inFORMed Flexible matter

inFORMed Flexible matter
grasshopper & fabrication workshop
September 01-03, 2017
digifabTURINg – Fablab Torino, Italy

[.] Brief
The inFORMed Matter Workshops Series is focused on the exploration of non conventional additive fabrication processes aimed at producing form through the morphogenetic properties of matter and by embedding further information structures during the fabrication process itself by means of mechanical (robots, printers) or biological (organisms) constructor agents.

Its goal is to step beyond the current state of prototyping, according to which the physical prototype should be as adherent as possible to its digital counterpart, thus making fabrication a purely replicational process. Instead, by coding and embedding additional levels of digital and material information, new physical and aesthetic properties arise. In this way, the production and digital fabrication phase becomes an integral part of the design process.

By exploring the code-matter-machine interaction process, the potential emergent behaviors of the system can then be studied while, by tapping into the self-organization properties of matter, a new sensibility towards computational design/fabrication process can be learnt and exerted.

[.] Workshop topic:
The workshop aims at the exploration of potential body-space active mediators, from the size of a dress/body extension/prosthetic to that of an inhabitable void defined by self-supporting portable structures; the behavioral role model is tension-active structures, the same underpinning the working principles of pop-up tents.
Stiffness and elasticity will be heterogeneously distributed through algorithmically generated patterns governing a dual material system enacted by numerically controlled machines: polypropylene printed on pre-tensioned Lycra fabric by means of a COMAU NJ60 robotic arm and a Delta WASP 2040 3D printer. When the fabric is released, the tensional difference between the materials generates a curvature pattern that deploys structural stiffness, density and a plethora of other related properties; the pattern drives local differentiation according to the divergent tendencies of the two materials involved, converging towards a complex, articulated equilibrium.
Patterns and their local differentiation act as information distributors through the whole system, not limited to a structural nature (stiffness, suppleness, resistance): information may include also energy (in both an active – as in thermal and/or other energies conductivity – and passive – as in the capacity of form and geometry to create microenvironments) and/or any other transmissible kind. There are undoubtedly limits to the scalability of the process imposed by the behaviors of the chosen material system, but the underlying principles of an algortithm-material feedback exploration remain untouched. The workshop will focus precisely on these principles (formation and assembly of those systems and of their constituent parts), while maintaining a necessary degree of vagueness in order to place functional thinking downstream to form generation, implementing a progressive and iterative refinement to channel exploration towards the production of a prototype.
The intention is to probe a design perspective exploring coherent processes of form generation that couple algorithmic approach and self-organization capacities of the material. In this context, acquiring a complex sensibility that stimulates intuitiveness in connecting the pattern of choices in the process to the properties and metric of the output is of crucial importance. By governing the ways in which said properties are distributed through the system, possible directions of development and progressive output specification will be explored; the functional discourse is postponed, thus stimulating the emergence of unconventional maps of opportunities and performances.

The workshop was organized by Co-de-iT in collaboration with digifabTURINg & WASP

[.] Daily schedule:

[.] Software & Skills
Basic modeling skills in Rhino3D and Grasshopper (Grasshopper Primer level) are required.
Participants should bring their own laptop with pre-installed software. More specific information will be sent to the participants a week before the workshop.

[.] Calendar & Timetable:
September 01-03 2017 // 10am – 6pm

[.] Tutors:
Alessio Erioli – Co-de-iT
Andrea Graziano – Co-de-iT & digifabTURINg
Lapo Naldoni – WASP

[.] Language:
English will be the main language of the workshop

[.] Venue:
Fablab Torino, Via Egeo 16 Torino, Italia

[.] Registration Fees:

_Workshop Fees
Educational* : 240 € (each workshop)
Professional : 330 € (each workshop)

_Workshops discount
the workshop is part of the “inFORMed matter workshops” series so, if you already attended a previous workshop, you are entitled to the following discounts:
Educational* :
40 € discount will be applied at the 2nd workshop participation
80 € discount will be applied at the 3rd workshop participation

Professional :
55 € discount will be applied at the 2nd workshop participation
110 € discount will be applied at the 3rd workshop participation

* Full time students, teachers, researchers & PhD (proof of status required).

The deadline for registration is 18 August, 2017.
The workshop will be activated with a minimum number of 10 participants.

[.] registration
To register to one or more workshops please e-mail: digifabturing@gmail.com
The workshop will be activated with a minimum number of 10 participants.

[.] Credits
The inFORMed Matter Workshops Series is organized by digifabTURINg & Co-de-iT in collaboration with FabLab Torino, Officine Innesto and Officina Corpuscoli and played @ digifabTURINg. The inFORMed Matter Workshops Series is part of the AARM project and supported by Compagnia di San Paolo.

AARM is a project done by digifabTURINg + FabLab Torino and it is one of the 20 winning projects of the competition “ORA! Linguaggi contemporanei, produzioni innovative” dedicated to the visual arts, performing and digital culture, organized by the “Compagnia di San Paolo” and launched in October 2015.

As a precedent, check the outcomes from the Flexible Bodies workshop, held by Alessio Erioli and Lapo Naldoni at Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, Spring 2017: