Mediating Architecture, Spatial Perception & Memory Through
Simulation and Digital Fabrication

By Taryn Sheppard
B.FA, Nova Scotia College of Art & Design 2006
M.Arch, University of Toronto 2010

A Thesis Support Paper Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The
Requirements For The Degree Of
Master Of Fine Arts

Emily Carr University of Art + Design 2020

copyright Taryn Sheppard 2020

[Index]
+ Acknowledgements
+ Introduction
>Thesis Exhibition Overview

+ Background & Context/
>Architecture
		
>Post Modern Architecture
			>Metamodernism
				>Memory

+ Method & Methodology/
>Memory & Space		
		>Mediation
			
> Research & Knowledge Production
+ Key Concepts
>The Simulation
		>Melancholia
			
>Digital Anxiety/ Digital Euphoria
				
>The Creation of Depth as a
				 Performative Act

+ Conclusion
+ Bibliography

[Acknowledgements]
Returning to school after many years has been a tumultuous
but rewarding experience and I have many people to thank for
their support.
I would like to thank Emily Carr University for providing an
enriching environment to pursue my art practice, the very
astute professors who reviewed my work and offered advise,
and the many technicians who patiently helped me with my
projects.
I would also like to thank the Material Matters Lab for
giving me the opportunity to work with a very creative group
of individuals and learn a new way of thinking about research
and knowledge-making. As well, my supervisor Keith Doyle who
has been tremendously supportive in directing my work both
in the lab and the studio.
Finally I would like to thank the University again for helping
me to generate an awareness of the political landscape of this
province. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to learn
that ECUAD is located on the unceded traditional territories
of the Coast Salish peoples of the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish,
and Musqueam Nations, and that I live and work here as an
uninvited guest. I’m excited and honoured to be able to
partake in this decolonial practice and to bring this with
me as I move forward.

[Introduction]
This work looks at the relationship between memory and architecture through the
lens of technology. Memory and knowledge have become outsourced into computers and
devices which can change our perception of reality, in particular the architectural
spaces we inhabit. This research explores the following questions to a variety of
degrees:
> What is the relationship between space, memory and technology?
> What are the deeper impacts of simulations on our understanding of space?
> How can a digital to analog process shed new light on the way digital
culture has changed our perception of space?
My process involves a constant back and forth relationship with the technology at
hand. I reconstruct memories of architectural spaces using computer modelling, then
force those models into analog mediums. I use mediation to emphasize the gap or
fault in memory that occurs over time. My interest in these processes are largely
a result of my life experience in working as an architect but being passionate
about painting the observable world. I have been motivated to test the limits of
technology in the workplace in designing buildings, as well as pushing the ability
of software to represent highly realistic scenes.
In architectural rendering, the goal is to always create the proposed space in its
most idealized form in order to sell a design. In contrast, I propose the use of
rendering and 3d modelling to describe a kind of digital heterotopia in which a set
of rules is derived from the restrictive conditions of computer aided creation. I
want to achieve a transmutation within the viewer; to project themselves into this
digital heterotopia. It is a distant reflection of a once real place filtered through
layers of technological processing.

1

Thesis Exhibition Overview
This body of work that comprises the thesis project combines several different
pieces shown as one installation. The space in which it is exhibited is bound by
three walls and measures approximately twenty-five by twelve feet (See fig’s.1-4).
The first element is a ground covering made of found carpet and spray paint. It
covers the floor of the gallery at irregular angles. This element distorts the
space with its own contradictory geometry. The pattern appears to be pink granite
or terrazzo. It is a material that is recognizable as an architectural finish but
lacking depth in its superficial quality.
The second element is a hanging drawing that creates a fourth wall that partially
encloses the space. It is suspended above the floor by one foot and features a
plotter-produced line drawing of stacked glass blocks in a blue-green color. The
‘wall’ is nine feet high by fourteen feet long. Each block is slightly larger than
real life size. Some are faded and have irregularities from the plotting process.
The third element of the installation is a painting that features a scene which
was first computer modelled and rendered, and then painted from that rendering.
It depicts a chaotic array of architectural elements that cast shadows onto an
artificially close backdrop. These architectural masses appear to be caught in a
suspended state within a diorama like stage.
These elements create an atemporal space (or room) wherein the viewer is surrounded
by architectural references that are mediated through a variety of processes.
Present in this body of work are concepts and methodologies examined throughout
this thesis, including 1) the manifestation of memory through digital fabrication,
2)elements of post modern architecture and the formal language of architectural
space, and 3)the attempt to portray the depth of memory but inhibiting that process
by imposing mediation strategies.

2

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1: Taryn Sheppard, ‘A Total Fabrication’, 2020. Multimedia Installation, variable dimensions.
Fig. 2: Taryn Sheppard, ‘A Total Fabrication’, 2020. Oil Paint on Wood Panel, 80” x 60”.
Fig. 3: Taryn Sheppard, ‘A Total Fabrication - Pink Granite’, 2020. Acrylic Paint on Nylon Textile, 15’x12’ (approx.)
Fig. 4: Taryn Sheppard, ‘A Total Fabrication - Glass Block’, 2020. Details.
Fig’s. 5 & 6: Taryn Sheppard, ‘A Total Fabrication’, 2020. Details.

3

Fig. 2.

4

Fig. 4.

Fig. 3.

5

Fig’s. 5 & 6.

6

[Background + Context]
Contextual Influences
Narratives of architecture instilled in me an understanding of how buildings and
spaces can represent far more than just shelter. They can symbolize political power,
culture, economic conditions, and history. Buildings embody a language of form that
has meaning to those who live in and around them.
My home province of Newfoundland and Labrador throughout the 20th century was
characterized by geographic remoteness and economic challenges. At the time when
Canada celebrated a promising future with Expo 67’, the province struggled to adapt
to its new-found modernity. It was a testing ground for radical economic rejuvenation
schemes, many of them resulting in economic and political turmoil. One example of
these maverick schemes was when Joey Smallwood, the first premier of the province,
travelled to Expo ‘67 and purchased the Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian Pavilions
- both built in the International Style of architecture. They were disassembled,
shipped and rebuilt in two outport communities in Newfoundland, re-erected as arts
and culture centres.1

FIG. 7 YUGOSLAVIAN PAVILION FROM EXPO 67’. FIG. 8, RIGHT, CURRENT LOCATION OF THE PAVILION IN FORTUNE BAY,
NL. IMAGES REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTION.

1
They both still stand today albeit with some local design interventions including clapboard siding
and folk mural, see Fig.1.

7

The futuristic techno-modern presence of these ‘international style’ buildings had
a new and alien presence in the rural landscape on which they were reconstructed.
They are sculptural beacons of a far-off world and are reminiscent of a science
fiction-esque narrative. They have an unsettling relationship with site (typical of
modern architecture) which is exacerbated by having been literally transplanted
into an unrelated location.
In contrast to late 20th century global architecture, the vernacular architecture
in Newfoundland and Labrador was formed over several hundred years of limited access
to building materials and adaptation to a challenging environment. Houses were
constructed from wood and built on piles so that they could be moved easily to
relocate to richer fishing grounds. Towns were not planned, but rather, ‘emerged’
in a rhizomatic manner based on relationships to the water, views of ocean (for
practical purposes) and familial relationships. Modern consumer culture was not
established until much later in the history of the island and before this, the
cuture of production was characterized by innovation in construction stemming from
scarcity.
The juxtapostion of the monumentalism of late-modern international style architecture
and the fragile regional vernacular demonstrates the meaning and language of form
and how the desires of others are expressed in the built environment. As described
by these anecdotes, unpacking how my own perception of space has been shaped by my
work in architecture has been the departure point for my artistic research.
Postmodern Architecture
Consecutively, the era of Postmodern architecture was largely a response to modern
architecture’s uniformity, austerity, and ignorance of context. It was characterized
by the idea that architecture should be built for people and reflect the complicated
context in which it would be placed. It sought meaning and expression by embracing
ornamentation, historical styles, pastiche, complexity and contradiction but was
later criticised for liberally taking from any genre and reducing the meaning of
form to superficial appearance. The postmodern era of architecture in Newfoundland &
Labrador was the backdrop of my early life and plays a role in my artistic research.
Through mining my own memories of architectural spaces and materials, and exploring
its many emblematic forms, postmodern architecture provides an element of nostalgia
and anchors the work in the discourse of architectural movements.
8

Metamodernism
As discussed in the previous chapter, postmodern architecture
(not to be confused with postmodernism in the broader sense)
could be defined by an interest in visual language. This can
be contrasted by the era in which I have been practicing
architecture which is currently (by some scholars) defined
as Metamodernism. It is a term used to describe the current
condition of cultural production and is not specific to
architecture. This era is characterized by a distinct
yearning for a utopian vision but not having a clear path to
achieve this due to a sense of overwhelm and the intrusion
of past narratives that undermine the truth of our current
experience. It has been described as a ‘structure of feeling’
by scholar Timotheas Vermeulen. This idea is explored further
in the Key Concepts section of the thesis, with a focus on
the expression of this idea in my work.
Metamodernism is a real condition of contemporary architecture
practice, where the origins of a formal language (like columns
or arches) have lost their meaning, yet clients still desire
to have a feeling of authenticity (warmth and friendliness)
in the face of generic architectural styles.
In addition, the simulation space that is ubiquitous
in architecture practice creates a similar unsettling
psychological dissonance. Throughout my career my focus was
on 3d modelling and rendering, and I found myself having to
negotiate between the desire to simulate utopian spaces in
computer models and the ability of reality to live up to
those models. The drive to unpack this difficult relationship
between the real and the simulation has been formative in
laying out my artistic research. This inability of reality
to live up to an idealized model is also a condition of the
metamodern existance.

9

Memory
In my own experience both in designing for those who are
aging and with family members who suffered from cognitive
deterioration, I have witnessed the effects of the failure
of perception in how it relates to architectural space. This
ranges from the inability to recognize familiar locations to
the fear of simple architectural features like thresholds
or long hallways. This experience sparked questions about
the perception of reality and the tenuous nature of memory.
Rebecca Solnit writes about the effects of dementia and her
experiences with a close family member losing their grasp on
reality in ‘The Faraway Nearby’:
“Memory, even in the rest of us, is a shifting, fading,
partial thing, a net that doesn’t catch all the fish by any
means and sometimes catches butterflies that don’t exist.”
The act of remembering can be voluntary or involuntary, and each
time we access a memory, the details are freshly reconstructed.
Some details are lost each time, and replaced with fabrications.
Memories of space can exaggerate characteristics, diminish
others, and we often fabricate notions that didn’t happen.
In my work, the analog translation of these reconstructed
memory models are a literal representation of the faultiness
of memory.

10

ARCH.

ARCH.

MEMORY

MEMORY
MEDIATION

MEDIATION

Fig’s. 9 & 10: Diagram Describing Relationship Between Architecture, Memory, and Mediation.

[Method & Methodology]
Memory and Space
This research methodology begins with a process involving a negotiation of
architectural space with a memory. The relationship between architecture, memory
and mediation is explored in a diagrammatic method below. In overlapping these
concepts I’ve found a nexus of relationships that will be expanded upon in this
chapter.
There is a special relationship between memory and space. I believe what links
these two concepts are emotional experiences of space that are anchored by time and
place. A friend of mine who was a smoker, explained to me once that their reason
for smoking was to accentuate or pinpoint a moment in time; to create a ‘peak’
along the linear trajectory of a day. The enjoyment of a cigarette and the rush of
nicotine had the power to cement a memory into their mind. I’d like to think that
this is true - not necessarily triggered by a cigarette - but that a particularly
intense personal emotional or sensorial experience can concretize an architectural
space into your memory and imbue that memory with feeling. This is not dissimilar
to the technique of mind-mapping - the practice of memorizing things by assigning
spatial relationships to them.
11

Fig. 11: Taryn Sheppard, ‘Threshold’, 2019. Watercolor Ink on Paper, 80” x 52”.

Gaston Bachelard’s ‘The Poetics of Space’ addresses this relationship of space
and memory. For Bachelard, the home represented a rich world of experiences and
emotions, anchored by seemingly mundane architectural details like millwork or
staircase. A quote from The Poetics of Space:
“And all the spaces of our past moments of solitude, the
spaces in which we have suffered from solitude, enjoyed,
desired, and compromised solitude, remain indelible within
us and precisely because the human being wants them to
remain so. ”

12

Bachelard wrote in the context of a modernizing mid-century France, where growing
metropolises meant fast and repetitive construction - the antithesis of carefully
articulated homes wherein generations of lives could be read in the dents and
scratches of a balustrade.
For Bachelard, the events that take place in an
architectural space leave an intangible effect on their physical being.

Fig. 12: Clay printer at work creating ‘Porcelain House’, 2019.
Image by the author.

Mediation
My process begins with an exploration of a moment in an architectural space that I
have experienced. In the work entitled ‘Threshold’ (2019), my goal was to recreate
a moment in a domestic space: an open window at night with warm breeze billowing
through the fabric of the drapery. From memory I construct elements of this space
with Rhino; a 3d modelling software. I create only the planes of the space that are
attached to the focal point of the memory. The focal point of the memory is linked
to the experience of that space. Reconstructing a space from memory in 3d software
allows for scale to be undetermined and for perspective and orientation to be left
open-ended. This is important at this generative stage of the process, so that I
might try various iterations of the viewer’s orientation to the architectural space.

13

Fig. 13: Taryn Sheppard, ‘Threshold’, Detail. 2019. Watercolor Ink on Paper,
80” x 52”.

In this research the relationship between architecture and memory is mediated by
machine and material processes: 3d model to clay, 3d model to plotter, rendering to
oil paint (digital to analog). I use several mediation processes in my work. All
of them have the starting point of developing architectural spaces from memories
as discussed previously. The point of moving from simulation space into real
life happens in different ways for different projects. Further to the process of
mediation there are a multitude of 3d modelling commands I use to make the model.
Those include Loft, ExtrudeCrv, ExtrudeSrf, Make2d, TweenCrvs, etc. and the process
of transitioning from virtual to the real which is called ‘slicing’2.

2‘Slicing’: the process by which a 3d model is contoured and measured to extract millions of location points
in order to be constructed in real life by a digital fabrication device. The data is compiled into a G Code
file, which is essentially a map of those millions of spatial locations.

14

Fig. 14: Taryn Sheppard, ‘Porcelain House’, 2019. Porcelain. Approximately 16”
x 8” x 6”.

15

Fig. 15a & 15b: Taryn Sheppard, ‘Porcelain House’, 2019. Bay Window Detail
And Front Facade.

For ‘Porcelain House’, the model was cut into layers by slicing software. This
software will determine how many layers, at what thickness the material is extruded,
and what speed the machine will operate. It generates a toolpath that determines
what lines of clay are connected to each other and which are not. The clay printer
is stacked with a tank of clay which can be mixed with additives that change its
viscosity depending on the desired outcome.
The process for ‘Threshold’ is slightly different. The 3d model is contoured within
the software to create arrays of lines. The bed of the CNC machine is prepared with
a substrate, and custom fitted with a drawing tool. The file is converted to G Code,
and then drawn as directed by that code. The pen plotter, which is actually an old
vinyl cutter, has a similar file preparation process as the CNC machine. However,
the machinery is very different and the substrate (paper) is moved along an axis,
and the pen medium is moved along a perpendicular axis.

16

A third mediation process which comprises a large part of this research is the
translation of a computer rendering to painting. As seen in ‘Hollow’, (fig.16), a
process of composing a computer model of abstracted parts and then casting simulated
lights onto that composition results in an eery diorama like scene. In this case,
a memory of a brook in a forest on a winter night is the starting point of the
reconstruction (while my work is predominantly focused on architectural spaces, this
painting is from an earlier project which involved an exploration of my childhood
home. This scene is drawn from memories of the surrounding landscape of that house).
The artificial lighting is painted as closely as possible to the computer rendering,
and the blue cast is an interpretation of the glow of the screen.
The process of mediation from computer generated rendering to oil paint shows the
failings of the simulation space to represent reality, but also demonstrates the
very real emotive qualities that can come from the virtual space. What emerged was
a surprisingly melancholic scene that highlights the tension between the simulation
and the real.

Research & Knowledge Production
I am in part using the tools of custom fabrication as a methodology. Learning
from machines about what they do and don’t do well involves a process of careful
observation and this plays a significant role in the research methodology. My work
takes those faults and turns them into opportunities, and also recognizes something
important in the successes and failures of each material experiment. For example, I
observed that the clay would fall into loops when not aligned properly and I have
used that as a feature of the Porcelain House project which relates directly to
the concept of the lack of accuracy of memory. I also discovered that a continual
offset of lines will produce the optical quality of movement in fabric and that when
rendered in ink on a plotter resembles a textile.

17

Fig. 16: Taryn Sheppard, ‘Hollow’, 2019. Oil Paint on Wood Panel, 40” x 60”.

18

The relationship between architecture and memory is always mediated by the machine
and material processes in my work. What becomes evident in this process are the
failures of the medium to represent the memory, much like a VHS tape that has
deteriorated, a scratched record, or a faded written letter. The ‘glitch’: gaps
or fault in memory and recording, or dislodging a memory from specific points in a
timeline, have the potential to debase the truth of a memory through misrecording.
These errors can be seen in ‘Threshold’ (fig.11) and in ‘A Total Fabrication - Glass
Block’, (fig.5) and ‘Porcelain House’ (fig.14).
In both ‘A Total Fabrication - Glass Block’ and ‘Threshold’, I used the refurbished
CNC machine that I outfitted with the attachment for a watercolor marker. I aligned
the paper, prepared the medium and sent the code to the machine. I have ‘sliced’
the model of the curtain or block into thousands of lines and each will be drawn by
the robotic arm. In mediating the model to such high resolution, my hope is that
the subtle curves of the fabric and glass will have an intrinsic iridescence and
transparency. But also with such high resolution, there is more opportunity for
things to go wrong like the marker running out of ink, or the marker being replaced
in the wrong location when it is refilled. Or, the pressure of the marker tip could
be too heavy and disrupt the line weight. All of those errors occurred during the
production of these drawings.
With ‘Threshold’, in the end, the drawing is read as a curtain, yet the movement
of the fabric is wrong somehow. It is static and artificial and it’s continuity as
an object seems to be unravelling. The mediation of the 3d model from virtual to
the real has left gaps in its body. These are simple failures of the mechanism to
be able to do what is asked of it. The recollection of the warm summer evening is
overtaken by an electrified tension.

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[Key Concepts]

The Simulation
In architectural practice I have specialized in rendering and
simulation. There has always been a strained relationship
between what can be visualized in a model compared to the
real life process of construction and building. The design
process has been altered by the ability to pull elements
for a modeled scene from all corners of the internet. This
includes material image files, building components, furniture,
landscape, and even construction details. It has also been
altered by the abilities that are bestowed on us by commands
in digital drafting, for instance, the concept of scale-less
space or the ability to make instantaneous infinite copies
of a floorplan. An exploration of this idea can be seen as a
subtext in my work, which explores what this technology does
to our perception of space.
Anthony Vidler, architectural historian and critic, writes
about architectural representation becoming a digital practice
with CAD drafting and digital rendering. His exploration
focuses on diagrams and their relationship with the utopian:
“...A diagram is mainly an Icon, and
an icon of intelligible relations in
the constitution of its Object. It
confuses the real and the copy and
therefore makes it an instrument of
suspended reality. This ‘pure dream’
can thus be associated with the notion
of utopia that constitutes itself by
schematic lines of organization.”

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The diagram is something that ‘haunts’ the real as it fails to live up to the
conceptual clarity of the drawing, therefore creating tension between the ‘real’
and the ‘copy’. When the diagram becomes real is when architecture reaches a state
of uncanniness or sometimes dysfunctionality as seen in examples like Brazilia, the
modernist city building project of the 1960’s. 3
This idea of the uncanny is also seen in the work of photographer/ sculptor
Thomas Demand, who creates illusionistic photographs of three dimensional models
constructed entirely from paper. These large-scale photographs investigate the
relationship between reproduction and original, and the idea of the simulation or
simulacra4.
Demand reconstructs media images of complex interior scenes using ephemeral materials
like paper and cardboard. After photographing the painstakingly-crafted, life-sized
models, he destroys them, leaving only photographic evidence of their fleeting
existence. Demand’s images often suggest recent activity, yet are eerily devoid of
people, resembling the appearance of a film set or even a forensic photograph.

IMAGES OF THOMAS DEMAND ‘GANGWAY’ 2001 AND THOMAS DEMAND, ‘JUNIOR SUITE’2012, HAVE BEEN
REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS
3
The Uncanny: Something that is simultaneously familiar and strange, typically leading to feelings of
discomfort.
4
Fredric Jameson offers photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is created
by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real.

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Much like in Demand’s work, ‘A Total Fabrication’ (fig.2) is an uncanny simulated
world. I show a diorama-like construction that suffers under its own limited
physics. It’s a digital heterotopia where the simplistic commands of 3d modelling
are the only rules that objects obey. A singular light source casts shadows that
reveal the sky is not really real, it is a backdrop that lies eerily close. The
shadows introduce doubt about the scale and closeness of the objects, and questions
about their spatial relations with each other.
After the process of digital reconstruction to analog through painting, a new world
is revealed that may shed light on how these processes change the way we think. The
scene evokes a yearning for a real depth that it fails to achieve.

Melancholia
Melancholia is seen in the works of other artists using digital culture as a
subject. Artist Jon Rafman explores the cultures of online communities like Second
Life, dealing with contemporary alienation and paradoxical notions of the self in
online worlds. His process is primarily archival, scanning the vast sea of internet
content for moments of human vulnerability. This work resonates with contemporary
concerns about our understanding of loss and memory in a culture where ‘newness’ is
the dominant value. This desire to archive is discussed by Sandra Rafman, Ph.D. of
the Université du Québec à Montréal in her essay The Reframing of Loss: Jon Rafman’s
Virtual Archives:
“The desire that fuels archival fever is melancholic, for
it is the passion for what will inevitably slip away. Our
world in which the new overtakes the nearly new with such
speed is one particularly apt to produce anxiety about loss.
In such a world it is right to declare that the imperative
of our epoch is to archive (Pierre Nora, 1989). We must
keep everything, preserve every indicator of memory, even
when we are not even sure which memory is being referred
to.”

22

This quote points to the idea of the fallibility of memory
that comes into question when in the context of technology.
In Rafman’s work he is dealing with the collective memory,
whereas my research looks at individual memories that might
be shared with others. Memory can be seen as a type of
internal archive that is accessed through computer modeling.
Digital Anxiety/ Digital Euphoria
I have internalized the computer commands that I use on a
regular basis. If I spill a cup of coffee, or make a mark on a
painting that didn’t work, I immediately think: ‘ctrl+del’,
and my mind sends the signal to my hand to press those
keys. But there aren’t any keys to press that can reverse a
mistake in real life, and I end up with a strange sense of
ineffectualness. It is a form of embodied memory that has no
outlet, which I would describe as a kind of anxiety.
Scholar Melissa Gronlund writes about how contemporary
artists are using domestic space to describe a type of
gothic expression of anxiety about digital culture. In her
article; ‘Return of the Gothic: Digital Anxiety in the
Domestic Sphere’, she recounts how emerging technology in
the 1800’s was met with suspicion and served as a device for
Gothic literature (ghosts who inhabit power lines, etc). She
further points out that the contemporary ‘domestic’ - now
the venue of ‘The Internet of Things’5 - is a space fraught
with a similar anxiety. I’m curious how this new form of
technological anxiety impacts the experience of our intimate
domestic space and to a larger degree architectural space in
general.

5
A term to describe interconnection via the Internet of computing
devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data.

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In contrast, the works of Sabrina Ratte embrace a digital
aesthetic that is a joyous celebration of a strange new
world. Could be described as having a ‘digital euphoria’.
Many of her works are video installations of imaginary
architectural spaces or landscapes that have been generated
using a combination of 3d modelling and video synthesizers.
They appear to be architectural spaces whose surfaces are
flickering with glitched images of brilliantly overturning
colours in a state of fluid transformation. The process she
uses involves the collision of analogue and digital signals,
which is what gives the simulated architectural spaces
their fluctuating quality. These worlds are mesmerizing and
optimistic.

SABRINA RATTE, STILL FROM ‘MACHINE FOR LIVING’, 2017. VIDEO INSTALLATION IMAGE REMOVED
DUE TO COPYRIGHT RESTRICTION.

24

This artist creates depth in her video based architectural
spaces by intentionally disrupting a digital process with an
analogue process. Similarly, the process of mediating a 3d
model into a ‘real life’ medium like clay or paint is also
digital to analog. In ‘Porcelain House’ (2019), my process
starts with the drafting of an idea of a house from a memory
and then sending it to a machine in a ‘g code’ format. The
clay is then forced through the printer and deposited in
a list of locations. The clay is malleable and takes the
form of the forces that act on it, including gravity, which
distorts the window and door openings. The juxtaposition of
the clay with the rigidity of the house model elucidates the
relationship between analog and digital process.
Both the ‘anxious’ and ‘euphoric’ aspects of digital culture
are present in my works and process. The work is not making
a statement of criticality against technology, nor is it an
enthusiastic embracing of a post-human future. Instead, these
works undermine the conventions of perception by finding new
means of representation. Those new means of representation
come from a merging of analog and digital craft, and result
in dissonance and deception.
In my work ‘Drapery’, the space represented here is a
domestic scene where the drawing of the curtains is derived
from digital drafting and then executed by a machine. The
resulting robotic repetition of the lines is anxiety inducing
and conjures notions of the mechanical, but it simultaneously
has a seductive quality of colour and gradient, and the
gentle motion of wind through an airy fabric.

25

The Creation of Depth As A Performative Act
Timotheas Vermeulen is a new media scholar whose writings
are centered around the condition of meta-modernism, which
he explains is a combination of postmodern and modernist
thinking that defines the current time. This idea is outlined
in his discussion of depth as it pertains to contemporary
artwork in his article “The New Depthiness’
found on
eflux journals. Vermeulen suggests that the 80’s and 90’s
reflected a time where there was a focus on superficiality, the
simulacra, surfaces, the shallowness of the human subject
as discussed in philosophy by Deleuze, and Baudrillard’s
idea of ‘Simulacra’, and epitomized by Jeff Koons’s ‘Rabbit’
sculpture which is essentially made of the reflections of
whatever reality it finds itself in. He suggests that a
renewed interest in notions of ‘the beyond’, ‘the beneath’
and ‘the inside’ has emerged but this depth is not one that
is thoroughly experienced or understood by its proponents,
instead it is the potential of depth that is as close as one
can get to real meaning:

“Metamodernism
displaces
the
parameters of the present with
those of a future presence that is
futureless; and it displaces the
boundaries of our place with those of
a surreal place that is placeless.”

-Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker,
‘Notes on Metamodernism’, 2015.

26

He goes on to discuss the idea that the simulation is not
just a model of a reality but a diagram of possibilities
“creating self enclosed scenarios informed by reality but
enacted in isolation from it, whose conclusions offer radical
alternatives.” And perhaps, most saliently, he describes
“The creation of ‘depth’ as a performative act as opposed to
an epistemological quality.”
In Rafman’s work, it is the goal of unearthing depth within
an archive of online material - like candid moments caught
on Google Earth from his ‘9 Eyes Project’. However we, as
the viewer, have no contextual knowledge of these anonymous
individuals and are forced to mine our own experience if
we want to go deeper into the image. We are looking for a
human connection but the nature of how the image was taken
disallows access to deeper meaning.
The idea of the ‘creation of depth as a performative act’ is
a central directive in the formation of this research, but in
my work, it is found in the moment of deception when the
device sadly fails to recreate the authentic moment.

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[Conclusion]
This body of work has investigated a range of subjects that,
when combined together reflect a larger societal phenomena
- the idea of metamodernism. Each of these concepts are
exemplified by individual works and united by this theme.
The mediation of architectural spaces through experimental
digital material processes is explored in the Porcelain House
project. This project involved a back and forth relationship
between maker and tools. This research demonstrated that
careful observation can lead to new understanding of
materiality. Here, the ‘glitch’ is not screen-based but
manifests in the production process. This represents a new
body of knowledge discovered through practice.
The impact of simulation (3d modeled/ VR) environments on the
perception of space was explored in the painting ‘A Total
Fabrication’ - the centrepiece of the thesis installation.
This work exploits the idea of the ‘picture plane’ and the
historical associations with oil painting to produce a sense
of depth that is betrayed by the content of the painting.
Disparate structural shapes that loosely refer back to building
components float in a grid space with artificial lighting. In
addition, the fluidity of oil paint is incongruent with the
sharp, defined edges of the computer rendered scene, and
this contributes to a sense of dissonance within the work
consistent with metamodernist thought.
The installation of the thesis and the generative discussions
during the thesis defense have led me to isolate the topics
that emerged most strongly from this research. Moving forward,
my studio practice will focus on issues of spatial perception
and architecture in a contemporary context.

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I plan to research how digital platforms are shaping the
language of the built environment. Gaming and VR design
tools represent the opportunity to create ‘architecture’
that is unrestrained by budget and physics. Currently there
is heavy investment in researching the emotional effects of
virtual spaces on people (for application in the development
of gaming) perhaps even more than is spent on studying the
emotional impact of real spaces on people. This research
would explore the relationship between embodied spaces in
the real world compared to spatial experience of the virtual
world, circling around the broader concept of architecture
and emotional states.
Parallel to this will be an exploration of the condition of
contemporary built environment, based upon my work in placing
architecture in the context of Metamodernism theory. This
would involve research into 1) architecture as a structure
of authority and 2) architectural formal language as symbols
based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s signifying system, brought
into the contemporary context of new media. In addition, I
hope to experiment with new installation strategies for this
work in a means to understand the role of the viewer and
their relation to the work.

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[Bibliography]
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Vintage Books,reprint, 2010.
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2017.
5. Gronlund, Melissa. ‘Return of the Gothic: Digital Anxiety in the Domestic Sphere’. eflux
journal, 2017.
6. Jameson, Fredric. ‘Postmodernism: The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’. Duke University
Press, 1989.
7. Moussavi, Farshid. ‘The Function of Ornament’.(2006)
8. Rafman, Sandra. The Reframing of Loss In Virtual Worlds: Jon Rafman’s Virtual Archives,
2017. Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/19955716/The_Reframing_of_Loss_in_Virtual_
Worlds, 2017.
9. Scott-Brown, Denise. ‘Learning from Las Vegas’. MIT Press, 1972.
10. Turpin, Etienne. ‘Architecture in the Age of the Anthropocene’. Open Humanities Press.
2013.
11. Venturi, Robert. ‘Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture’. The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. 1996.
12.Vermeulen, Timotheas
Frieze Video, 2014.

& Van Den Akker, Robin. ‘What is Metamodernism?’.

Interview,

13. Vermeulen, Timotheas. ‘The New “Depthiness’. Journal # 61, Eflux, January 2015.
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