New Material Anatomies
Chapter in on site review 36: our material future
2019
We are exploring new ways to examine SED projects through exploring analytical and representational techniques that recognize a project's internal material assembly as an interrelated hybrid construction of both hard and soft materials. Our anatomical analysis of the FUTUREFORM’s Murmur Wall project exposes Murmur Wall’s material assembly as an entanglement of physical elements, such as its steel and acrylic tubes, and virtual components such as data sources and algorithms. The drawing also situates the project in spatial and social contexts by presenting it within a site – which oscillates between the specific area around the installation as well as its wider relationship to the city around it.
We see this analytical approach as serving designers in identifying the invisible forces shaping the outcomes of their project as a new set of opportunities and challenges within the project’s assembly with which we must engage. It foregrounds a new set of project elements that need new treatments and considerations - not only in terms of their technical operation in terms of their but social and ethical implications as well.
Project Team
LEADS - Maya Przybylski / Cameron Parkin
ASSISTANTS - Alice Huang / Vincent Min