Based on the concept of concurrent engineering, the author returns
from a refresher course in making icons for his computer screen by which he
establishes a spot in an imaginary building he calls the "The Iconic”. He says
this is an example of recursive art.
ps150310 Welcome to The Iconic
The Seattle Printmakers Center building
“The Iconic” is the name I added to my list of
thematic concepts for the yet-unrealized apartment building across the street
from our family art gallery. The list will change tomorrow, but today it is the
outcome of my exercise in recursivity
which is essential to both the creative process and concurrent engineering (CE).
Recursivity is an academic way of saying, “We
shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
The first time I learned about CE was in reading an article about
3D-printing and The Boeing Company as the engineers designed the Triple-7. It
went something like, “CE means that while the engineers are designing the
mechanical details, sales people gear up to sell seats on an airplane that doesn’t
yet exist—concurrently. Interior designers plan fabrics for the seats and print
designs for the interior, and negotiations proceed with the FAA to allow twin
engine passenger planes to fly across oceans.
This scenario is in contrast to the linear engineering of times past,
when—for example—the Wright Brothers were methodically assembling and testing
their plane one step at a time. They did not have to sell seats on their
glider—Orville was already sold.
Times have changed the way projects are conceived and achieved. It is true
also when a screenplay writer is met by the fact that the movie industry
depends on filling the seats of movie theaters. It takes years—sometimes
decades—for an idea for a movie to find its audience, and years to produce the
film.
Film producers—and the executives in the air travel industry—have to ask,
“Will people pay $15 to sit for two hours watching this film?” or, “Will people
pay $150 for a seat on this plane?” The living wage of every worker in the
industry depends on the project being a successful example of concurrency—everything
happening at the same time.
For a creative artist, this fact is a pain because it means he or she can’t
let their ideas fly. A screenplay writer may want to do a horror film about
mass cannibalism, but the idea will have to wait until the marketplace wants
it. The sequel to Bambi, too, will have to wait.
When planning a plane, a movie, or—today, the subject of interest to me—a building
for the Seattle Printmakers Center, one is tethered to the reality of the
market. Since large-scale projects take years to realize, a visionary person is
needed—someone who can see into the future. As no one can predict the future,
we visionaries have to shore up our vision as best we can with examples from the
past and hope we can offer a trajectory based on big data.
Big Data
Big Data is a popular buzzword in the software engineering world. I see big
data as a combination of statistical analysis and data mining. I’m probably
wrong, since I am not in the industry but rather a user of the instruments. My
computer, for example, can give me an instant course, “Big Data for Dummies,”
and I can mime the terminology so it fits my vision of the new building that
will grow up across the street.
It is the site I have been given, you might say, upon which to model the
next phase in the design of the Seattle Printmakers Center. Data comes in, for
example, on justifying the economics of the Center, i.e., the premise that it
will be self-supporting, create jobs, and help educators in the STEAM movement,
i.e., Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.
My cash-flow promise lies with the profitable startups that go into the
building, such as Young Printmakers and Sip and Print, that are two with the most
lucrative promise and harmonize with the Center’s mission. Concurrent
Engineering requires the funding aspect and, like the needs that aeronautical
engineers prescribe for a flying machine, must be known at the same time the
apartments in the building are designed.
Who will want to live here? How much will they be willing to pay? What
impression will the street-level units make on passers-by and, also, on guests at the
hotel across the street? These are examples of the questions I think
about—questions I am preparing to answer.
I need help, however, and to get help I need to let the people who have
already given form—on paper and with data—to the project I am calling, today
The Iconic.
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