999

model: Shalom Harlow

fin

w w w . s l i d e s h a r e . n e t / r v t i e n h o v e n