Thesis paper_1st draft

The Influence of Force Field in Architecture




Gyu Jin , Hwang
Intensive English Program
07/FA-ENGL-097-19
Thomas Healy




November 18, 2007





Introduction
Twentieth century artists tried to materialize invisible energy in various forms. Artists made sculptures, paintings, installations and not to mention films for their artistic experiments throughout the century. Then it influenced other areas such as cinema and architecture.

The Exhibition, “Force Field: Phase of the kinetic”, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona in 2000 was a milestone in art history because there was no such exhibition before to cover artists from the 1920s to the 1980s in the area of force field art. The visual artist during this time tried to express invisible force field with their own methods such as moving sculptures, mechanical devices, and experimental drawings under the influence of the drug. All these artistic works were experiments to give form to the invisible force.

These days, the exhibition has significant influence on architecture field. Architects are trying to bring these ideas and apply them to design spaces. Development of 3D software and improved technology also played a great role to make this possible. An architect applied concept of force fields to design interactive spaces by analyzing the pattern of movements and consider the flow in the space.
This thesis paper will discuss how artists who deal with the concept of force field have influenced to contemporary architects and explore this new theory in architecture.

Body

Meaning of force field to Artists
Artists who deal with the concept of force field in art are like scientists who tried to prove the invisible force. There are four famous artists who have influenced not only the artistic field but also the other areas.

Jesus Rafael Soto
Soto is a famous kinetic sculptor artist. The one of his famous work is “Penetrable” which consist of square arrays of thin, dangling tubes. Observers can touch, feel and have different optical images due to the movement of tubes as they walk through the room sized installation. He also used and applied mathematical formula in his art. It is why geometric and linear form can be easily found in his works.

Francois Mollet
Francois Morellet began his career in 1952. The characteristic of Mollet’s work is geometric trend. He used geometric forms to materialize the force field since the repetition of straight lines or small squares creates vibrating patterns.

Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux is a French painter, journalist, and poet. Michaux has performed many experiments to express how drug influence his artistic works. In his work, drug just happened to be a method to deliver the force and he participated in these experiments himself. Interestingly, even though he was unconscious when he draw, all his drawings are consists of repetitions of fine and delicate lines.

Ligia Pape
Ligia Pape had a performance to express energy between people. She had an artistic performance inviting a number of people to put their heads through the holes in a cotton sheet. The cotton plane is the force field. The individual movement is invisible force and the people underneath the cotton plane are the habitant in the field. The movement of individual participant made the cotton sheet to be stretched or folded and she was tried to express the energy between peoples through the individual movements on the cotton plane.

Meaning of force field to Architects
The visual artists in force field have a decisive role in developing new concept of architectural space in relation to force field. It influenced the change of conventional concept of buildings and architects view a building as a living organism which requires harmonization with surroundings. Architects started to apply this new concept of space into design. They design space considering the flow of people, interaction with people and nature. This is a new concept of architectural space adapting behavior pattern of human beings in the force field. There are two architects who deal with invisible in their design work.

Patrik Schumacher, Architect
Patik is a partner of Zaha Hadid and he clearly explained this new domain of architecture in his interview. “We foresee the possibility that most (if not all) architectural space will become responsive and be animated through intelligent kinetic capacities. “ He sees that the new building will have sensors to monitor the movement of people and apply the patterns to create responsive structures. This is exactly same concept of force field in visual art. Human behaviour creates a force and buildings response to it. The development of technology made this possible. With the evolution of 3D software, it is now possible to simulate different scenarios within seconds and allow architects to create the new concept of space.

Ben Van Berkel
Ben Van Berkel also designed a space based on the analysis of movement patterns of visitors, residents and pedestrians. He started with diagram to design which represents the relationship between idea and form, contents and structure. As many visual artists used different solutions to materialize the invisible force fields, Ben Van Berkel used diagram to demonstrate the relationship between the force and the structure.

Conclusion
The buildings exist within the force field space. There is force within the buildings and also outside of the buildings. It can be a geometric force, force between people and any artificial force generated by machine. They influence each other and it is why architects try to design a space interacting each other. It is a new concept of space and visual artist in force field had a great influence on.