Ghost in the Machine: Scanning Agency

Taking cues from Ryle’s Ghost in the Machine (1949) and Gage’s Wonder of Trivial Machines (2008), the works showcase design research that investigates how accurately recorded data and recorded ‘errors’ can instigate and inspire new processes for architectural design and fabrication. In this postgraduate studio, computational design tools and machining processes become active agents in design, so that glitches in the technology - from scanning to mapping to material misunderstandings to manufacturing errors – produce ghosts of speculative futures and alternate pathways for the design.Set within an environment of exploration at the intersections of emergent techniques, materials, conditions of habitation and tectonics, the guided framework moves between scales of investigation: from explorations of The Artifact – of subject, of recording, of manufacturing (1:1 < > 1:1); to combinations of artifacts within The Frame – of subjects, of connectivity, of influence (1:1 < > 1:10); to the design of a spatial and functional sequence of The Apparatus – of parts, of process, of interdependency (1:10 < > 1:50); and finally design for an architectural program: The Monocoque – of program – of process – of reflection (1:50 < > 1:100). The works displayed here embody the architectural scenario of whisky tasting, to derive the manifestation of an artefact that embodies this experience. In a first stage, photogrammetry was used for initial scanning, with results graphically mapped and evolved through computational mesh manipulations into a taxonometry (design topography) for an interactive series of 3D prints, with a unique artifact finalised as bronze cast. In a second stage, two artifacts combined in a transition between object stages and a single frame of connectivity. To bridge between characteristics and differences and reveal manufacturing ghosts (material shrinkage) and instruct 3D geometries, casts were scanned, and the frame produced with 3- 5-Axis CNC milling to physically articulate the combined morphological geometries.By using systematic and open-ended processes and fabrication methods, tools adopted become elements of inspiration rather than remaining as binary tools that either record, or visualize, or represent – and in this manner, support an architectural position that suggests thinking is not separate from making, but in fact making is thinking, and thinking is making. References:Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1949).Stephen Gage, The Wonder of Trivial Machines (London: Wiley Academy, AD, 2008).