This lecture was held at Baltan Laboratories in Eindhoven, during a masterclass developed by Arne Hendriks and Rachel Armstrong titled "What is the nature of a 21st century 'human'?" - Together with four other guides, each with one specific theme, I acted as Starship guide during this masterclass, which took place on March 28, 29 and 30, 2014. The other guides were Mike Thompson (Venice Beach), Edwin Gardner/Monnik (Suburbia), and Christiaan Fruneaux/Monnik (the 8 billion City).

1. STARSHIP
a 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

2. “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

3. MonticelloThomas Jefferson

12. Joey(a mechanical boy)

13. ISBN-10: 0029031400
> A Theory of Mind...
Bruno Bettelheim (1903-1990)

14. Joey (1946-?)

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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).

19. 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.

20. David(the boy in the bubble)

21. David Vetter (1971-1984)

22. severe combined immune deficiency syndrome (SCIDS)

25. Box Mankobo abe

27. 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.

28. 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.)

29. Footagebarbarella > alien > the right stuff

30. Barbarella
Roger Vadim
(1968)
based on the comic
Barbarella
Jean-Claude Forest, 1962

31. Alien
Ridley Scott
(1979)
screenplay
Alien
Dan O’Bannon, 1978

32. The Right Stuff
Philip Kaufman
(1983)
based on the novel
The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe, 1979

33. capsule vs. spacecraft
occupant vs. pilot
!
(language as litmus test for assessing art & design engineering empathy)

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

37. 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)

39. fin
w 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