Three Stars and a Window in Outer Space (method and metaphor, system and serendipity) A lecture by Ronald van Tienhoven in the framework of Eindhoven University of Technology’s Studium Generale lecture programme. April 20, between 11.45-13.00, TU/e Blauwe Zaal, main auditorium. The lecture will be in English. Entrance free. During the Gemini program, launched by NASA in 1958, the astronaut team needed to convince NASA engineers to have a window installed in their spacecraft. Departing from the notion that astronauts were merely instrumental in doing pre-programmed tasks during spaceflights, a window wasn’t considered to be necessary. This conflict symbolizes the gap between utilitarian thinking and design empathy and the psychological consequences of missions in outer space. In 2006 the European Space Agency (ESA) teamed up with 3-star French chef Alain Ducasse, aiming to develop out-of-this-world cuisine for astronauts on their long-duration spaceflight to Mars and their subsequent stay on the Red Planet. The exquisite menu that followed was based on nine main ingredients that could be grown and harvested by the Mars explorers. On the one hand there is a universal urge to deploy the arts, design and science in unison. On the other hand there still seems to be a lingering discrepancy that has, admittedly, been bridged considerably between 1958 and 2006, but still needs to gain the necessary momentum in order to become fully effective and meaningful. This lecture is intended to trigger the discussion about method and metaphor, system and serendipity, and the many opportunities in optimizing anticipatory art & design science.

1. ronald van tienhoven lecture
THREE STARS AND A WINDOW IN OUTER SPACE
studium generale | eindhoven university of technology
april 20, 2011

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

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

4. is it about safety?
y e s
is it about experience?
y e s
is it about empowerment?
y e s
is it about status?
y e s
is it about metaphor?
y e s
is it about survival?
y e s
is it about play?
y e s

5. 04:55:23
shepard mercury flight duration
Alan Shepard’s Apollo 14 Spacesuit (x-ray)

6. To put the matter differently, "play" (and its associated behavioral
variability) is not purely entertainment or a luxury to be given up
when things get serious. It is itself a highly adaptive mechanism
for dealing with the reality that the context for behavior is always
largely unknown.
Paul Grobstein

7. 520 DAYS
mars flight duration
AMHA Website: http://www.amha.id.tue.nl/

10. 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)

13. spirulina gnocchis
martian bread and green tomato jam potato and tomato mille-feuilles

14. rice
onions
tomatoes
soya
potatoes
lettuce
spinach
wheat
spirulina

15. is it about safety?
y e s
is it about experience?
y e s
is it about empowerment?
y e s
is it about status?
y e s
is it about metaphor?
y e s
is it about survival?
y e s
is it about play?
y e s

16. anticipatory
art & design
science

17. method and metaphor
system and serendipity

18. anticipatory
art & design
science

19. Richard Buckminster Fuller - 1895-1983

21. 500.000 BC - 1850 1850-1950 1950 >>
(against forces) (transitional) (natural)
man on earth: transport species

22. “Most of my advances were by mistake.
You uncover what is when you get rid of what isn't.”
“How often I found where I should be going only by
setting out for somewhere else.”
“My ideas have undergone a process of emergence by
emergency. When they are needed badly enough,
they are accepted.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller

23. past
SAGACITY future
the quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted,
in two directions, and standing firmly in the present.

24. fine-tuned deduction
omni-tuned serendipity

25. SERENDIPITY
“In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind”
(Louis Pasteur)

26. (...)
the camel is lame,
blind in one eye,
missing a tooth,
carrying a pregnant woman,
and bearing honey on one side,
and butter on the other...

27. SERENDIPITY
“In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind”
(Louis Pasteur)

28. KAlSi3O8 - NaAlSi3O8 - CaAl2Si2O8 Al2Si2O5(OH)4
feldspar kaolin
Johann Friedrich Böttger
(1682-1719)

30. european porcelain
post-it
gravity
penicillin
silly putty
rayon
viagra
corn flakes
america

31. “....research directed toward the test of
one hypothesis [yielding] a fortuitous by-
product, an unexpected observation which
bears upon theories not in question when
the research was begun”
Robert K. Merton, 1958

32. E V E N T
past
H O R I Z O N future
Freud’s desk, London, 1938

33. "Possibly we will discover that the very same logic underlies
both mythical and scientific thinking, and that Man always has
thought equally well."
"Peut-être découvrirons-nous un jour que la même logique est à
l'oeuvre dans la pensée mythique et dans la pensée scientifique,
et que l'homme a toujours pensé aussi bien."
Claude Lévi-Strauss - Anthropologie structurale, p. 254

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

36. Event Horizon Sequence: the Event Horizon as Point Of No Return

37. Hokusai Katsushika - Blind monks measuring an elephant, 1819

38. Hokusai Katsushika - Blind monks measuring an elephant, 1819

39. chance & necessity
chaos & chance

40. “The eye sees only what the mind is
prepared to comprehend."
Henri Bergson

41. “The eye sees only what the mind is
willing to comprehend."
....

42. “The eye sees only what the mind is
able to comprehend."
....

43. preparation
willingness
ability

44. case study:
human
anatomy

45. Tibetan medical painting: blood vessels, 17th century

46. Female anatomical statue, 1600 (Roudillon collection)

47. Jacques Gautier d´Agoty - L’Ange Anatomique, 1746

48. Female anatomical representation, 2007 (as perceived by hugh heffner)

49. The Visible Human Project
The U.S. National Library of Medicine
(1986>)
based on the novel
The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe, 1979

50. “All too often beauty is nothing more than
the by-product of an everyday enterprise.”
Joseph Brodsky
Fondamenta degli incurabili, 1989

51. wishful design process diagram
diagram becomes metaphor

52. statement of the Eames Design Process by Charles Eames
for the Louvre show “What is Design”, 1969

54. Chris Burden
Metropolis II
2009

55. Alexander McQueen
Spring|Summer 1999
model: Shalom Harlow

56. fin
www.slideshare.net/rvtienhoven