Intensive vs Extensive

Intensive vs Extensive

If we divide a volume of matter into two equal halves, we end up with two volumes, each half the extent of the original. Intensive properties on the other hand are properties such as temperature or pressure, which cannot be so divided.

- Manual Del Landa, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy

Extensive quality is the quality that you can measure, such as length, area and volume, hence Extensive quality is quantitative difference. Let’s say if you divide the perfect cube into two equally subdivided solids, these two solids contain same amount of volumes. On the other hand, Intensive quality is when material reaches the threshold to create difference in quality. For example, water turns into ice as temperature decrease. This allows us to investigate self-organized and bottom-up approach. In Bottom-up approach, designers have control of local scale but the global scale is the result of interactions of the local behavior. The important thing is that the global behavior is more than sum of whole, the difference in quality to make new behavior to be emerged such as water flows to turn into tidal waves or spider webs string to create self-supported web network. Designers seem using algorithmic methods for the investigation of the emergent behavior. However, algorithm, either scripting, animation or parametric, they are structured by nested binary choices for example, if A do C, if B do D, if E do G and so on. I still wonder if this binary choice can simulate complexity of nature. Maybe it does. As Steven Wolfram mentions, the simple rule can create complex system.

Rocker_Complexity_Project

Studio Rocker emphasizes in exploring the possibilities of Architecture by manipulating the idea of codes, how this entity is viewed in its original state and configuration to multiple possibilities of expressions. The code is not seen as an external factor that limits the performance of Architecture; it is used as the mediator to transform the basis of the discipline by being materialized or executed. It becomes distant to our traditional view of restriction of codes transcending to a variety of possible performances and results (such as structure and surface) that are controlled and originated by a set of rules and organizations that determines the after effect of this configuration. I was personally interested in the idea of patterns and repetition that this computational process provides. Having one original state of configuration transcending to a more complex and recoded effect that is given by repetition. Similar to Neumann’s UCC (1940’s) that reveals the idea of copy and construction that gave product to unstable patterns, in Rocker’s Recursions (2004) it becomes evident that the automata is revealed in the understanding of rules, repetition of these operations and the effect that causes by relating one to the other; contributing to a new generation. Interesting to see how the author compares these lines as generations because they behave exactly like the idea of generations, an organization that is transformed by the other. The result: a variety of patterns. It ends up to a modification of codes and rules that stimulate a new understanding in Architecture by computational mediums. The digital software breaks the boundary of the screen and provides not only a theoretical understanding of its function but also the multiple physical possibilities that it can produce: the architecture.

Deleuze’s complexity relates two different kinds of system or spaces that are not completely independent from the other; the smooth and the striated. The relationship is not considered restricted or controlled; it does not reveal an evident origin or a clear sequence of its development. Wolfram’s complexity becomes more choreographed and its development through time is controlled by a rule set that change and maintains a reference from its previous. It becomes more of an addition or a repetition of the original rule set that transcends to a more complicated system different from Deleuze’s complexity that is less systematic. I agree in most of the comments that these two perceptions (Deleuze and Wolfram) are similar to each other by creating a constant relationship with the changing events (rule set or spaces), in addition they are both progressive and developmental. Independent from one being less strained and manipulated than the other, they evolve to a different use of the space. They both generate a complexity that emerges by their common and constant relationships through time to another dimension that contains information from one stage to the other, one that becomes edited or altered independent from their consistency and origin.
The image: Zaha Hadid./ It's a digital media and a study for the Thames Gateway as an urban field, the project would be located in London, United Kingdom. This specific project reveals a similar discussion by having a rule set as an origin that follows development, an alteration of that development that leads to multiple possibilities and patterns of structure. They investigate 4 main building typologies throughout the urban area leading to a series of evolutions of these standard typologies that are placed in the site and experimented. The fusion of these typologies creates new possible structures. To see the animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IksIyui84wE#

Rocker/ Complexity / Image

Studio Rocker use cellular automata as a tool.  It generates a code, and they dictate some form of representation upon it.   For me Melissa says it well when she defines the designer's role as merely a chooser of representation.

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When Pawel talks about Deleuze's complexity as being relational,  and Wolfram's as being sequential, he got me thinking about what that means in terms of time.  Matt talked about this too, saying that both systems relate to time.  To me it initially seems as if Wolfram's complexity is that of a progressively increasing nature, and Deleuze's complexity already completely exists - it is just waiting to be discovered.  But then that gets me thinking about the setup of both theories.  

Wolfram's complexity emerges from simple rules - and so does Deleuze's.  [smooth = this, striated = this, they interact thusly].  For Deleuze, the complexity emerges from how the two ideas interact, and how they relate.

Although Wolfram presents his diagrams of cellular automata in a linear and progressive format - what would happen if we relate them differently?  We talked in class about the Rocker studio having issues with modes of representation.  What if these rules related to each other in a different method - radially or as numbers, as random examples.  The type of representation and relation determines in part the level of complexity.  (If you only allowed the rules to progress two steps, with a three square wide grid, the diagram would be a lot less complex than an 18 step 50 square wide grid)  

So it seems that both Wolfram and Deleuze present complexity in terms of a relational and representational means.  Starting with a simple definition (rules for squares, and two ideologically different spaces) in relating the two spaces, or in relating how the rules operate in space, complexity develops.  The rules in and of themselves have no complexity, just as the definition of a smooth or striated space has inherently no complexity.  

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The image is of the Hydrogen House in Austria by Michael McInturf, Greg Lynn, and Martin Treberspurg.

studio rocker experiments with cellular automata to create three dimensional diagrams, which is just another way of expressing the code. there is no more complexity in the architectural solution than there was in the code – it is exactly the same information in a different form. she acknowledges this deficiency though, when saying 'any code's expression is thus always just one of an infinite set of possible realisations'. the role of the designer, for her studio, is to simply decide on the method of representation of the code.

wolfram's idea of complexity is easier to define than that of deleuze. for wolfram, complexity arises from a simple code, repeated many times. in this way, while the local scale is simple, the same code at the global scale becomes complex. deleuze's smooth and striated models are inherently complex, and related to each other in many more ways than just local/global scale.

interior of the interactive water pavilion by NOX

Deleuze/Wolfram Complexity, Rocker Essay and Digital Architect Image

Wolfram’s reading indicates that complexity can be based on a simple rule set. By following the defined rules, the outcome can be visually complex. In this system, complexity is based on a sequence of ‘if then’ statements. However, Deleuze’s theory suggests that there is an inherent complexity constructed of two different yet intertwined entities: the smooth and the striated. There is no if then statement with these, because the smooth and the striated act in relation to each other, while at the same time remaining their own entities. One thing that both of the readings have in common is that the systems exist within time and they are not static. In Wolfram’s text, time is displayed in the process of analyzing the previous steps based on the logic of the system and then implementing them to create the outcome. In the Deleuze reading, time is a property that is present in the smooth, because intensities and forces cannot exist without the element of time.

Rocker’s studio uses cellular automata as a generative tool for architecture. However, her use of the cellular automata places emphasis on the output diagram as an architectural form. In the last class, we discussed that Rocker’s studio used the algorithm as a way of creating the diagrams, but that diagrams were only one way of representing the computation. I was wondering how computation could be represented if its outcome vary? Is the problem with Rocker’s approach that she is only looking at one outcome and not a variety of outcomes?

The following is an image of a model designed by Greg Lynn for the Kleiburg Block.

2009-03-03 On Board

Relation Between Categories and Prior Analytics

Aristotle’s categories consist of methods of describing (categorizing) human perception and understanding. Topics include substance, quantity, relativity, quality, action / affection, opposition, contradiction, priority, simultaneity, movement, possession. Predicate logic seems to exist in the categories specifically in the substance category to describe the individual, man and animal relationship. It struck me as being similar to the syllogism discussed in last week’s class: Humans are mortal, Socrates is a human, Socrates is mortal. Prior Analytics builds upon these ideas, developing further modes of logic and reasoning as well as methods for establishing and refuting propositions and investigating problems.