STARSHIPa s s e m b l a g e

“What is the nature of a 21st century ‘human?” A 3-day masterclass led by Rachel Armstrong and Arne Hendriks

starship guide: ronald van tienhoven !

Baltan Laboratories Eindhoven - March 27-29, 2014

“The classic Gestalt example is a soap bubble, whose spherical shape is not defined by a rigid template, or a mathematical formula, but rather it emerges spontaneously by the parallel action of surface tension acting at all points in the surface simultaneously.” !

source: Wikipedia on Gestalt Psychology

Monticello Thomas Jefferson

Joey (a mechanical boy)

ISBN-10: 0029031400

> A Theory of Mind...

Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990)

Joey (1946-?)

Joey as an electrical papoose, terribly small and lonely and wholly encased, suspended in empty space, run by some unknown external power.

The same electrical papoose, but now grown in importance, and directly connected with the machine that ‘lived’ Joey, but fastened more securely.

Joey’s car machine which powered him, including (at the foot of the bed) the carburetor that permitted him to breathe, and the motor that ran his body.

Closeup of the headboard of Joey’s bed showing the wheel (left), the battery (lower center) that powered the speaker (right), and other partsof the machinery that ran him during his sleep. The ‘speaker’ not only enabled Joey to talk but also to hear.

The machine that ran Joey by remote control, showing both the ‘oilseal’ that protected him from total disembowelment, and the ‘Transmission of Blinderator’ which makes blind (prevents seeing and understanding).

Conception of man, showing how wireless electricity is received at the top; this powers the machine which extracts the content of the bowels. It also shows how encased an existence this figure lives, and the vast quantities of excreta he produces.

David (the boy in the bubble)

David Vetter (1971-1984)

severe combined immune deficiency syndrome (SCIDS)

Box Man kobo abe

My Case !

This is the record of a box man. I am beginning this account in a box.

A cardboard box that reaches just to my hips when I put it on my head.

That is to say, at this junction the box man is me.

A box man, in his box, is recording the cronicle of a box man.

Instructions for making a box

!

empty box of corrugated cardboard vinyl sheet (semitransparent) – twenty inches square

rubber tape (water-resistant) – about eight yards wire – about two yards

small pointed knife ( a tool) !

(To have on hand, if necessary: Three pieces of worn canvas and

one pair of work boots in addition to regular work clothes for streetwear.)

Footage barbarella > alien > the right stuff

Barbarella Roger Vadim

(1968) based on the comic

Barbarella Jean-Claude Forest, 1962

Alien Ridley Scott

(1979) screenplay

Alien Dan O’Bannon, 1978

The Right Stuff Philip Kaufman

(1983) based on the novel

The Right Stuff Tom Wolfe, 1979

capsule vs. spacecraft occupant vs. pilot

!

(language as litmus test for assessing art & design engineering empathy)

E V E N T H O R I Z O N

My working method has more often than not involved the subtraction of weight... I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language...Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world - qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them. !!Italo Calvino Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Cambridge,1988)

finw w w . s l i d e s h a r e . n e t / r v t i e n h o v e n