Steganographic Working Sites
- Radical Empathy through Animation
- Individual Project of ASOS on Builder’s Bodies @ CMU
Contributor: Qiushi Chen (Storyboard and Animation Design, Implementation and coding in Rhino Grasshopper + Python, ProCreate and Adobe Pr)
Instructor: Mary Lou Arscott
Final work was aired in the Studio of Creative Inquiry @CMU for screening and panel discussion.
Readings from the studio
Workers engage in physically demanding and often hazardous labor that is essential to the infrastructure and growth of cities and communities. In Judith Butler's "Frames of War '', she primarily examines the idea of 'grievable lives,' where the framing of life decides whose losses will be mourned and whose will be ignored or even invisible. The societal frames dictate which lives are seen as valuable or 'grievable.' If society values the physical structures over the individuals who build them, the workers may not be afforded the proper care and respect they deserve, akin to the 'ungrievable' lives Butler describes. This could manifest in inadequate safety measures, poor working conditions, and insufficient health care provisions for construction and site cleaning workers.
In the context of site toilets – a seemingly minor but crucial aspect of construction sites – Butler's ideas provoke thought about the dignity afforded to workers. Site toilets can be seen as a reflection of how the industry values its workers. They are a basic necessity that impacts health, safety, and human dignity. Often, the conditions of these facilities are subpar, reflecting a disregard for the well-being of the workers. If construction workers were truly valued, every aspect of their work environment would reflect that, including the quality of the site toilets. Substandard facilities could be interpreted as a message that the workers' basic needs are secondary to the productivity and profitability of the project, reflecting a failure to 'frame' these workers' lives as deserving of care and attention.
In this short film, I want to investigate the dialectic relationship between the concept of cleanliness and the subject of cleaning by placing these two subjects aligning with the working environment and the work. Workers who need to fly as they clean the facades, how do we see the value of their work? Do we notice the invisible value on the other side of the translucent dusted/sleek glazings? Who is cleaning the built environment for the building’s users？To critique and question the current 'frames' in place within the construction industry that may implicitly suggest that the laborers are not entitled to mournable conditions of work. How might we undo the harm? How might we bring equity without separations? Architects built realms that are after the minds of people. How can architects make the world a better place, if we all step forward in ideological advancement, actively think and design with the vision of guaranteeing the dignity of workers in construction sites and maintenance industries and manifest them as fore thoughts instead of retrofit.
Emerging cities and built environments - Does the perfect realm and machine exists?
In the preface of Daniel Cardoso “Builders of the Vision”, I see an interesting dialectic relationship on the topic between design, computation and built realm and materiality. There was a debate between the author and his elderly friend on whether “perfect art would only be possible when a machine was capable of translating ideas directly into objects, without any bodily interaction with materials or tools. With no brushes, canvas, or pigments polluting the creative flow, my friend’s machine would enable a seamless transfer between the limitless and immaterial worlds of mental images and the earthy worlds of physical objects.” This argument is opposed by the author, as the reality suggests, even the most advanced architecture proposals parametrically designed and and computer aided generated up to date, when they need to take stand on the ground, requires genuine human efforts and the inevitable messiness. Though advance researches on material sciences, engineering and automation systems are making efforts to bridge the gap between the future realm enabled by his friend’s “proposed machine”. We still needs to take a serious look at the production cycle, the social issues around labor forces in the whole pipeline and ecosystems to be responsible and create built environments that do not harm its participants, the real humans and beyond. As a young designer who study in a environment that is filled with optimistic and promising future sold by the rapid advancement of emerging technologies, it is also crucial to think critically about them. Could we proselytize them for better inclusions and awareness of social justices? Who is currently not benefiting from the status quo, who is marginalized and being invisible to show their vulnerabilities. Can we value the city by it’s care afforded by the design rather than gdp?
Reflecting on the invisibility of the worker’s value – computation as a means of vocalization
I was touched by this simple yet powerful piece of projection installation, on its unique humanitarian lens of perceiving the worker’s value. It happens in real space with real proportions, but obscuring the portrayed entity behind translucent glass in projection. The projections as method around its time (2009) serve as “the Vehicles, or the technologically advanced Instruments that enable those who, deprived of rights, remain mute, invisible and nameless to communicate, gain a voice, make a presence in public space.” I think the computational design languages too, could surpass its instrumental and undernamed technical aspects of mere magical scaffolding and perfect “slave” of the creatives, but as a means to vocalize for the separated, marginalized and devalued groups in the construction site.
Computation as a lens for re-present/flect on societal frames
I use computation as a lens to reveal the hidden realities of workers' environments by defamiliarizing footage—encouraging scrutiny and a figurative closer look at how society perceives and values labor. In contrast to the sleek, ever-expanding cityscapes from my childhood memories, which felt pristine and solid, I introduce intentional dissonance through blinking effects. By manipulating a customized sample range in the image sampler (GH component) with sine and cosine waves, I further distort the work scene, urging audiences to look beyond the surface and reflect on the hazardous conditions and isolation that workers endure in seemingly clean and structured spaces. Additionally, I aim to explore visual-audio synchronization in this process, experimenting with rhythmic blinking effects in Adobe Premiere to deepen the impact.
Lens Movements Experiments
Implementation Notes
At a high level, I sample the pixel values of each unit area in an image and map them into distinct-sized vector geometries. While this computational method is commonly used in static designs—such as CNC fabrication, laser cutting, and metal perforations—the challenge lies in processing large volumes of images consistently across frames, as existing workflows lack built-in interfaces for this. To overcome this, I developed a custom solution by writing my own code. By carefully selecting real footage from work scenes, this workflow enables me to generate animations seamlessly.
