cyberPRINT: Towards an Architecture of Being

This project involves the design, construction and performance of an “architecture of being” that expresses selfhood in virtual space and real time using: (1) physiological data as its building material, (2) architectural design as its expressive intent, (3) digital space as its medium, (4) screen projection as its enveloping and viewing technique, (5) user interactivity and performance as its partner, and (6) interdisciplinary collaborations among Architecture, Choreography, Modern Dance, Music, Bioengineering, Medicine and Computer Science as its creative and technical contexts. The paper presents the implementation of the cyberPRINT during a series of techno-media performances at the Rose Wagner Performing Art Center in Salt Lake City, USA, in May 2000. This work is believed to be the first of its kind in the world. The cyberPRINT is building a new area of creative inquiry in architecture by means of collaborations with the arts and sciences. Thematic and Contextual Form Since time immemorial, we human beings have been trying to represent to ourselves graphically, with the hope that such visual externalizations of our physical and/or psychological being would help us understand who or what we are. The prehistoric frescoes of Altamira, the history of pictures, masks and anatomical studies, surrealism, and lately the ups and downs of cyberspace are all representative efforts of the same origin (Ellis 1993, Feher et al 1989, Sennett 1994, Stafford 1991, Sterlac 1995, Wentwick 1971). The observation of these works through time and the space reveals the use of an ample range of metaphors to graphically express identity and human life. Nevertheless, in spite of such diversity, all these visualizations sooner or later, directly or indirectly, end up referring to the body as their foundation and inspiration (Frank 1995, Johnson 1987, Lacoff & Johnson 1998, Merleau-Ponty 1963, Valéry 1989). This project is inserted within this ancestral tradition when exploring the visual representation of being and the human body in the light of new technologies and means. Its center is the graphical representation of “body in motion,” that is to say, the creative visual expression of the human body in real time. Until now, and for millenia, such a task has been the competition of the “performance arts” (music, dance, theater). The “plastic arts,” due to their language and means based on immovable images and objects, have stayed in the margin since, presented alone, they can only respond to the changing nature of vital phenomena in a limited manner. Although the arrival of cinematography somewhat modified this situation, sculpture and architecture continued to be expressed on film as permanent and material . It was not until the invention of computation and its descendant, digital space, that these restrictions were finally raised, thereby realizing the unexplored potential of sculpture and architecture. This work approaches such a challenge by means of the design, construction and implementation of a “architecture of being” that express the fluidity of the human body in real time. The rendered virtual architecture uses humanbody-movement-originated physiological signals and transforms them into forms in three-dimensional space in real time. Since resulting designs represent the individual whose biological data generate and maintain them, the device is really a “cyberPRINT” or a “personal printing” of said individual in digital space. CyberPRINTs may be displayed via digital projection or virtual reality, and create living visual representations of that person with which himself and others may interact in ways unimaginable until now. This new type of architectural experience provokes in all participants deep and lasting aesthetic and reflective answers, whether they are observers or users. But what has architecture got to do with the representation of being and the body? Architecture has always been interested in the study of personal space, individuality, and the body as way to respond to the necessities of shelter, identification and improvement of the human existence. From one perspective, the design of fluid digital constructions that represent being is just an extension of this tradition. On the other hand, this task implies a radical change: instead of architecture determining human activity as it has been until now, cyberPRINT allows human activity to literally determine architecture. The result is a fundamental transformation in form in that, up to here, we have interacted with and created architecture. Form follows life...