Fragile Mutations

terials whose performance has not yet been perfected by engineering methods.By working with disadvantages of active materials for certain functional purposes, we aim to work with what is undesirable and explore the crevices of fragility, ephemerality and decay of responsive matter. Mutations
Not all responsive materials need be laden with the latest digital technologies. This is a craft workshop. A growing collection of designers will deveise analogue techniques that use physical materials to explore the movement of the body and interact with the environment. Such projects seek to enhance the expressive qualities of what we wear, and create a stronger connection between the fabrics adorning our bodies and the environment in which we are immersed. We seek to merge art, science and material qualities to read the skin as a dynamic surface which reacts while human body ’s movement and create membrane skin capabilities. The electroactive polymers EAP have proven fruitful for many adaptive structures, and have an ever-expanding portfolio of applications for designers. Such materials transform our ways of creating and thinking body’s movement by developing a speculative model for membrane structures that exhibit properties of sensitivity, resilience, organic structures, bones, skin foils, decay. Actuated Matter
The workshop explores the application of smart materials and their ability to transform space into responsive, adaptive environments. We will develop a speculative model for membrane structures that exhibit properties of sensitivity, resilience, and decay. By physically engaging with the behaviours of active materials, we experiment with the threshold between the electronic and mechanic, the analog and the digital. Focus
The workshop wants to rethink and widen the ways in which Electroactive Polymers have been used and developed in science and design labs as muscle-like actuators. We will introduce their basic functioning and provide know-how and materials to build modules developed by IAD researchers, and reflect on the ways such materials transform our ways of creating and thinking movement in art, architecture and design. Creative Thinking
What kinds of practices emerge when we negotiate with materials rather then impose ideas and form on them, be it conceptually or via computational tools? How do we position ourselves in relation to responsive matter? In the midst of relational aesthetics, object-oriented ontologies and eco-logics, what kind of thinking/doing is engendered by active materials? What kind of spaces can emerge from an approach that co-operates with matter and how can this extend formal and structural adaption towards a new understanding of materiality? The implementation of biologically inspired processes of self-organization can augment an artificial system with some of the properties of an autonomous and responsive organism. Participation
minimum 8 - maximum 15 people. If you want to participate, please send a short email to [email protected] before Nov.15th. Suggrou 190 17671, Athens Greece, Dec. 15-18th, 2014 (10am-6pm)

Materials
Electroactive Polymers (EAP), Polycarbonate Foils, Carbon Powder, VHB Foil

Fee:
€150

Tutors
Florian Wille - Interaction Design-& Industrial Designer. Organized by Vaia Gkerliotou - Architect. Sponsored and supported by Enactive Environments research group, Interaction Design, Zurich University of the Arts. Bios
Vaia Gkerliotou is a Greece based architect and computational designer. She is the founder of Vaia Gkerliotou Single Member PC, a professional architectural design practice in Greece and Research experimental Laboratory on interactive and computational geometry, testing smart materials for human scale. She was digital tooling assistant on many workshops _AA Visiting School in Paris, XAtelier in Athens, Robofold in London. https://www.facebook.com/VaiaGkerliotou.architect.designer

Florian Wille is an industrial- and interaction designer. He is the design lead at DSC - Zürich. Previously he was a research assistant at the Interaction Design group (IAD) at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) working on smart materials and teaching courses on digital fabrication. http://iad.zhdk.ch/de/people/florian-wille


Links
Emotive Environments: http://www.enactiveenvironments.com/
ShapeShift: http://www.caad-eap.blogspot.com


Past Workshops (http://www.enactiveenvironments.com/category/sharing/)