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Code, Form, Space Mini-Symposium

Algorithmic processes, harnessed through the medium of code, allow creators to generate complex forms and organic structures by the application of elementary but carefully-tuned sets of rules. Digital fabrication systems, such as computer-controlled laser cutters, 3D printers, and machining systems, offer a nearly instantaneous way of exploring ideas in new spatial and material formats. The combination of these two approaches represents an extreme but growing position in art and design, wherein the traditions of hand-craft are exchanged almost entirely for the unprecedented possibilities made possible through a demanding new form of mind-craft.

In this mini-symposium, we present four practitioners – Casey Reas, Marius Watz, Ben Pell, and MOS Architects (directed by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample) – who are refiguring the material world through rule systems and digital fabrication tools. Their work spans the disciplines of art, design, architecture, and engineering; the objectives of provocation, of utility, and of pure aesthetic delight; and the realms of bits, atoms, and ideas. All of these practitioners have singularly rigorous personal aesthetics and sensitive understandings of how the arts can transform the way we live. In their contrasting approaches at the limits of digital craft we can catch a glimpse of a new humanism in our increasingly computer-articulated environments.

The “Code, Form, Space” mini-symposium, directed by Professors Jeremy Ficca and Golan Levin, is a collaborative venture of the Digital Fabrication Laboratory (dFAB) in the CMU School of Architecture and the CMU School of Art Lecture Series.

Dowload the Code, Form, Space poster [PDF].

Download the Code, Form, Space booklet [PDF].

Dialogue

5pm, February 3
McConomy Auditorium

C.E.B. Reas, www.reas.com
Design | Media Arts, UCLA

Marius Watz, www.unlekker.net
Oslo School of Architecture
Oslo National Academy of the Arts
Workshop

8:30am–11:30am February 4
College of Fine Arts (CFA), Room 317
Luncheon & Discussion

Noon–1pm February 4
Margaret Morrison Hall, Room 203
Lecture

5pm, February 4
Giant Eagle Auditorium

Ben Pell, www.pelloverton.com
PellOverton + Yale University
Lecture

5pm February 5
Giant Eagle Auditorium

Hilary Sample & Michael Meredith, www.mos-office.net
MOS + Yale and Harvard Universities
Code & Form Exhibition Opening

5:30-8:30pm February 7
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts