Paris College of Art Chair of Photography Klaus Fruchtnis and Master of Transdisciplinary New Media student Claire Leggett will be participating in a round table discussion during Paris Digital Week on October 23, 2015 in collaboration with Igor Baloste, director of mi*Galerie. The round table will take place at Paris’s 3rd arrondisement town hall. The Master of Transdisciplinary Media students will also be presenting their works and prototypes during Digital Week with mi*Galerie.

Paris Digital Week is part of the International Biennale of Digital Art sponsored by Arcadi Île-de-France. More than 15 prestigious Parisian venues, dedicated to digital culture, will host more than 30 events throughout the week.

Paris Digital Week will take place from October 19-25, 2015.

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Paris Digital Week

Commenti post Ca’ Foscari Digital Week

3 giorni di Digital Week a dir poco fantastici. Ci vorrebbero più iniziative del genere. Faccio…

Domani a Venezia avrà inizio la Ca’ Foscari Digital Week (sito), un evento innovativo e trasversale con cadenza biennale, che unisce persone, competenze, idee, istituzioni e aziende per esplorare le trasformazioni indotte dalle tecnologie digitali nei…

Dall'8 al 10 maggio Venezia diventa il centro della cultura digitale con la Ca' Foscari Digital Week e noi di MiSiedo abbiamo l'onore di partecipare come partner a questo evento dedicato al mondo dell'innovazione. Scopri il programma e le iniziative che i nostri ristoranti hanno per tutti i partecipanti durante queste giornate.

Digital Week has officially come to an end! We had some great speakers and lectures throughout the week and would like to share with you all what was being discussed as well as some of our thoughts.

Neil Leach was visiting DIA from the University of Southern California and gave a total of 4 lectures throughout the week. His lectures were focused mainly on how design has been progressing in the digital age and the role that scripting has played in achieving these designs.

“Digital Tectonics/Machinic Processes”

In these lectures, Neil Leach introduced us to what scripting is and how it is being used today to change the landscape of architecture. He gave us a brief history of computation and stated that we are currently in the “silent movie stage.”  Architects are talking about these new methods and techniques and how they can implement them into their designs but nothing is being built on a large enough scale yet. We are moving in the right direction but at a far slower pace than expected. Other professions, such as the automobile industry, have been using robotics and digital techniques for quite a while now while the architectural industry is lagging behind. Why is this so? He goes on to explain that architects are trapped by economical conditions and that it is getting ever so more difficult to convince clients that the digital way is the more successful way to go. This can be mostly attributed to the recession of the late 2000s which is still impacting the architectural world today.

But the situation is not as bleak as it may seem.  In 2002, Frank Gehry and his partners founded Gehry Technologies, a company that brings together architects, engineers and construction professionals to share new technologies and methods with each other in order to create better buildings through the use of digital tools. The reason why Gehry Technologies has been able to penetrate through the difficult economical climate, Leach states, is that Gehry gets buildings built on cost and time because he uses these digital tools to their maximum potential. The possibilities and opportunities are there and are easily attainable, we just need more architectural firms to take the initiative to learn these digital techniques and apply them to the design process.

The possibilities to what these technologies can do are endless. Using scripting and 3D printing, whole buildings can now be digitally designed, printed and assembled. 3D printing, which previously would only print forms out of a brittle powder, can now use materials such as concrete and nylon. This means that many sections of a building can now be printed out and sent to the site to be assembled. The amount of time spent on the building process can now be done in speeds that were previously unimaginable. And 3D printing is not limited to just architects. Things such as clothes, shoes and prosthetic legs can even be 3D printed these days. The possibility to scan your body and print out a suit or a dress is now a reality instead of mere science fiction. If this is where we are today, then who knows what advances in technology this next decade will bring us. I, for one, am excited to be living in this decade of “digital revolution” and look forward to us architects using these new technologies to explore new possibilities.

“Digital Cities”

Continuing on the introduction Neil gave us about scripting and the opportunity it provides architects to really change the face of architecture, he goes on to give us a few examples of projects that have been developing using these new technologies. One such example is the development of the site of the former Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. As he explains it, the process for designing this project started with analyzing the program, organizing the data and writing an algorithm. From that algorithm they were able to derive the basis of their design. He goes on to explain that architects use these digital tools and the computer to understand the intelligence behind the design and not just the aesthetics. Other projects using similar methods include a large, vacant site in Shenzhen located near the Hong Kong border and the moving of the city of Kiruna in northern Sweden, which is using scripting in order to determine how to catch and harness the most amount of sunlight as possible. With this new technology emerging, one is left to wonder what possibilities are in store for us next. How far can we go before we reach our limits? Or do our limits expand as much as our progress and technology does?

“Swarm Urbanism”

In his last lecture, Neil spoke about the phenomenon of swarm theory. In short, swarm theory is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems. These systems interact with each other and with the environment surrounding them. Individually they behave very simply but when working together it leads to an intelligent collective behavior, unknown to the individual systems themselves. Behaviors like these are visible in nature in animal species such as birds, ants and fish. He argues that this kind of behavior can be utilized when designing in the urban context. This method of mapping human behavior in order to design is full of potential and should be explored further. In mapping this behavior, one can use processing in order to delete the returns that were either excessive or undesirable. Neil also quotes famous American-Canadian writer and activist Jane Jacobs saying that we should “understand cities through the obstruction of small phenomenon on street level.”  The more we study our own behaviors, the more we are able to learn and thus better be able to design for ourselves.

Ieri ho partecipato con grande piacere alla Venice Digital Week, un evento ricco di appuntamenti interessanti e stimolanti.

In particolare poi sono stato uno dei relatori della sessione E-business e lifestyle marketing, ecco di seguito la mia presentazione.

Oggi vi segnalo la Ca’ Foscari Digital Week, tre giorni veneziani, dedicati alle nuove frontiere della tecnologia, con più di 150 relatori impegnati in oltre 50 appuntamenti tra workshop tematici, fast workshop e special events distribuiti in vari luoghi.

Sarà presente un’area expo occuperà uno spazio di 1.000 mq con opportunità di interazione proposte dalle aziende partner, oltre a due sale workshop.