THE WHAT IF?

METROPOLIS
THE ART OF

MANON
1/19/17

THE WHAT IF? METROPOLIS

This Space and Environment project began with the assignment of a randomly
selected collaborating artist or designer. The task was to design a city as if working
with this artist. This involved researching the artist's work and their methodology
and imagining what a city built with this artist as its architect might be like. The
project required a concept painting to be produced, depicting the essence of the
city in a single shot. This shot was then to be built in Maya, with in aid of
orthographic drawings and texture maps. The artist I received was Jean Hans Arp.

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JEAN HANS ARP (1886-1966)

Jean Hans Arp was born in 1886 in Strasbourg, on the border between Germany and
France. From 1900 to 1908 Arp studied art at the Strasbourg School of Arts and
Crafts, the Weimar Academy of Art, and the Academie Julian. He found his time at
these institutions dissatisfying as he did not enjoy academic instruction.
Arp spent time throughout his career collaborating with other artists and keeping
informed about modern art movements. He was deeply involved with the Dada
movement, which he began associating with in its early days in Zurich 1916.
Arp's work through the 1920s consisted primarily of collages on paper and wood
and from the 1930s onwards most of his works were three-dimensional. Roundness
was important to Arp in his work and elements of the human figure and plant life can
be found throughout.
Arp also wrote poetry in both German and French throughout his life. His poems can
come across as nonsensical, but were intentionally so and were very popular among
Dadaists and followers of the movement.

INFLUENCE MAP

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TRAVELOGUE

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Manon is notable for its rebellious exuberance in the face of its dull and predictable surroundings. The city is a retaliative growth,
born as a response to the cautious, pretentious order of the surrounding environment. The city appears to sprout from the earth,
the outskirts grow tall, protective of the inner sanctum. Despite this protective layer, those who wish to enter Manon will feel
welcomed, and the outskirts of the city will form archways, inviting travellers to explore and absorb the world that its residents
have created for themselves. The city pulls the traveller in, not to a physical place, but to a way of thinking. The traveller will
move through the city with no particular goal in mind, they will find that they do not want to plan their travels, that exploring at
random is the most rewarding way to experience this city. Even those outsiders who cling fiercely to the order of their world find
themselves intrigued by Manon, the strings of nonsense that find their way outside of the city stick with them, urging them to
consider exploring it.
Plants are an important part of Manon and have been placed around the city and allowed to grow as they grow. And they grow,
twisting and climbing throughout the city. Their growth is haphazard, automatic, a result of biological machinations unseen and
unsupervised. Each morning the sun can't quite decide if it will fully rise or not, and it hovers just out of reach, its presence felt,
but never truly seen. The plants do not mind this. They do not need nourishment. They grow on. They are as exuberant as those
who built the city. The colours that these plants manifest vary from very dull to quite bright and unexpected, as though some are
pieces of paper left out too long in the sun and others are freshly printed. The plants even manage to leap through space as they
grow, leaving gaps, floating apart from themselves, winding up in strange places they, by all ordinary accounts, should not be able
to exist. This is accepted in Manon, and the traveller becomes used to it after a short time, only occasionally finding themselves
surprised by a brightly coloured leaf protruding from a postbox.
The indecisiveness of the sun means that Manon spends all its time in the light of early morning and the city is bathed in gold. This
would be difficult for the cities occupants, as it clashes with the capricious nature of the city they have built, however, the light is
so warm and gentle, that they find themselves not minding all that much.
If the path of the traveller takes them to the heart of the city they will find the Arts Centre, the place where all of the important
decisions are made. Even in this city built at random, someone or something has decided where each building will be built and,
perhaps most importantly, each plant will start the journey of its growth. These decision makers, whoever, or whatever, they may
be, make their home in the Arts Centre. This is as close a thing as Manon has to a Government, but they would shudder to think of
it as such; a lack of governance is of utmost importance to their way of life, and they cling to the idea that they live free from
authority.

The Arts Centre is an impressive building, taller than some buildings, shorter than others, wider than some buildings, narrower than
others. It is also rounder than some buildings, and squarer than others. It is shinier than some buildings, and more matte than
others. It is, by all accounts, the most impressive building in Manon, for it manages to be completely and utterly average, despite
the most enthusiastic attempts by the citys residents to abandon normality.
Speaking of the residents of Manon, they are, of course, a strange bunch. They know this. They love this. They work hard for this.
Their insistence at being different from their neighbouring environments drives them to ever greater heights of creative nonsense.
Because of this, the method of construction for new structures in Manon changes over time. The materials used shift between
wood, bronze, marble and plaster, the shapes and sizes vary, and the situation of the buildings within the city is different. There
are always plants though, these plants make the city feel alive, and their unpredictable growth patterns appeal to the residents
love of all things random. All of the houses in Manon have been sculpted individually with only a vague idea of a final design, they
have their materials and their plants and they begin their building. The architects see the plants and are inspired by their organic
shapes, meaning the structures always tend to mimic these patterns in some way. No matter the maker, roundness often plays
some part in the design of Manons extension and, in this way, each building could be seen to belong to the same city.
It is possible for residents and travellers alike to make contact with their orderly neighbours, but they find it difficult to understand
one another. The playful absurdity of the Manonians writings may be read as infantile by the outside reader, and the sensible,
structured writings of the outsider can come across as disturbing to those in Manon. However, those outside are often drawn in by
the nonsense they observe, tired of following rules and intrigued by the playfulness of the Manonians. In this way, it is perhaps the
citizens of Manon who are more stuck in their ways. It is important to note that once inside the city, people find themselves
unable to leave, utterly captivated by Manonian ways.
The city's magnetic pull on the foot traveller also extends to those who travel via the citys trains. Hovering surrounded by
colourful pipes, the trains are pulled around the city in strange and varying patterns. The traveller feels no compulsion to make
note of which stop they get on at, or check where they disembark, they simply move through the city, taking in the sights. It is
dizzying and it is in this way that travellers to the city often get lost. Manon absorbs the traveller as the traveller absorbs Manon
and the city extends further, eking out a larger and larger space in the ordinary environment that surrounds it.

THUMBNAILS

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CONCEPT ART

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MATTE PAINTING

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DIGITAL SET

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