parallaxis
In a new moving-image work by Melbourne-based artist and architect Matthew Bird, two bodies move across the land, working with large cylindrical instruments. We witness them map and survey a terrain analogous to universal physical and psychological locations, each revolution marking a paradoxical attempt to pin an earthly position through perpetual movement. Playing on the human need to understand our relationship to the people and places around us, Parallaxis considers the potential for architectural processes and measurements to act as a foundation for structures of understanding.

Serendiptichord

The result of a cross-disciplinary investigation spanning fashion, technology, music and dance, the Serendiptichord is a wearable musical instrument that invites the user (or movician) to explore a soundscape through touch and movement. This curious device is housed in a bespoke box and viewed as part of a performance. Unpacked and explored on and around the body, the Serendiptichord only reveals its full potential through the intrepid curiosity of its wearer. Adhering to the body like an extended limb, this instrument is best described as choreophonic prosthetic. Referencing the architectural silhouette of a musical instrument and the soft fabrication of fashion and upholstery, it is designed to entice the movician to explore its surface through touch, physical manipulation and expressive movement. Although this acoustic device can be mastered alone, it also holds subtle openings for group interaction.

Эрнесто Клар
Convergenze parallele

Convergenze parallele is an audiovisual installation in which airborne dust particles passing through a beam of light are tracked, visualized, and sonified in realtime by a custom software system. The installation reacts to air movements in the exhibition space, allowing the viewer to see and hear the amplified movement of dust particles. “Convergenze parallele” explores the poetic potential of revealing and transforming the imperceptible. The custom software uses a video camera to capture the activity of dust articles passing through the beam of light. It then analyzes the video signal to track the location of individual dust particles, and reveals each particle’s trajectory in the image-processed projection. The physical particles draw traces of their otherwise invisible motion on the digital screen. At random intervals, the software artificially saturates the system by briefly activating the fan-a cloud of dust fills the beam of light and creates dense and stunning patterns of particle trajectories and sound.

File Festival

bionic research pavilion

The Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) of the University of Stuttgart have constructed another bionic research pavilion. The project is part of a successful series of research pavilions which showcase the potential of novel design, simulation and fabrication processes in architecture. The project was planned and constructed within one and a half years by students and researchers within a multi-disciplinary team of architects, engineers and biologists.
The focus of the project is a parallel bottom-up design strategy for the biomimetic investigation of natural fiber composite shells and the development of novel robotic fabrication methods for fiber reinforced polymer structures. The aim was the development of a winding technique for modular, double layered fiber composite structures, which reduces the required formwork to a minimum while maintaining a large degree of geometric freedom. Therefore, functional principles of natural lightweight structures were analyzed and abstracted in cooperation with the University of Tübingen and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Through the development of a custom robotic fabrication method, these principles were transferred into a modular prototype pavilion.