national advanced materials initiative

White House, Materials Genome Initiative

(A genome is a set of information encoded in the language of DNA that serves as a blueprint for an organism’s growth and development. The word genome, when applied in non-biological contexts, connotes a fundamental building block toward a larger purpose.)

The Materials Genome Initiative is a new, multistakeholder effort to develop an infrastructure to accelerate advanced materials discovery and deployment in the United States. Over the last several decades there has been significant Federal investment in new experimental processes and techniques for designing advanced materials. This new focused initiative will better leverage existing Federal investments through the use of computational capabilities, data management, and an integrated approach to materials science and engineering.

See for example pp 9-11 of the MGI white paper for hints where AME could make a particular set of impacts informed by experimental research in more-than-human lived experience.

Specific work e.g. in active fibres / conductive fibres / functional fabrics  started near 20 years ago with folks in fiber computing (Starlab Brussels), and Georgia Tech (Jayaraman et al).  So the state of the art in knit structures and novel materials is getting results, technically.  See for example:

SHIMA SEIKI HAUTE TECHNOLOGY LABORATORY
http://drexel.edu/excite/research/shimaSeiki/

However as with that example, the cultural, aesthetic, and conceptual levels of the technical demos are quite naive, whereas the more aesthetically-informed work  with few exceptions does not have access to state of the art materials.  So there’s a lot of room for play.

cc. AME faculty, fabrication tech team

________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei, PhD • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

RE: working ethos and models for Synthesis, references for "creativity" | "imagination" | "speculative media(ion)"

Thanks for this, Xin Wei. The LCT is indeed a friend to all of this this! 

My initial thoughts:

Practically: 

1. I think one way to start this conversation would be to sketch out concrete ways in which individuals (from inside and outside ASU) are able to collaborate with Synthesis. The LCT took a crack at this with it's "micro-residency" program. I think SC and LCT should find ways to coordinate some of its micro-residencies. 

2. Pop-up MAs: LCT and Synthesis should direct rotating, theme-based MAs on critical and experimental practice. I don't know how this would work administratively --maybe it's a "stream" within DC? In any case, students would spend 2 yrs working through a "problem" with the goal of developing some experimental concepts. These problems would also fit in with--and significantly transform--ASUs innovation/problem-solution mission, etc. Example problems: "Excess and Scarcity," "Gestural Economies," "Non-anthropocentric Design," "Nonhuman Performativity."

Of course we can and should apply for a grant to do this, but couldn't we prototype some version of this via some good old fashion labor of love? Let's be scrappy :) We'd also demonstrate proof of product for future grants. 

As an SC-LCT joint venture, we'd be carving out an incredibly unique and robust way for critical and experimental collaboration through education and mentorship.

The pop-up MA would also feed SC-LCT micro-residencies: we attract visiting scholars/professors based on the theme. 

There is a precedent for this kind of thing in Amsterdam @ The Sandberg Institute (a part of the world-famous Gerrit Rietveld Academie): http://sandberg.nl/  (see: Temporary Programs)

One draw for students would be attending the Paris Design Workshop that Xin Wei and I will be teaching at this summer and in future years. We could build it into the program. This is what Barbara Formis and I have been chatting about! 

Thoughts?


A.J. Nocek, PhD
Assistant Professor, Philosophy of Technology and Science and Technology Studies
Director, Laboratory for Critical Technics (LCT)
School of Arts, Media + Engineering
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
Arizona State University
206.434.7637
 

From: sxw asu [sxwasu@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2016 8:22 AM
To: Christopher Roberts; Brandon Mechtley; Todd Ingalls; Adam Nocek; Julian Stein
Cc: Posthaven Post By Email
Subject: working ethos and models for Synthesis, references for "creativity" | "imagination" | "speculative media(ion)"

Here are some docs describing how I’m trying to build Synthesis, learning from experiences of the TML, and distilled from reflections on the contemporary and recent political economy of lab-based science, studio-based art, empirical work in the technosciences, critical history of the human “sciences” as well as the rich and vital anarchist life of creative play outside the academy.

A core place to start would be notions of process, individuation, life.  There are many ways to think-do-make this, but for me and a lot of the the ecologies of friendships and practices in which Synthesis and TML has flourished, here’s some convenient reference literature:
Daodejing (DC Lau translation), 
Zhuangzi (Burton Watson translation),
Heraclitus (Kahn translation), 
Spinoza, 
Deleuze, 
Deleuze and Guattari, 
Whitehead.

Adam is a friend to this and is firing up LCT and “speculative media(ion)” as good companion projects.   I would like to invite Adam and Todd to be part of Chris Roberts and Brandon’s conversation about how Synthesis can be described in popular terms as a home for “creative practice.”    More precise terms of art include speculative practice and experimental practice (as in the Brill book series), and the problem (in Deleuze, Bachelard senses, see Patrice Maniglier essay)

Where appropriate, I’d like to complement energy, capacities and pool resources for streams or experiments of common interest.







working ethos and models for Synthesis, references for "creativity" | "imagination" | "speculative media(ion)"

Here are some docs describing how I’m trying to build Synthesis, learning from experiences of the TML, and distilled from reflections on the contemporary and recent political economy of lab-based science, studio-based art, empirical work in the technosciences, critical history of the human “sciences” as well as the rich and vital anarchist life of creative play outside the academy.

A core place to start would be notions of process, individuation, life.  There are many ways to think-do-make this, but for me and a lot of the the ecologies of friendships and practices in which Synthesis and TML has flourished, here’s some convenient reference literature:
Daodejing (DC Lau translation), 
Zhuangzi (Burton Watson translation),
Heraclitus (Kahn translation), 
Spinoza, 
Deleuze, 
Deleuze and Guattari, 
Whitehead.

Adam is a friend to this and is firing up LCT and “speculative media(ion)” as good companion projects.   I would like to invite Adam and Todd to be part of Chris Roberts and Brandon’s conversation about how Synthesis can be described in popular terms as a home for “creative practice.”    More precise terms of art include speculative practice and experimental practice (as in the Brill book series), and the problem (in Deleuze, Bachelard senses, see Patrice Maniglier essay)

Where appropriate, I’d like to complement energy, capacities and pool resources for streams or experiments of common interest.








And as a personal supplement:

puppetry & film animation >> interaction

for 20 years since sponge, my fellow artists and i measured our work not to “new media” or anything to do with “computation” or "interaction” but to the most highly evolved and richest arts: theater, architecture, plastic arts, visual arts…

we aspire to make experiences as powerful as that which were achieved by the likes of Bertoldt Brecht, Sankai Juku, Dumb Type, or Anish Kapoor, Mona Hartoum, Renzo Piano, …

by such standards very very few works of computational media art “measure up” in experiential and conceptual power. but that should impel us to do more. certainly that should prevent us from lapsing into the complacency typical of programmers who discover the pleasure of mapping an input into a color or a frequency, and stop there.

ever since i established the Topological Media Lab in at GaTech, i said we do not do “interactive” stuff. and when i accepted the Canada Research Chair in “new media” i said there is no such thing as new media :)

elegant mappings of motion into graphics by Tobias Grumbler

Jitter artists:

Tobias Gremmler’s elegant, straightforward mappings of motion into graphic renderings could be a nice inspiration for 
mocap —> jitter if we can figure how to work with a sparse set of trackers.


The quality suggests it is not realtime, but this is useful for ideas for jitter instruments that should be doable in Max 7 / gen.
The primitives are lines and points, so not very challenging to render on gpu.   We don’t have the density.   

Could be time to implement camera-based tracker-free mocap as jitter externals.





________________________________________________________________________________________
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________


________________________________________________________________________________________
Sha Xin Wei, PhD • Professor and Director • School of Arts, Media and Engineering + Synthesis
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASU
Fellow: ASU-Santa Fe Center for Biosocial Complex Systems
Affiliate Professor: Future of Innovation in Society; Computer Science; English
Founding Director, Topological Media Lab
skype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Laetitia Sonami Ladys Glove & Michel Waisvisz, Hands. gestural instruments, STEIM

Two powerful performers in the STEIM family: Laetitia Sonami and Michel Waisvisz
STEIM: STUDIO FOR ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC, Amsterdam

Laetitia Sonami
Lady’s Glove

Éliane Radigue et Laetitia Sonami, The last of the LADY’s GLOVE | Les Soirées Nomades - juin 2015


An Historical Moment on a Line Between A and B de Laetitia Sonami au Mois Multi 10

Uploaded on Mar 10, 2009
À partir dun instrument insolite et original, son Ladys Glove, Sonami tisse en solo une envoûtante performance audio qui prend forme au rythme de sa gestuelle corporelle. Conçu et développé par lartiste, le Ladys Glove est un gant complexe et élégant relié à un système informatique lui permettant de concevoir des sons en temps réel en fonction des trajectoires imposées par son corps. Avec des collages, des échantillonnages de sons et des voix captées dans différents lieux quelle associe à des images vidéo de lartiste Sue Costabile, Sonami crée en direct des paysages sonores et visuels à même une danse énigmatique et ensorcelante.

À propos de Laetitia Sonami
(Oakland, États-Unis)

Né en France, Laetitia Sonami est installée aux États-Unis depuis 1975 où elle poursuit son travail en musique électronique. Elle réunit la technologie de pointe, la musique et la narration pour en extraire des récits intimes, une forme d'art spontané qui lui est propre. Elle est surtout connue pour son instrument original, le Ladys Glove. Ses performances des dernières années lui ont valu une renommée internationale. Depuis 1996, elle a été invitée dans plusieurs festivals internationaux et a fait des prestations dans les grandes capitales culturelles du monde. Son travail a été récompensé par de nombreux prix. En janvier 1997, le New York Times décrit Sonami comme « a human antenna searching the air for sounds, like a dancer focused on her hands, or like a deity summoning earth-shaking rumbles with a brusque gesture. »


and 

Michel Waisvisz, Hands instrument, STEIM

Michel Waisvisz - 1993

Michel Waisvisz - Hyper Instruments Part 1

Bert Bongers was a key engineer creating these instruments