Thesis as Abstract

Definitely a work in progress...

Artificial Systems: Future/Present Landscapes
Thesis Abstract Statement

Artificial Systems: Future/Present landscapes, positions itself critically between historically modernistic beliefs that ecological systems are inherently closed-loop and self-sustainable entities, and the contemporary notion that the natural environment can no longer maintain itself from the impacts of urbanization, which is now dependent on stewardship of the human species to mitigate these impacts. Our self-reliance is not a sustainable method of operation, which relegates the human race to providers of reactionary measures and preventative tactics of further degradation, an infinite and unobtainable task. Historically, modernism brought to light that context was vestigial to the autonomous system, which could be hermetically sealed in a bubble to protect itself from entropy. Current research states that ecologies successfully exist due to their co-dependency on spatial networks, which foster interaction in order to maintain biological heterogeneity. Artificial Systems projects that present and future ecologies must be designed and maintained via responsive techno-artificial ecosystems which can filter, monitor, and adapt to successfully reclaim landscapes through interaction within a network of constituents - ecologies as sustained through designed patch dynamics.

Artificial Systems: Future/Present Landscapes will question the relationship between man and nature. It will measure the efficacy of stewardship principals such as restoration, reclamation, and conservation applications in the modern disaster-prone world, leveraging advanced artificial landscapes as modes of adaptation. It will answer such questions as: If ecological systems must become artificial, to what extent should their technologies reference their biological precedents? How can these artificial landscapes remain compatible with humanity and promote inhabitation? What are the architectural and societal implications of an adaptive landscape? How can marginalized ecologies benefit from the deployment of modifiable parameters within a designed system? This research and design development intends to investigate the potential of intelligent defensible systems and the construction of artificial environment.
Artificial Systems will ground itself in historical as well contemporary theories, science, research, principals, and projects, which will act as a supportive structure towards its agency within the discourse in terms of its projective nature. A.S. will test grounds and situate itself within multiple scales of specific arenas to which it will be deployed, becoming a form of projective scenario planning or adaptive ecological management. Through this methodology this thesis will seek to absorb theories/data and represent them through an array of tools which will test man's registry within nature. Ultimately, interests lie in hybridizing the digital and physical, utilizing interaction through Processing software - a code-based tool used to spatialize data, which can manipulate actuators in a micro-controller called an Arduino processor.
The artifacts that A.S. will produce will balance between levels of dimensionality and representation. Works will consist of complex data-logical mappings, interactive prototypes, physical assemblages, and computer and hand-based drawings.