Sketching, Making and Re-thinking the model

I HAVE THE IDEA that the model should 'be there' throughout the making of the project, the thesis. So I am projecting. I imagine the model in its final stages, as if I know already what it is I am going to make. The model is not only a big piece of something, it is also performing, doing things. It is testing out experiments, playing with the parts of itself in its context, testing limits. The model is an interactive tool for determining the form, the program, the questions, the next set of problems I face by making something on the Pont-des-Seigneurs. Jumping ahead: sketches of the model have me thinking about all of its the components. Which are the ones I could make, need to make, can't make...just yet. I have begun to make the big parts of the model: the silicone canal systems, three in total (1825 is submerged into 1848 because nothing is added or taken away), but next to that are questions about what else needs to figured out. It's not possible to embed (nor does it make sense) the wiring in the silicone. And then the question of how to suspend or lift this water tank off the ground? And then, there are the questions I hadn't thought of yet, such as, how to charge the water with an electric current?





Above: Sketches
Below: Photos of the clay models of the canal systems at three stages of development: the present (top) 1909 (middle) and 1848 (bottom). Below these are photos of the clay "under wraps", keeping 'em moist.









Working in the sensor lab with Elio has helped to explain some questions I had about making the model. But it has also triggered new questions, and problems. And it turns out, these problems are more interesting than the ones I had set out to solve.

Below: Sketches of how to detail water and power connections into the silicone mold. There is a photo of the female connection for power supply. Below that I photograph testing the resistant of water charged with an electric current. The resistance of the water is at about 25%, and the number doesn't change if I run a current through small or large quantities of water. That's good news.