RUSSIAN SOUL IN TIMBER

Wooden Churches  Travelling in the Russian North by Richard Davies and Matilda Moreton, (White Sea Publishing, London, 2011), is a surprise. The stark cover shows a photograph of a typical wooden church in snow, suspended in a void of white, as though on a blank page. There is no title or text on the jacket other than on the spine that, with an equal sparseness, simply says Wooden Churches in one line of Garamond and Garamond Cyrillic that is completed with a cryptic lower case, two-line white sea set at ninety degrees to the strip of text. It is clear that this book has a carefully styled, very self-conscious graphic design.

A quick glimpse inside confirms this rigour. The brash use of white space is matched by bold, full-page colour photographs predominantly on the left, with the right-hand page set out as spaces for two crisp columns of text with a selection of sundry images, audaciously using only as much of the page as the text or image might require. The book has been carefully contrived to make it a good-looking publication. The use of GardaPat 13 Kiara paper gives the book the feel of quality - an art publication. Graphically, it is not a compact or dense book, though its mass is somewhat weighty: Format: Hardb; Number of pages: 256; Width: 250 mm; Height: 300 mm; Thickness: 29 mm; Weight: 1,710 g. Perhaps it presents a sense of open space that reflects the vastness of northern Russia? These churches seem to be located in their own broad and exposed contexts of sprawling landscapes and remote villages that get buried in deep snow. The whole experience of handling this book gives rise to a strange sense of awe that seems oddly appropriate. Even its unusual odour appears fitting for this world of astonishing wonder: its raw beauty, where the intent of form, function, decoration, structure and materials stands on unrefined and unapologetic, honest display. It is a true delight.

The churches are stunning in their beauty of presence. The images have been collected as a photographic journal that is accompanied by a variety of sundry collected diary notes and other texts, some historical, some personal, some as commentaries or just curious asides, others as comparisons or parallels. One is sometimes left wondering why an item has been included. There are few explanatory notes, just those in the Introduction and Afterword. The book is beautiful but presents a challenge. The stimulus to photograph these churches arose from old postcards. Along with images of the churches as they stand today, the publication gathers together some older photographs as well as some of these postcards. Oddly, there is no attempt to 'retake' the old image today, to show the church at the same angle from which it had been photographed years ago. Instead, different prospects and aspects of churches are recorded, confusing any immediate comparison. It is puzzling, sometimes strange. One is left to do one’s own investigation to decipher the similarities and differences. While the old images have the dates on which they were taken, the new ones don't. One is left to guess that the date of the journal notes that one has to assume might relate to a selection of images, could be the day on which the new photographs had been taken. This quibble may seem to be a little pedantic, but the recording of time in the context of other information forms the basis of the beginning of a good archive where both clarity and certainty are required.

This sense of aggravation and annoyance in the reading of this publication grows as one becomes more intimately familiar with it. One is constantly left asking about what has been selected and why. Why this angle; this interior; this building; this framing; this detail; this old image; this postcard; this text? There is almost a casually random feel, a carelessness, about the whole collation which has an emphasis of appearances rather than any intellectual pursuit. There are no plans or sections of any specific church. The Frontispiece illustrates an iconic (literally) plan of these tripartite structures, and the Afterword by Mikhail Milchik includes a meager four diagrammatic plans and sections of typical wooden churches. Drawings of each building would have added much to the record.

It really is a photographer's book - an ‘arty’ publication. There is little architectural rigour in this document. There is not even a table of contents or an index. It looks like a picture book. The information has merely been artfully collected and presented. One sometimes feels like being in a void amongst bits of information that have no obvious rationale for being there between the white spaces other than having something to do with churches, politics, people or place. Photographic subjects seem to have been selected and framed to suit the eye as an aesthetic image rather than to inform as a building, or to identify any content and context. Indeed, the text sometimes tells of how the photographer waited for someone to move into the frame, or how he was pleased with some other relationship. Power lines frequently intervene in the image in what appears to be a self-conscious decision - a chosen part of the composition. One nearly always wants more detail, more substance; and when one is given a detail - there is at least one - it begs the question: why choose this portion when so many other possibilities remain ignored: How are the overhangs formed; the openings framed; the roofs connected, flashed; the cuoplas fabricated; the structures shaped? - and more and more as one sees more, and wonders about more: the locks; the textures; the edges; the ledges; the junctions; the experience of approaching; of entering; of touching, both by body, hand and eye: these are missed. It is the view through the lens of the camera that predominates. These churches have been seen with a photographic perspective. One gets the same feeling of remoteness, the distance and separation of the observer looking in, as one has when flicking through a book of historical photos of a place, where images have just been gathered together with no rationale other than time and location.

Here the subject has been narrowed, but the sequence seems random, ad hoc. What rationale has structured the arrangements, the choices, and the sequences in this graphic delight? The locations are left fuzzy, indeterminate. One has to interrogate the book to discover where a site might be; and then discover a large dot in a large-scaled map presented only faintly in the body of some earlier text. Could this have not been printed on the inside of the covers for easy reference rather than the repeated ‘arty’ tree scribble taken from Matilda’s notebook? It is this repeated disruption to the using, reading and understanding this publication that becomes frustrating. It requires effort to clearly comprehend the content. The designers seem to know or to ask little about things other than their appearance. Their prettiness becomes their pettiness: One would like maps with the photos; and site plans and building plans; elevations too; and sections. Drawings show more and different information to that presented in a photograph, in the same way as botanical drawings do. Here the camera delights in the light and landscape, indulging in the picturesque quality of place that can be ‘captured’ with a certain lens, lens setting and shutter speed. Unfortunately, there is no architectural eye here, or the rational mind of an archivist or archeologist.

The best example of how to gather and present information comprehensively, compactly and concisely can be seen in Phaidon’s publications. The graphic designer, Alan Fletcher has published a book on his work and thinking - The Art of Looking Sideways, promoted as: ‘A lifetime of reflection and observation by master designer Alan Fletcher.’ It is an excellent book to peruse, interrogate and enjoy. This skill and commitment can be seen throughout the Phaidon catalogue of books, especially in The House Book and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture. These publications present the delight of this art that engages and co-ordinates idea, image and information, including: date, place, location, category, history, relationships, details, and more, all pieced together in one cohesive presentation over a two-page spread in a book that contains a table of contents, a complete index, and multiple cross-references as well as photographs and drawings. Everything is where one wants it, and how one needs it to be for the process of easy understanding. The graphic design helps the reader. These are indeed impressive works. Wooden Churches could have learned much from these examples. Without any obvious co-ordination, one is left lost in an amazement of pretty images and quirky stories, always a little lost, disorientated or distracted by the struggle of the search.

One assumes that the various churches are gathered together by the areas in which they have been visited. It is not clear. The puzzle is that the time sequence seems higgledy-piggledy, with months and years appearing whenever without any structural sequence being explained. Time is not linear in this work. The cry for more order and explanatory organization gives a clue to the problem. These are wonderful buildings with a depth that needs recognition and attention. One would like to be able to touch them; to feel them; to smell them; to sense their being, intimately, in detail, nearby and from the distance, on both entry and departure: to see how they touch the ground, how the parts meet, gather, relate - to sense their identification and sanctification of place. The photos tease with their suggestive power that abstracts the experience of being there. The images seem to give a completeness that really only ever is a collection of uncollated glimpses; suggestive glances: click; next one. . . One has to look at the top of the page to decipher the set, an awkward visual manouvre left more frequently for numbers that are rarely part of any reading, rather than for explanatory titles and section names that are more comfortably placed on the lower portion of the page.

The structure of the book remains an enigma. It is amorphous, vague. Texts are all interspersed willy-nilly. The book design, (see also Streets of Georgetown Penang, http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/streets.html ),  seems to delight in its own visual rules without caring anything for the coherence of the information or its inter-relationship, in the same way as the photographs flip flop between themselves and the texts without any clarification of grouping. It is a beautiful looking book, but a terrible one to try to comprehend and understand. Sadly this interferes with its comprehension and enjoyment. One is constantly darting over the pages searching for information, and flicking back and forth to see if the images are related, or if the locations are. It is all very frustrating. The experience of the book is befuddling. Maybe it has to do with what one is seeking from the publication? If one chooses to meander through it as a casual dairy might be perused, it could be satisfactory; but it is not a good diary. The lack of chronology makes even this approach tricky as dates flash and dart aimlessly. Still, the book is pretty and doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a travelogue - the records of a wanderer in northern Russia.

Sadly, it could have been much more with only a little more rigour. The publication suffers from the tourist mentality, (see http://springbrooklocale.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/who-or-what-is-tourist.html ), where interest is promoted for the sake of difference and diversion. The added texts appear as tourist asides, as in tourist guides, bits and pieces of blurb to add flavour to the experience: the entertaining visits. One is left with a desire for depth; yearning for it; for more of the more seen, in spite of the tragedy of neglect. The saddest discovery is the loss due to fire. The few pages of factual information on the churches in the Afterword tease with their cryptic phrases. Otherwise, this is a chatty book about people living near wooden churches - Russian society post-revolution and beyond, and its religious relics.

Why does one want more? - because questions linger. What is the symbolism of the carved rope columns? What is the significance of the cupolas that are so dominantly bold but apparently ‘useless’? How were the churches fitted out? What is the relevance of the political postcards? Surely these have not been included just because they are available? It is not clear. The text tells of little else but social history and old visions and asides, all antique and interesting, but separate. These are somehow relevant and useful in an odd manner, but without a grand vision to hold everything together, this publication remains a coffee table book, wonderfully attractive but ad hoc, scattered and shallow - sadly flighty. It appears structured for the casual reader to pick up and open wherever, whenever.

The churches are certainly not like this. They alone give the book its strength in spite of its random organization. These marvelous articles of faith still declare their power and authority. They demand attention politely, quirkily. Their spires, cones and mirrored ogees engage as much as the spire of Salisbury cathedral; but enigmatically: the buildings remain timber sheds with beautiful slabs, logs and splits weathered into coherence. At one period in the perusal of this publication I felt as though I was reading a book on Australian shearing sheds, such is the character of these Russian buildings: rustic, rural, weathered, worn; friendly, naïve, honest; with low gables and leaning skillions, like wool sheds - functional, crude, rude, and raw with an unpretentious intimacy exposed innocently without apology, but with integrity.

Oh! How one wants more: to go to St Petersberg and move north and west to feel place marked by faith blossoming in timber, now fatiguing. One feels that such a visit might be tinged not only with nostalgia, but also with sadness. Times of rich and fertile faith supported by the glow of beauty in candlelight and resonant chants have gone. Stories of club conversions, a smokers’ shelter, the lovers’ hideaway, the louts’ loitering place; of neglect, burning, falling, crashing would make one weep, as would the abandonment and decay. The Russia of Tolstoy rings with romance and humanity, but it is feared that the cynicism of modernity has overcome all, and deflated, destroyed, the energies that turned timber into glory, creating a place for heaven to touch earth, now left as a ruin, a relic of these other times. If I go, I will try not to weep. I will just try to see the hope and wonder others held and placed in these structures, sacred images of joy in faith and love. How I long to have heard the song hum and reverberate in these wooden places; to have seen the light fall on the icons and rugs; to have sensed angels hovering overhead; to have felt the presence of these structures throb in my body. One can see ghosts only too clearly here, phantoms of the Russian soul in timber.

The book does note that a far more rigorous recording of these marvellous structures needs to be made now, in detail, before they go. This must happen. The soul has faded, but could it be re-ignited by these structures, by learning from them?

One can just sob at the losses to date that have been listed in book. Imagine the power of the spirit that these buildings once held - the churches and their bell towers clustered together. The icons have all disappeared as trash or treasure, pilfered, traded or discarded: gone. What would the world be without these places, these homes for the soul? Today we only want difference, fun and profit: a place to smoke; for graffiti; a place to loiter in, to leave; a place to dance or just stack and store. For what should it profit a man ...?

The facts are:

p.242

The 3-fold plan of Byzantine origin became the general arrangement within all the architectural types of the Russian wooden church. The vestibule (trapeznaya), the nave, and the sanctuary (altar/altarniy prirub).

p.244

Churches were approached form the west, usually up a double flight of covered stairs, (kryltso). The church floor was raised from the ground to protect it from the cold, the damp and the deep winter snowfalls.

A covered gallery or balcony sometimes ran around the western part of the church.

The dramatic profile of the church in the landscape is rarely expressed in its interior. The interior spaces are intimate and dark. The drama in the interior was provided by the splendour of the candle-lit icons and the gilded ikonostas under the sky ceiling (nebo). Sadly not one ikonostas remains in its original glory in any wooden church in the north of Russia.

Once one forgets about style, design, and effective communication and just strolls through the book nonchalantly, as a traveller might a country, the book makes charming sense. After all, the subtitle is: Travelling in the Russian North. The collage of items and images, random but relevant in a tourist-type manner, come together in the way that they might for a traveller - ad hoc, incidental, intimate, strange, informative, historic, personal, easy, difficult, irrelevant; today, yesterday, and tomorrow - all in the strange mix of how the unknown interferes with schemes and plans, to become an unexpected delight or a great disappointment. This is a traveller’s book.

 

It could have been a rigorous record of wooden churches and become the clarion call for action and a record for the future. But no: there is a call, a cry seeking action, but the documentation has been left as another’s task. It needs to be done before these wonders disappear into thin air as flames, or fade, fallen to the ground as rubbish. The churches have all already lost their ikonstases that once stood proudly between the nave and the sanctuary. The structures, those that are still standing, even if propped, now loom as ghosts of a proud era, sad items of a past that no one now cares for. The valuables have been taken. Only the concepts stand in a failing fragile wooden wonderland viewed distractedly by lives with different concerns and divergent futures. These will not be better. The photographer’s eye has framed formal compositions here. The churches need to be seen more rigorously: their delights recorded with more intensity and precision so that they can be known rather than merely admired as charming scenery - images of a more romantic era. Still, it is better than nothing. The glory lingers. In spite of time and disregard, the light still gleams and glows on the sad interior surfaces providing just a hint of what once was holy.

A FEW MORE IMAGES

 

CAD GAMES

 

The boy, (I am reminded of Louis Sullivan’s Kindergarten Chats when I use this word in this manner), was given the new camera, a compact waterproof digital camera that he could use when fishing and swimming. It was a replacement camera. The first waterproof camera failed on its first immersion, even though it was a quality brand - Nikon. So, after this disappointment, it was with some renewed excitement that the second camera was received. It was a different make this time - Olympus: fingers crossed! Why give any product a second chance to leak? No one knew just what might happen with the return of the failed equipment to the place of purchase, but the payment was gracefully refunded and the new camera was ordered. Hopefully it is a better and more reliable performer than the first one, or else it will have the same fate.

The box was opened as the advice was given: “Make sure you read the instructions carefully before doing anything else.” Still, the eager hands threw the paperwork aside in favour of the bright metallic blue camera: like a moth to a light. The wrist strap was assembled, the battery opened and installed, and the camera was plugged into the charger and switched it on. Then the instructions were read.

“How long will it take to charge?” was the first question.

“Have a look. It should tell you.”

So he continued reading.

“It doesn’t say.”

After a delay that seemed too long, the instructions were checked.

“You have the wrong section. This part is only telling you how to properly maintain the camera. This other sheet has the general instructions.”

“Where’s the English?”

The attention passed back to the charging camera.

“How do I know when the camera is charged?”

“There is usually a light that comes on. It changes when the battery has charged. Have a look.”

“There’s no light.”

“There has to be something. Read the instructions.”

As the page was perused, the camera was checked. There was indeed no light.

“Umm. Show me the page. Here, it tells you that there is a light.”

So the camera and charger were taken to another power outlet to test things. Still no light. The connections were checked. All OK. The camera was opened and the battery inspected.

“You’ve put the battery in backwards.”

After reversing the battery and reconnecting the camera, the light came on. Two hours later it went out.

“Is it charged now?”

“Yes.”

So the camera was taken to the lounge, switched on and buttons started being pressed.

“What is the date?”

“What is the time?”

It all seemed to be going well.

The failure with the battery installation had not dampened any enthusiasm or raised any questions about competence, confidence or cleverness. Young folk today are extremely self-assured in spite of everything and anything. Is this the outcome of easy access to information and social technology? Is it the instant feedback of two thousand ‘friends’ that reinforces MY perceptions about ME; that buries doubt and conceals skepticism? The flash went off. The camera was working.

“You will need an SD card.”

“No the camera has some internal memory. I will get the card later.”

It seemed that the boy knew something about the camera. He kept pressing the buttons.

“Oh!” was the sister’s squeal. “Get rid of that one.”

I went to see what was happening.

The boy was snapping images and deleting them with an equal enthusiasm. It made me ponder. The interest seemed to centre on the process only. The end result - the outcome, the image - appeared incidental, an accidental part of the game. One just got rid of it and started again. There was really no need for an SD card for storage. The situation reminded me of the games that I had seen the boy and his sister play on their tablets: see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/architecture-and-games.html and http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/mystifying-gorilla-chases-architecture.html

These are games without any end. One just restarted once the process had come to its indeterminate conclusion, a hiatus, be this a stumble, the catch or ‘death.’ The whole process began again with the press of a button. It was a fuzzy, yet intense activity with a certain frenzy that seemed to lack something substantial: click; look; laugh; scream; remove; click; etc. There was no obvious rigour or structure, no aim or ambition. It was an event. The involvement was with the programming of the equipment, its framework and internal relationships, not with any desire for a planned or pleasing, or permanent outcome: click . . The subjects being recorded meant nothing in particular; they were mere asides.

The interest concentrated on the parameters of the instrument and its possibilities - what it allowed; its framework of activities: the exploration of its inner structure - in the same way as a game entertained. That the result might be a squabble or a laugh was as secondary as any recorded image. It was neither expected nor unexpected. It was certainly not a surprise, just part of the occasion. There was no importance given to any archive. Just click to remove, whatever, and on to the next photograph; squeal, laugh, bickering: all nonstop until something better arose or one became bored. The structure was amorphous, blurry. Experience had more relevance than anything else; not experience in the sense of learning, reverie and reflection - the feedback loop of scholarship - but the act of being there then, as though one might be on a fair ride, spinning mindlessly.

I thought about technology in the office: CAD and its processes. There seemed to be something similar going on with computer-aided drawing. The process sometimes seemed more important than any outcome.

“What line are you using?”

“How do I do . . .?”

“Have you tried this?”

“Where is the . . .?“

The questions and their responses constantly fly around the workstations. What real effort and thought was being given to the work, to the definition of its outcome? The parameters of the programme seem to have a direct impact on both the process and the result. The mirroring, the copying, and the pasting processes, (these are the basic ones), were all involved to make things simpler: click; paste; remove; in the same way as the camera buttons were handled. The library of parts, objects, details, etc. were similarly all there to be utilized, adapted, and were, whenever the chance arose. The tasks seem centred on finding these opportunities, looking for the chance to use these features. Ironically, time was frequently spent planning how one might save time. The mind seemed more concentrated on how the programme could be manipulated to achieve a documented CAD outcome - the drawing - rather than on assessing the drawing and just what it might be communicating to another, in this case, the contractor. The whole idea that a drawing had to communicate seemed lost in the haze and maze of the game - the CAD programme and ME: amazing; and I did it! What can I use now? How might I manipulate the system to give me a result with least effort? Which path should I choose? I wonder if there is another way?

“Wow! Have you tried this?”

“How did you do that?”

It seemed that the drafter might only rarely, if at all, pause to see how another might read the information that was being recorded. There appeared to be little concern about how the document might match the instructions given, or the design and detail intended. The critical question that has to be asked when documenting a building is not only is it what has been sketched, but also is it accurate and possible, feasible: can it be built; will it perform; and does the drawing give the story clearly and unambiguously so that the planned outcome can be achieved without confusion and complication? It seemed that CAD was being handled just like the other games and the camera - as an amusement that has no end: just clicks and processes where the results appear almost as an insignificant, irrelevant conclusion of the involvement that knew of no time or place but its own. The concentration seemed to be only on the engagement with the technology.

I have seen details where the ‘copy, paste and mirror’ commands have been used irrespective of their relevance: close enough. I have seen grids selected just because of the neat figure and the ease of repetition - click, click, click - when something more like the tartan grid would have made everything far more explicit. How long will it take for technology to become less of a distraction? The learning process is interesting. Take for instance learning to play the piano: there is the first stage where everything is alien. Slowly with practice the very self-conscious steps played as scales are assimilated into other skills, like playing a tune, still in a self-conscious manner. Then, as time progresses and familiarity increases with dexterity and confidence, these stages are gathered into the unselfconscious - it is called ‘feedback’ - until the stage is reached where the player can attend to the far more subtle matters involved in playing and expression. This cycle continues to enrich and be enriched as the instrument becomes ‘at one’ with the player, and vice versa. Learning to ride a bicycle has much the same sequence of experiences. The unknown becomes known in an ever-spinning circle of learning. Matters to be confronted become more subtle, rich and sophisticated. It is analogous to movement on the Möbius strip where seamless continuity maps the concept as a diagram for achievement. The path to wisdom and understanding has no ending. As the saying goes: If you find the Buddha on the way, kill him.

When will CAD reach the stage when it will no longer be a self-conscious process? At present, the involvement is somewhat like a draughtsman standing at a drawing board asking questions about how to use the tee square or a pencil; the eraser: what density of pencil to choose; how to sharpen the pencil; how to draw a line; what stencil for letters; what style; what thickness; etc. etc.? - all questions that would have been ludicrous in this circumstance, but are entertained without embarrassment with the computer. Imagine asking about which sheet of paper one had to draw on! How it can be printed, copied. What colour pen one had to use; how to trace the drawing. The thought arises: I wonder if there is a better feeling for line, form and space with the tee square and the set square that involves the body more intimately and actively than the keyboard?

The boy with the camera was learning too but he jumped right into the system, bringing all of his button skills to the game without listening, looking or feeling for feedback or watching for or caring about failure. Is this what draughtsmen bring to their CAD efforts too? Architects? I have seen the wonders of the computer turn a five minute scribble into a dozen three dimensional images that appear to hold some sense when the whole has no basis in thought or any simple sense. Lines have appeared from the brash movements of the hand on a mouse guided by intuition or just the body movement itself; and then the computer takes over: “Wow!”

What are the issues here? It all appears to linger in the field of belief and self-confidence. Can one be over-confident? Can belief be blind? If one is unable to isolate the lack of substance in the machine-induced imagery that is the outcome of a careless and thoughtless randomness, from that which is not, then there is a problem. The recognition and acknowledgement of the problem of admiring any 'skill' in an outcome when it has all been processed otherwise - blindly, irrationally - remains a core and essential ability in the scope of any performance. Cynicism is essential because matters have become so fuzzy, so mixed and confused. Only too often has one seen the architect admire the computed result that he has supposedly directed, as if it were the work of another.

Fuzzy in itself has qualities that can be admired, e.g. inclusiveness: incorporating things vague, ambiguous, imprecise - chance itself. But remaining happy with things inconclusive and unclear when they can be otherwise, and in certain circumstances must be, as if they might pleasantly surprise by their difference, and believing they have inherent value because they have just appeared in this manner, is a serious issue. Chance has its place in discovery; so has necessity too. Seeing chance alone as ‘creativity’ is a problem. Bacon promoted immediacy, but his words and actions show otherwise: see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/bacons-sacrambled-studio-francis.html

The world can be seen as a game, but it is more than this. We need to learn about our technologies and become confident with them rather than just with ourselves, so that they can be assimilated into our lives creatively, allowing our attention to address far more critical matters than proficiency with gadgets. Ignoring the way a battery needs to go into any equipment only highlights how weak the game can make us when its only interest is to beckon infinity with an unfulfilled tease. We need to face facts if the wonder of work is to become manifest. Tradition always understood that nothing could be beautiful if it ignored the cosmic rules and the facts of functions.

It was Louis Kahn who pointed out that:

"A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable."

 

NOTE:
On assimilation: see On Bridges - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/on-bridges.html Buckminster Fuller envisaged a future where tensegrity would become incorporated into our world without exclamation or declaration:

 ‘the process . . . whereby doing more for less can lead to an implosion of functions, one into another, until only a gossamer thin but steely strong multifunctional envelope takes the place of separate ‘cultures’ of architecture, building and aesthetics.’

NOTE: 29 October 2014
see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/drawing-belfast-command-character.html

THE 3D WORLD

In The Sydney Morning Herald Technology, on 22nd April 2013, Omar L. Gallaga declared in the title of his report that The future is printed in 3D: see http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-future-is-printed-in-3d-20130417-2i0bv.html  adding: The 3D-printing revolution is set to change our lives.

It is an interesting overview of where the world is with 3-D printing. The text gives a link to a site that has many illustrations of what this printing can do: see Thingiverse.com It is simply astonishing. The matter of copyright and forgery is brought to the fore as never before. Antiques and artworks can be reproducted perfectly.

The article finishes with an outline of the impact of this technology on the architect:

The architect
Clay Shortall, the founder of Austin's Shortall Architectural Design, echoes some of the tinkering troubles that Goodwin expressed. He has a 3D printer called a Replicator 2 from MakerBot that he's played around with at home.
"They're really cool and fun to play with," Shortall says, the kind of technology you want to show off to guests when they come over, he says.
"It's a fun party trick. It's the new thing."
But Shortall has got more use from the Replicator 2 by testing out models for much larger projects that will eventually be printed on large, industrial machines out of materials such as limestone or granite. For $25 or so, he can print a smaller version of, say, a home or a skate park he's helping design.
Shortall, who also teaches at the University of Texas, has found it a useful educational tool. It's one thing to model something virtually on a computer; it's another to test out the structural soundness of a physical model you can hold in your hands.
He says it can save students time to have a 3D-printed object created in a few hours rather than building the same object by hand.
"We haven't figured out all the nuances of it yet," he says. He imagines that before the technology can go mainstream, many more people will have to find ways to make 3D printing useful and incorporate it into their lives in time-saving ways.
How long will that be? If I had to guess, I'd say that within two or three years, as the hardware and software improves, more early adopters will want to experiment with printers and 3D scanners. Perhaps in five years, we'll see idiot-proof 3D printers for just a few hundred dollars, ready for your home.
3D printing may look different and come in a different kind of box by then, but it's a safe bet that one way or another, it's in our future.

While the technology might be something like a fun game at present, one has to consider what the future might be. In these circumstances, one is always reminded of the statement on the newly invented electric guitar - that it would take decades for it to achieve its native status in the music world. New things seem to entertain and distract us. Once we overcome this intrigue, we are then able to concentrate on outcomes that truly use the intrinsic characteristics of the technology creatively rather than as a distracting, 'interesting' aside where difference is highlighted only to enhance the cleverness of the technological possibilities, or that of  the maker.

P.S.
Shortly after posting this text, the evening news reported on the development of 3D printing in medicine. A future was envisaged where bones could be printed to order to suit requirements, and, if living tissue could survive the 'ink jet' process, living body parts could also be made to specification. The whole world might become printed! One is left wondering what might not be able to be reproduced rather than the other way around!

Some days later:

A gun is printed:

Thursday 9 May 2013 08.00 BST

3D-printed guns: expert warns of threat to user

http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/09/3d-printed-guns-user

A printed gun is fired:

English.news.cn   2013-05-11 08:44:13

World's first 3D-printed gun brings new concerns over gun control in U.S. 

Xinhua | English.news.cn

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-05/11/c_132374209.htm

 A short time after:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/11/offshore-3d-printed-gun-blueprint-protector-kim-dotcom-reportedly-deleting-files/ 

and again, a couple of days later - the heart of the matter:

http://m.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/lifesaving-heart-surgery-explores-a-new-dimension-20130515-2jltv.html

SHIDE: PAPER POWER

They appear as sacred markers; perhaps protecting from evil spirits. They have a quality about them that tells of this role without one ever really knowing. They are memorable. The eye wanders back to them to delight in their elegance, their sparse, raw beauty. Their simplicity is obvious in their organised complexity, as is their integrity. The inherent qualities give these ordinary pieces of paper a power beyond their reality. Is this why one senses the sacred in their presence? They hang with purpose, nonchalantly waving the light breeze as if communicating with spirits unknown, unperceived. They seem to reveal the unknown to the body, for it to feel mystery and magic - the enchantment of place. That something so apparently insubstantial can cohere amazes, time and time again.

Some say they represent lightning; and so they do. They zigzag in the same manner as the comic book illustration of a character being zapped. While the analogy seems appropriate in one way - light and power - it becomes a bit parochial when placed in its context of the past. Is it just the way that we choose to read things that gives us this insight? Others say that it is a priest’s tear-off talisman, to be used a little like the tram conductor’s ticket board of other times, a belt full of bundles of tickets of all colours that he would rip off and punch with grand authority. This sense of the folded paper being a dispenser of meaningful pieces may be true in the same way as it is seen as a bolt of lightning, since the segments do easily tear off and could be stamped or marked to be taken home by the pilgrim and treasured. But is this merely a perception from our era of dispensing machines and gadgets? Then again, others see these as simple decorative pieces - a clever folding of paper that waves subtly, prettily, in the breeze and tumbles into place. A glimpse through the Internet listings will show how others read these, noting that they are markers, that they tear off, or that they fall beautifully into their zigzagging pendant form. But what are they?

 

They are seen in photographs of temples, shrines and tori. They catch the eye and the imagination. They are the shide, folded paper pieces that hang from rice straw ropes and define place silently, but with authority and certainty - HERE: I AM HERE. First seen in books of photographs of Japanese architecture, these folded pieces of paper have always entranced. It was not until many years later that they were seen hanging from the thick rice straw rope draped high across one of the tori marking the temple complex at Nikko. At last one had an opportunity to look closely at these folds to see how this wonder was created from such an apparently simple sheet of paper. The surprise was that this was a double sheet. This had not been noticed previously. It was difficult to figure out, so these hangings were photographed for further review when home.

It was not until some years later, when, with time on one’s hands, the paper-folding puzzle was recalled. The images were perused again, the pencil taken out and the sketching began the analysis of the creasing. Today, this would be called ‘deconstruction’, or ‘reverse engineering’. The image was unfolded in the mind, drawn, and the paper cut to achieve the final identity. No, this was not right, so the task started again, and again, learning from the discovery of how different cuts changed things. The geometry was searched out, then the cuts. Some hour or two later, after pauses to maintain one’s sanity and to reinvigorate the inquiring mind, the cuts and folds became apparent.

The principle driving the search was that these overlays had a precise structure and a sense; such was their strength and coherence; that this was not a complicated or overly self-conscious making. One was seeking something simple that would be transformed into this beautiful object. Eventually it became obvious - a fold, reverse cuts, and a tumble fold on fold. Astonishing! Such elegance! What did it mean? What was it called?

The simplicity of the solution of the most familiar hanging - the zigzag of four - was so basic that it held as much wonder as the final object itself. A piece of paper in the proportion of 8:3 is folded into halves to give a double piece in the proportion of 4:3. Along the ‘4’ side, a cut is made on each quarter line that goes two-thirds across the width ‘3’ parallel to the fold. The first cut starts from the left-hand side near the top ‘fold’ edge of the page. The second cut starts from the reverse, the lower twin edge, and cuts equally as deep along the second quarter line. The third cut is identical to the first but on the third quarter marker, and is mirrored around the central, the lower ‘reverse’ cut.

The forming then starts with the first fold beginning at the lower end of the first cut. The whole page is turned over along this alignment and creased. The second fold does likewise on the next alignment, and then the third. This gives the final zigzag piece of 4. The folded paper piece is then placed in the twist of the rice straw rope that is opened for this insertion, and is hung from th folded edge. But what is this called?

It took the coming of the Internet for one to discover that this was a shide. The rope from which it hung was the shimenawa. Over the years I have never been able to discover just what the shide means; what it symbolises, if anything. I have never seen anything written on this subject. Even illustrations are scarce, and when one comes across one, there is, strangely, no commentary on the folded paper that is, ironically, the most memorable item in the photograph. The Internet has some sundry suggestions about its role and meaning, as noted earlier, but these all seem too random and vague for such a precisely beautiful item, especially one that marks something sacred, as it appears to do so eminently. The sites on the Internet that tell about making these items all explain the idea on a casual, informal basis, practically - cut like this as many times as you like, and fold: QED. It looks a little like instructions for the making of Christmas decorations, or the cutting of a folding ‘man-chain’ for children. I believe that things are much more rigorous than this, that there is a unique precision and relevance to every part of this shaping and folding. It screams about this in its stark silence. After all, as Alexander Pope said, ‘Order is heaven’s first law.’ So what is the shide?

I will try to analyse this object and propose a meaning. It is a theory that will require testing over time and the input of others who know about shide more intimately from within the culture and religion that developed it. Maybe this hypothesis will bring out those who know, if just to correct it? It could be that this understanding is too schematic, or even too presumptuous. It seems to me that the shide has a cosmic symbolism. That it relates to the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. It is made from one, folds into two, has three alternate cuts across the pieces, 2 deep, with one inverted between two, and folds into four with a ‘tumbling’ triple sequence. Could it be that it holds the unity of existence, of being, in itself as a primary beginning, the page; a presence that is a twin - the fold, a duality that is mediated by the between, the third, three cuts, 2 deep - the twin and the reverse - which is neither one nor the other; to further cohere as the trinity, the three ‘tumbles’ - to give the final assemblage of four - the four seasons, the four directions - in the one that was the beginning: the ONE, the unity of being: the shide? Does this set of relationships reverberate silently in the cosmos like the hum of a tuning fork?

The shide seems to me to hold an essence that is primal in its power. The intuition that the folds of this paper were simple and elegant turned out to be true. I would be surprised if the symbolism was not as rigorous, scrupulous, meticulous - such is the experience of the shide and the significance of tradition. I do not believe that it is merely a clever decorative piece, some exotic piece of origami, or just a ‘tricky’ ticket dispenser. Tradition was never random or ad hoc. Nothing in tradition did anything based on expression for the sake of expression, as we know it today. It never sought ‘originality’ in the way we understand it, but it did seek out origins: first principles. The individual was not important. An object had to conform to the required proportions and had to be functional before it could be beautiful, before it could hold power. The shide holds such astonishment that it must touch on something complete in every way, as idea and concept, as well as in its making. It is truly iconic in its ordering, in its manifestation.

One is left wondering:

Is there any point in knowing more about the shide? Ananda Coomaraswamy has written about The Bugbear of Literacy - the problem of intellectualisation. One would not wish to turn the shide into an object solely for the confirmation of an analysis that could remove or ignore its potency. I believe that it is stronger and more immediate in its essence than this and will be able to remain so. It is truly an item of surprising wonder that touches the native mystery of the Shinto world even today.

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein