POSTDIGITAL MATTER(s) 2018

This work is research in progress, examining the “Loss of Control” in drawing and architecture.

The era of the “PostDigital,” is characterized by the collapse of distinctions between the “newness” of the digital (now banal and ubiquitous), aspiring to create revolutionary tools and processes, and the return of the analog, now as agency rather than (nostalgic) vessel . It is characterized by the opportunistic mining of multiple domains (digital/physical, subjective experience / artificial intelligence), etc. towards new conceptualizations of line, space, form and materiality. PostDigital technologies and practices challenge designers to critically examine the changing conceptions of matter / material, transcending the physical / digital oppositions of an earlier generation. Within this context, the rise of AI, Robotics and related technologies, create both new speculative opportunities for design, and at the same time, posits the immanent “Loss of Control” of the designer, over both Form and Material.

The work presented highlights the increasing “Loss of Control” posed by the introduction of Genetic Algorithms and AI, replacing composition as a generative method, by incorporation of computational development of a “series.” The work also interrogates PostdDigital imprecision and the “inexact,” at the level of a physical, material medium, by choosing pigments, markers etc. as opposed to “pixels” as the medium of choice. This decision is not meant however, as a means to return to a pre-digital era, but rather, to explore the as yet undiscovered nuances of physical mediums in the age of robotics and computation.

The linear drawings and patterns are coded with specific computational routines, calibrated for pigment load, flow rate, brush overlap, etc. The architectural line drawings are produced with readily available scripts incorporating GA’s or “Fitness-Functions” trending towards a goal or target set of criteria.