Interaction Design

Lecture: Jean-Baptiste Labrune
“Radical Design: augmented environments for building dynamic objects with active matter”
Wednesday 10.04.2019, 12:00-13:00
Zurich University of the Arts
Toni Areal, Room, 3.K13

Abstract by Jean-Baptiste Labrune

Programmable matter, also called active matter, is a class of physical and biological materials that allow new kind of affordances and interactions (Tibbits, Active Matter, MIT Press, 2017). Static entities become dynamic and can shapeshift, turn elastic or solid on demand. Active matter is still a prototype in laboratories, hence not easily available nor simple to use for non-experts.
However, like VLSI opened the field for advanced software engineering, technologies such as 3D / 4D printing and bio/nano-assemblers will probably popularize them soon. In this new context, how will we program but also design with these new materials? What will be the appropriate tools and interaction paradigms to build this world that Ivan Sutherland defined as “ultimate” ?
On the basis of my research as PhD at INRIA and postdoc at the MIT Medialab, i will show some initial answers to these questions. I will detail in particular how the vision of Radical Atoms (Ishii, Labrune & al 2012) proposes a new kind of paradigm called Radical Design, connecting biology, material science, computational modelling of microstructures, HCI and design.

Bio:

Jean-Baptiste Labrune is a designer & researcher, specialized in the study of creative places and processes. His researches focus on the notion of “Exaptation”, the way in which users of technology reconfigure and hack it, producing original and unexpected functions and uses. He completed his Phd at INRIA and postdoc at MIT, then became researcher at Bell Labs and interaction design professor at ENSAD (Arts Décos School). He organizes and lead many “hybrid” workshops in art & sciences places in France (Arts Décos, Beaux-Arts, Palais de Tokyo, Mains d’Oeuvres) & internationally (Mediamatic, Interaction Design Institute Ivréa, IMAL, Hangar, Hyperwerk, Akademie Schloss Solitude, MIT Medialab).
http://radicaldesign.eu