We live in an era where the high-technology devices we used are black boxes with a hidden agenda. Are we aware and understand the systems behind them? And are we able to make critical questions about them?
What are the limits of digital interfaces? Can we reconsider the role of materiality in an era where a lot of artifacts are becoming light and numbers? Clara le Meur‘s graduation project ‘Valuable Gesture Factory’ is a physical translation of the digital economy hidden behind our screens, transforming users’ data or ‘dataomes’ into precious weaves. During her talk, Clara unfolded her research on the impacts of digital transformation on the relationship between users and artefacts, going through the historical links between the textile industry and the first computing technology to finally expose the vision she developed for her project ‘Valuable Gesture Factory.
How can a designer use Artificial Intelligence in her creative process? How can a Machine Learning algorithm help to obtain new insights, introduce new techniques, or benefit to the creative process? For her graduation project at the Design Academy Eindhoven, Vera van der Burg researched how she could integrate or use an AI in her own design process. Being a former neuroscientist, Vera’s main field of interest were object recognition algorithms and computer vision, and how these systems are being trained and used. In this talk, Vera presented her research and process, and how it all resulted in the art installation ‘Still Life’, presented during Dutch Design Week 2019.
This edition was made possible by Foundation Art + Tech Society.