Lecturers:

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The course runs from 14.11.23 - 22.12.23, from 9.00 - 17.00. See Timetable for more detailed hours.

Overview and Objectives

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During this module, we'll uncover some of these possibilities by designing and informing our bodily environment increasingly influenced by data tracking. By group work (3-4 students max), you'll propose interactive forms of body extension/representation/mirror/sense.

Design factors have to include:
• material intimacy 
• processes of fabrication 
• data tracking & mapping / generative design
• wearability or extension or external or sensorial apparatus
• performative aspects
• interactive components
• political / environmental / societal context

The course is divided into 6 weeks:

• Week 1: Data Collection. Understanding the topic, context and possibilities
• Week 2: Material collection, experimentations and first prototype
• Week 3: Fabrication, advancing prototypes
• Week 4: Fabrication, advancing prototypes & first performance
• Week 5: Production & performative engagement
• Week 6: Final production, finalising details & Documentation
  
  

Your work will encounter some of these research questions: 

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Any assignment that remains unfulfilled receives a failing grade.  

Workshops

• Thursday - Friday Workshop 1716.11 & 1817.11
• Introduction to consuming API's via https://nodejs.org/en/
• Storing Data
• Processing Data
• Exploring Data Sources
  • API's
  • Sensors
  • Data Scraping
  • Real Time Location GYROSC: Tutorials_scraping_gps_and_more_avt.pdf
• Sending Data from and to Arduino using https://www.shiftr.io/
• Consuming multiple API's
• Composing Data
• Workshop Tuesday 22.11
  • Data in Processing
  • 3D in Processing and exporting into .obj for 3D printing
  • evtl. Grasshopper

Deliverables

• Collection Exercise I: Analogue Data Collection 

  Look for sources of your personal body data in the real world. What traces do we leave behind that give us indications about our movements, vital signs or emotions? 
  Be aware of the data you're collecting without intention. Or are you currently collecting data intentionally? 
  Is there a type of data that reveals something specific about your life, your interactions with your environment? Can a short sample offer a complex reflection?
  Your survey has to comprehend at least 6 hours of tracking and showcase a complex aspect of your entangled life (beyond a specific quantity tracking). 
  Think of questions you want to answer before you start tracking.

  Record videos or take photos to indicate and attempt to extract the data or reflect on it.
  Represent that data in a performative way the day after.

  Presentation/performance: max 2 minutes - you can invite the audience to take part, use props, etc

  Individual work
  
  

• Collection Exercise II: Material Collection 
  In advance, select materials you want to experiment with: biomaterials, minerals, off-the-shelf, chemicals, liquids, growing, reactive, decaying, static, states, duration, texture, smell, taste, touch, etc
  
  Bring them for a collective experimental day, list characteristics, qualities and behaviours and determine which interface could be derived from its properties.
  
  As you present and demo properties, cover this info (no slides):
  -where the material comes from,
  -how it has been extracted,
  -by whom (labor involved),
  -their lifecycle,
  -their history,
  -their trade,
  -their legislation,
  -their price value,
  -their exploitation,
  -their environmental impact
  +rarity, waste, off-the-shelf, availability, function, unfunction, forms of fabrication, etc... 
  
  

• Collection Exercise III: Digital Data Collection 
  - See Workshops for details
  
  
• In-class Exercises, Performances & Weekly progress reviews (bring iterated prototype/sketches/experiments for each mentoring)
  
  
• Mid-Class Delivery: Booklet concept, prototype & inspirations
  PDF featuring texts and visuals: Overall Concept, Main directions, Inspirations/Related Work (references, authors, dates, visuals) Material inquiries, and Prototype 
  
  
• Final Project and Presentation: Interactive embodied fabricated apparatus
  

  Use Data-Collection, Generative Design Methods and Digital Fabrication to create an interactive body apparatus (wearable, fashion item, prosthesis, orthesis, prosthetics, implant, extension, external apparatus, architecture, etc).

  Questions to consider in your process:

  • What drives the design? (example: is it functional, speculation or critique)
  • Where could the data come from? (example: sensors)
  • How do you map the data to a geometry? (example: using a metaphor) 
  • Or is the form making process inspired by existing models? (example: fungus, cell division, mathematical geometry,…)
  • What are the materials used? What are their properties, lifecycle, etc
  • What is the fabrication process? 
  • What does your body extension connect with the surrounding environment?
  • What does it embody?
  • What meanings does it create?

  
  

  In groups of four or five students 
  
  

• Presentation Format: Exhibition of Experiments & Performance with Final Prototypes together with an oral presentation.

  Presentation on: 2221.12.22
  
  

• Documentation 
  
  
  •  A 'Journal' is developed by each group of students that reflects on experiments and learnings from the course. It should be in the form of an online blog (ie. WordPress, Tumblr or other):
    • The journal should be structured in a generally comprehensible manner
    • The lecture notes, including annotations, are stored
    • Notes, sketches for each lesson should be included as well
      
      
  • Final Documentation per usual guidelines: title, authors, abstract, hi-res pics, PDF with commentary text, video documentation (see Wiki)

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