Ramiro, Mario. “Between Form and Force: Connecting Architectonic, Telematic and Thermal Spaces.” Leonardo 31.4 (1998): 247-60. JSTOR. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.
This article is described as a survey of the work of the author from the 1970s to the mid 1990s as he began to work with various forms of alternative media, specifically with the rise of new technologies such as photocopiers and advances in television. Of specific interest to me is his work on thermal sculptures; a method for modulating the environment as our senses perceive it through controlled volumes of heat.
He aimed in previous work “to extend the limits of an object, that are normally invisible, through radiation and propagation of heat waves. The idea of freeing an object from the action of gravity…” (p. 255) This was taken further in his work titled “Force Field” in which “the heat waves radiated by the internal elements and reflected by surfaces that are part of the structure’s structure form a volume around the object by means of turbulence created in the atmosphere. This ‘modeling’ of space around the object is normally invisible to the human eye. I imagined being able to disclose the form of these immaterial volumes in space, calculating that the shape of the heating elements would produce different configurations of atmospheric volumes. Thus, a determined modification on the visible plane would correspond to another on the invisible plane.” (p. 255)
I find this statement of intent extremely valuable, with this as a starting point I would like to somehow visualize the volumes created by radiant heat sources in a three dimensional way rather than the method of Schlieren photography later practiced by Ramiro when he moved to Germany.
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