Image as Instruments

Image as Instruments is an introduction to fundamental concepts, techniques, and methods in digital design, with a focus on the processes of translation between digital media and material artifacts.
 
The course will structure our investigation around the notion of the digital image as a means of addressing broader questions related to the role of digital media in the arts and architecture design. The plurality of design approaches and working methods afforded by the postdigital has blurred the role of images within experimental design practice. Accordingly, beyond typical end-process output used in everyday practice, the course focus on the image as a speculative medium for creating a new vision for design conventions. It is a critical inquiry into the meaning and role of image in our discipline and image as instruments for conceiving and perceiving novel design, which invites multiple interpretations and modes of engagement.
 
The course is organized into five interrelated areas of inquiry.
     • Digital image as an analytic instrument
     • Digital image as a translational instrument
     • Digital image as a generative Instrument
     • Digital image as a materiality instrument
     • Digital image as an artifact
 
As these different approaches play into different epistemic questions about design and technology, we will explore new possibilities of feedback between digital image and architectural design revolving around the processes of design, representation, and fabrication.
 
The course will address the content described above through a combination of lectures, discussions, technical workshops, and design exercises. Technical workshops will introduce software including Rhino/Grasshopper (along with its associated plugins for analysis, image and form making), Cinema4D (for advanced representation and materiality explorations, rendering, and animating) and various Computer Vision related tools.
 
There are no prerequisites for this class, and no special software skills are required, only a willingness to explore various media in unconventional ways.
 
The presented concepts and techniques will be explored through a semester-long project organized into a sequential set of assignments. Beginning with the process of analyzing images, students will explore a variety of imaging and form-making strategies using a collection of digital and fabrication tools. Subsequent assignments will explore the affordances of specific image manipulation techniques and examine the relationship of the presented technique to design concerns including representation, materiality, originality, and authorship.