CHRISTOPHER SPYRAKOS
An introverted exploration. Built in the past. Envisioning the future.
INTROSPECTIVE FUTURISM by CHRISTOPHER SPYRAKOS
MAY 2020 - MAKERGRAPH STUDIO
I. T E RR E STR IAL YESTERDAY an occupation of the past. the backbone of the early years. a record of observations. TODAY a daily routine. an occupation of today. plastic reality. trending now.
E X T R A
II. T E R R E STR IAL
TONIGHT (INTERLUDE) retrospection of the day. embellishment for the night. preparation for tomorrow. TOMORROW Observations of today. Glances to the past. Creations for the future.
Introspective Futurism is built over and with the essence of time. It consists of a series of different creations that reflect on time. These creations are based on preoccupations and occupations that were generated through time and left a mark on me. Like fossils, I extract them and use them as inspirations to create. Sometimes, in order to look into the future, we need to dig into the past. My interest in architecture is unravelled and explained from another perspective. Documenting my physical creations was an opportunity to explore geometric potentials. The lens of the camera created stories and perceptions.
Introspective Futurism is divided into two parts which contain two chapters. Each part is defined by its relation to Earth and nature, while each chapter by its relation with time: Terrestrial is manifested out of four different objects built from four different materials. Two naturally made and two artificially made. Their creation was inspired from occupations of the past (Yesterday) and the present (Today).
Extra-Terrestrial is the product of the new reality that shifted the way we live. Production relied on machines and physical tools turned to computer algorithms. Tonight is a collection of the new occupations that came as an aftermath of the new circumstances. Playful, yet dark, they forecast the ultimate creation: the house of the future (Tomorrow). Introspective Futurism envisions the future through an exploration of current realities while glancing at the past.
I. TERRESTRIAL
YESTERDAY
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an occupation of the past.
Not only I was fascinated by their incredible size and the fact they were mighty beasts ruling the earth once, but also by their anatomy and the hundreds of variations of size, shape, and physical characteristics. Dinosaurs were the most significant interest that shaped my childhood. The shape of their skull, the different geometrical shapes that formed their entire body, even the scientific speculations of their actual physical appearance were just a number of aspects that drove me to better understand those creatures.
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A spine is fundamentally the central element that defines the whole skeleton of a living organism. It is the structural core that supports all the other bones. Each one of the different pieces of the spine is integral for it’s continuous form, thus the geometrical shape of each one of them has to be in a way supplementary to the next one and so forth. A significant part of my visits to Natural History Museums is the observation of the different spinal vertebrae of each animal. Furthermore, the extraction of fossils and the footprint that they might have left is another parameter of my visits. The secrets they keep and the inconsiderable truths that we have found out, is always an exciting factor that has kept my interest undiminished all this time.
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As humans, we experience nature in a very restricted way. That’s part of the reason why we have offsetted the natural environment away from the cities that we inhabit. Nature has become something we want to interact with and at the same time keep away. Everyone is looking for elements from nature to keep in their room. I can’t say I am any different than that. But I never expected I would be so intrigued by some wallpapers Google Chromecast used as a screensaver on my TV. It was a new way of seeing nature whatsoever. The textures, the colors, the patterns, everything looked too majestic. I realized that they seemed familiar. So I decided to imprint them on the object itself. As a trace of nature I want to have in my room, but fossilized as a nice memory.
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After fabricating the last of the four objects, I decided to create an alternative archive of the objects altogether. A series of imprints on clay was used to make such a documentation possible.
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the backbone of the early years.
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Wood is hard. It is dry and solid therefore it can be heavy. It can also be smooth, fine, thin and light. It is carvable and that is what makes it rich with potential. A tree log is like a canvas. Chopped in half, is now lighter. Chopping that half into two other pieces, makes it even lighter, therefore manageable. The smaller pieces were then carved on the perimeter to a favorable shape. Sanding and sawing were the actions that refined the object to its final form. The two final products were looking similar, but very separated without a noticeable link to each other. Parts of the initially chopped tree log were sawed with detail to six different bone-like geometries. Sanding the edges would create an elegant and smooth piece, with smaller edges able to link the two bigger blocks of wood. The six bones were glued on the perimeter of the two bigger pieces, thus creating a single space in-between.
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a record of observations.
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Metal is considered as a hard material that even from ancient times it needed complex methods and tools to forge it and bring it to a desirable shape. However, aluminum has the ability to be handled and formed in a variety of ways even with bare hands. A single thin aluminum sheet of (dimensions) was picked for the synthesis. The objective was to imprint four different aerial images that came out of the “Preoccupation� section. A hammer, a screwdriver, a spanner and a needle were the tools that were used for the recreation of the image. At first the actions turned out to be shy and the result quite minimal, but as the process moved from one image to the other, the actions became much more aggressive. At first the sheet was carefully but forcefully scrubbed with all the available tools, then heavily hammered and poked so the engraving would become further noticeable. Then the single big aluminum piece was sawed to five different pieces that were to be joined together. Bent, then penetrated in certain spots, one sheet was joint with the other. Twisting the corners also was a method of retaining the pieces together. Dark as a cave, ornamental as a rose, wavy as the sea, gleaming as a gemstone, the object is as dynamic as nature with a bit of nostalgia engraved on it.
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I. TERRESTRIAL
TODAY
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a daily routine.
Curls, length, volume. Until very recently I had no desire or interest in how my hair would look like if I let them grow. I was feeling like most people do: you want what you can’t have. Short, straight, easy to handle. Whenever those boundaries were broken, there was no second thought. After a certain point I decided to let go of my restraints. Now it has become part of my everyday life. Ultimately I have developed an affiliation with the shape of the curve, therefore the curl. From drawings and sculptures, to architecture, the potentiality and the dynamic of the curve has always intrigued me. And personally I think that that has generated my obsession with my hair.
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The time required for my hair to dry from the moment I get out of the shower is fairly significant. Thus I thought that it would be interesting to capture the process every once in a while. A photo collection of a 5 minute gap in-between would make it possible to notice the different states. At first, all joint together in locks, straightened from the weight of the water, creating different layers. On the second stage some of these locks have already started to dry and create a fuzzy environment. The following stages were defined by the same reaction, until all became finally dry. The overall volume is definitely one of the considerable changes as also the indefinite texture that is created throughout my whole head.
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an occupation of today.
Abstract Expressionism has been identified from any spontaneous, automatic, or subconscious creation. A regular painting brush has its hair very organized as it was initially manufactured. It serves the painter’s intuition with its ability to be both precise and inaccurate. The following composition is the result of what could happen if that well designed paint brush turned into a pile of regular hair.
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plastic reality.
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Curvature and transparency in combination with lines and opaqueness. A random mess organized inside a defined grid. Plastic water bottles chopped into different rings, then curved pieces were generated by cutting the rings in the middle. When those pieces were joint together and merged into a single volume, the transparency and the glossiness of the material rendered the object as a cloud form shape, with undefined edges and endless possibilities for expansion. Straws of two different diameter sizes were joint together into a single piece, becoming the structural element of the synthesis. Then by placing them in a plastic soda-cup-cover base, a forest emerged inside a four by four grid. On one side of the grid the cloud was placed on top of the forest creating space on the base of the object. On the other side, the cloud became a stormy sea covered with waves of the same material. The object had become a plastic landscape, and just like nature, it has infinite possibilities.
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trending now.
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Fabric is genuinely soft and pleasant. It’s the main material that has always been associated with the human body. It’s texture is gentle to the touch and also to the eye. It is used for clothing primarily as a form of protection but also as a form of expression. It is also incorporated into houses and interior spaces as objects that embrace hospitality, such as curtains, carpets, bedsheets and others. The actions that were made for the creation of the object, were all directly connected with the properties of the material. Two plain white curtains were first painted in certain spots, using the pattern that was developed in the preoccupation section. Then these control points were used in order for the fabrics to be crinkled, torn, weaved and knotted.
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II. EXTRA - TERRESTRIAL
TONIGHT (INTERLUDE)
As half of the semester passed, the objects I created have remained untouched for a significant amount of time. The first attempt of documentation came with the use of clay creating different imprints. The fossilization of the objects took a turn using digital techniques for their documentation. A digital piece of clay had documented the wooden and the metallic objects I had created. By twisting and turning the objects, the imprints covered the whole object from different angles, forming different shapes of the object’s footprint. The pieces of clay came out looking as solid volumes, rough looking but malleable.
For a further exploration of those footprints I studied them by deconstructing them. With the use of contour lines and the model’s generation lines, I extracted different clouds of curves. Like a single hair in space, each curve defined a piece of geometry of the footprint. Although, the same way a united group of hair creates volume, a group of curves created an apparent geometry of the footprints. The documentation of the deconstructed footprints is displayed as a series of different perspectives of them. Sometimes the different results were combined with each other for an experimentation of perception. The process led me to approach these fossils generatively. A variety of realities and space-scapes were constructed with retro-fictional style, inspired by the traces arcade games left from the past, but looking at the future.
retrospection of the day.
embellishment for the night.
preparation for tomorrow.
II. EXTRA - TERRESTRIAL
TOMORROW
Observations of today. Glances to the past. Creations for the future.
Humanity has been using earth’s natural elements for resources over the course of time in such excess that nowadays the future of the human kind seems uncertain and the world as we know it would change forever. Following this reality, in the future, the planet would experience a massive evacuation for the preservation of the species. With no destination to arrive, people would wander around space indefinitely. The sense of nostalgia of leaving the Mother Earth that hosted people thousands of years would keep them attached in the planetary Orbit. They would then build a new society, a worldwide web of routes that shuttles would run across, keeping the world connected.
The shuttles would be hosting a small community of people that would all live together. That would be their new home. A home that would have a view to what was once their home, Earth. The community living inside each house-shuttle would have enough resources to live for several months. When they run out, the shuttle would have to move to a larger checkpoint to resupply and then move back on track to maintain the wider circulation.
The house consists of one massive block with six bridges on its front part. The block is then divided into five radial slabs that host the living pods and the most private spaces of the house. Five deep cuts form zero gravity corridors that allow vertical movement and connect the radial spaces. The core and the outer periphery are filled with mechanical parts and machinery that power the shuttle. Each one of these individual blocks spin on their axis while they move around the worldwide network. In the need of human socialization, two different blocks can meet and interlock one another using the bridges. When the two blocks attach an interior space is created between them and ten thin platforms are generated, connecting the perpendicular cuts across both blocks. This would be the public space. The sheets would lighten up and form virtual and colorful environments, entertainment fields and other recreational facilities would emerge through high end technologies. Eventually, humanity would remain a part of this world, with the help of technological innovations that changed the way human life was established through time. The new world would be just outside the old one creating a new layer in Earth’s Mesosphere. This new layer of life would become the midpoint of an unknown journey of the human kind and everything that was saved by the dying planet that was left behind. People would live inside this new settlement viewing a fossil of the past that would eventually become a memory when the new world would be discovered.
AΕΟΝ LIVING PODS - PLAN
AΕΟΝ ENGINE - PLAN
AΕΟΝ PLATFORMS - SECTION
AΕΟΝ LIVING PODS - SECTION
AΕΟΝ LIVING PODS - ENGINE SECTION
AΕΟΝ CUTS - ENGINE SECTION
pods corridors platform meeting points bridges
blocks
platforms
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Built in
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Envisioning the
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