Purpose of exercise:
To start some drawing exercises that begin to articulate the question that forms your research basis for the MArch course based on observation, research and analysis of materials with a highly ordered structure resulting from very different processes both of which are the end result of MINERALIZATION and is a bottom-up approach to assembling material.
The selected exhibits will examine two types of spontaneously occurring materials in order to reflect on the types of forms and interactions that occur between living systems and their environments and how this may inform architecture.
a) crystallization, which is a material self-organizing process (environment led). Here the mineralization process is the result of crystal formation under sedimentary, igneous or even environmental geological conditions.
b) fossilization, which records living traces (organism led). Mineralization in this case follows an existing framework that can be organic material, traces that are derived from the actions of organisms or even, geological-scale preservation of specimens.
Inherent in this enquiry is how certain forms become inscribed and under what environmental conditions these processes, or even mass extinctions, took place. Whilst appreciating that the nature of terrestrial matter, is to change with time, whether living or geological in scale, it is pertinent to reflect on what kinds of environmental processes or technologies would enable us to engage with the these processes so that they could be ‘designed.’ Such processes enable a conversation to take place between the organism and environment and can be thought of as architectural processes. Think of what the various exhibits are made of, how & why they have taken on the current form.
Mineralization has thermodynamic limitations but can be ‘designed’ through the precipitation of physical & chemical interactions using protocell technology, or some applied biological processes (Synthetic Biology – designer biology). The process of mineralization can produce unusual shapes and incredible colours such as, those seen in stromatolites (fossilized bacterial colonies) or fossilized wood.
TASK - Crystallization / Fossilization
Step 1- Identify and study these two processes, selecting one example of each. To develop two triptych one of each
Step 2 - Explore the physical processes at work, understand how these are controlled, accelerated and or delayed. What environmental factors are at work? What were the physical parameters of site, climate, and physical geography?
Step 3 – Imagine and consider contemporary examples which might become SITE / OBJECT/SUBJECT for change. Propose the imagined forces at work, how these might be manipulated and controlled? You will need to develop individual tools for working, consider both technical and cultural paradigms.
Consider tactics for the construction of drawings, they should both record and propose material change. Consider drawings as an expression of both the physical and the immaterial. Drawings are to be seen as a time based medium, marks of addition, cuts of removal. Consider collage as a method of hybrid assembly. Drawings should NOT be merely illustrations. Drawings should be seen as an active field of discovery, a laboratory environment, open too infection, presented in a state of continual flux. A brief moment of time captured. Consider residues of a gesture or process. Consider how these traces, residues might be caught delayed or recorded. Remember a photograph is simply drawing with light, caught digitally or if analogue held in chemically suspension.
Drawings should be seen as a catalytic space of discovery, a space to propose, speculate and test.
Prepare a series of drawings which explore and record SITE / OBJECT / SUBJECT contain three scales within this triptych. Each individual drawing should contain evidence, record traces, of the other missing components of the triptych.
Notes:
Crystallization:
Crystallization refers to the formation of solid crystals from a homogeneous solution (one in which soluble ‘salts’ are evenly dispersed) and is essentially a solid-liquid separation technique.
Crystals are grown in many shapes, which are dependent on environmental conditions. In order for crystallization to take place a solution must be "supersaturated". Supersaturation refers to a state in which the liquid (solvent) contains more dissolved solids (solute) than can be accommodated at that temperature and was used as a technique by the artist Roger Hiorns in his installation ‘Seizure’ for Artangel, where a derelict building was encased in reinforced steel and then filled with copper II sulphate solution and left for 2 weeks. The result was a dark blue crystal studded cave like environment that encrusted traces of human activity.
Calcium carbonate exists as different mineral forms such as, calcite and aragonite. Of particular interest is the mineral Calcite (more stable than aragonite), which gets its name from "chalix" the Greek word for lime, is a most amazing and yet, most common mineral. It is one of the most common minerals on the face of the Earth, comprising about 4% by weight of the Earth's crust and is formed in many different geological environments. Calcite can form rocks of considerable mass and constitutes a significant part of all three major rock classification types. It possesses extraordinary diversity and beauty that is derived from 300 crystal forms to generate over a thousand different crystal variations.
Biomorphic crystals are ones that have some likeness to biological forms. In painting and sculpture biomorphic forms or images are ones that, while abstract, nevertheless refer to, or evoke, living forms such as plants and the human body. The term comes from combining the Greek words bios, meaning life, and morphe, meaning form. Biomorphic seems to have come into use around the 1930s to describe the imagery in the more abstract types of Surrealist painting and sculpture particularly in the work of Joan Miró and Jean Arp. Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth also produced some superb biomorphs at that time, and later so did Louise Bourgeois.
Fossilization:
There are two main types of fossils, organic fossils, and trace fossils. Organic fossils were once part of a living organism, and trace fossils are the prints they left behind, such as footprints, and worm holes.
Fossilization is the process where organic matter has been turned to stone. This is a rare event that takes place under the right conditions. Only the hard parts of an organism can become fossilized, such as teeth, claws, shells, and bones. The soft body parts are usually lost, except for in very special conditions (Burgess Shale).
Most fossils occur in sedimentary rock over thousands of years where sediments slowly pile up over organic matter, until they are buried far underneath the ground. The minerals in the bones, calcium salts and hydroxyapatite are gradually replaced with the minerals in the sediment. Due to the great pressure over top, the lower levels of sediment get pressed together to form sedimentary rock, with the bones still in it. Eventually, millions of years pass by, and there is no organic material left in the bones, they are now solid rock, and are buried deep below the surface, incarcerated in sedimentary rocks.
Another way of preserving organic matter (typically wood) is petrification where alkaline water and dissolved silica infiltrate decaying matter to release carbon dioxide, which dissolves in the water to form carbonic acid. The alkaline water becomes neutralized, and the silica is precipitated out of the solution. Very slowly, the organic matter is replaced in perfect detail by minerals, molecule by molecule, by the silica which can be stained with many colours if other minerals are present.
Organisms can also be preserved by carbonization when organic matter is covered in silt and subjected to heat and pressure where the organic material is released as methane, water, and carbon dioxide which leave a thin film of carbon, showing the imprint of the organic structure which may include leaves, insects and fish.
Mummification also preserves specimens for thousands of years due to the dessication of tissues by drying, acidification or freezing.
The remains of thousands of Pleistocene mammals have been found in Los Angeles, California, in tar pits.
The resin amber is the hardened tree sap of ancient trees which sometimes, trapped insects and when it hardened, they were no longer exposed to air, so their bodies couldn't decompose.
