Phonebox Cannibalism- Act01: Disassembly Color

Thesis summary:

“Built on scripted simulations of swarm behaviour, this project celebrates the elegance and poetic beauty found in nature. A series of abstract experiments are the inspiration for a fictional scenario akin to that of a “cyber-punk” novel. Teams of tiny robots are let loose in the city, programmed, (like bees) to collect the debris and bits of discarded machinery of an industrial city. From these scraps the robots build structures shaped by the patterns of emergent behaviour.”

Phonebox Cannibalism-Act01

The motion of a flock of birds, school of fish is beautiful and inspiring; once a complex motion rarely seen in computer animation but thanks to Craig Reynolds [1]and his steering behaviors for autonomous characters this complex movement has evolved from the cognizance of tortoise behavior by Darwin at the Galapagos island (the physical world of inquiring minds) into the realm of computer animation (virtual and simulated environments). These advancements inevitably allow us to speculate a future introducing a new phase, a realm of artificial emergence where bottom up logic and the study of collective animal intelligence informs a process of self organization in architecture.

The thesis therefore becomes a speculative research project founded on the biological analogy of swarming behavior aspiring towards a strategy which facilitates artificial growth through self organizing systems. This approach is set through a hypothetical narrative where our media experiences and political movements are shaped by bottom up forces; fiction is its reality principle and its mechanism rejects the idea of possible prediction about its appearance or future typology.

[1] Craig Reynolds is a computer scientist and animator artist who made the first substantial effort to simulate flocking behavior following three basic principles. These rules are discussed in his paper; “Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model” published in 1987.

Phonebox Cannibalism- Act 01: Disassembly

Phonebox Cannibalism- Act01: Disassembly Color

Emergent Weaving

Autonomous Agent

Swarm Visual 01

Schizoid- Front&Rear

Skizoid in motion

Ongoing development- designing an autonomous agent in Maya.

As you can see a lot of work still needs to be done…

Flash work using Flash macromedia as part of one of my modules at the university of Westminster. Please feel free to interact with the animation by using your cursor.

Full size Flash animation

Learning: Flash Work Development

more about “+MAADM [Site&Motion]_[Flash Animation] “, posted with vodpod

1.Tutor enjoying the physical interface 2.Short insight of  the crit 3.Maya Animation Stills 4. Maya: Final animation

The applied animation module seizes the potential advantage of utilizing contemporary animation software and interaction of physical objects to bestow spirit to the seemingly dead surfaces and 3dimensional models created. For a general understanding of applied animation, emphasis can be allocated to the construction of a physical device, the drafting of an animative sequence and the programming of the interaction between them to generate innovative design potential . The primary assignment required the understanding of this potential and more precisely to develop an abstract animation in order to be controlled interactively by a physical device containing forms of sensory, the use MEL scripts (Maya embedded language) would tie information given by the device as input and translate it into an animative sequence where its attributes alter as output. The Interactive element plays a crucial role as it translates any given phenomena into information and in turn acts as input source. Our interactive element was achieved using an ‘Arduino’ Circuit board connected both to our physical mechanical device and animation software application, ‘MAYA’ allowing 6 analogue sensor inputs. These sensors were programmed using scripting within the software in order to alter the various attributes associated with the model thus governing the shape and motion of the animation on screen to be demonstrated in real time. The project has been documented in a series of captured images, draft animations and video outputs to express thoughts and evolutionary process involved, this the final interactive animation:

A short video explaining the basic movement of the ‘rib’ component from a physical interface currently been developed as one of my design module for the University of Westminster.