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COURSES


2021

SIMULATED LIFE
PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN: ART, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY | SPRING ELECTIVE

Can artists and designers use technology to simulate life? Through software, can we capture and re-create the unpredictable and emergent properties of the living world — it’s structures, dynamics, colors, patterns, and textures? Algorithms describe the mathematical principles governing our physical world, while also allowing us to imagine and build parallel digital worlds.


2020 

FLUID MACHINES

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN: ART, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY | FALL ELECTIVE

What can a machine be beyond a rigid construction of minerals and metal? Traditional computation, industrial machines, cybernetics, and algorithms are all modeled on “dry” mechanisms expressed in the binary bit, the electrical on-off signal, and the grinding cog. Can a machine instead be a fluid and ecologically engaged entity, modeled from or connected directly to a living network?


HYPERNATURAL STUDIO

PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN: ART, MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY | SPRING ELECTIVE How is the creative process affected or limited by our relationship with material? Current developments in the realm of materials science and biotechnology are challenging conventional distinctions between matter and life, inorganic and organic, passive object and active subject. From design studios to laboratories, from micro to macro, what possibilities can emerge from collaborations between living things and the synthetic creation of new, active materials?

WORKSHOPS



2020

DIY SOFT ROBOTICS

ONLINE Intro to soft robotics; Art & design precedents and novel applications of soft robotics in the creative fields; Hands-on workshop of how to make your own soft robot prototypes, utilizing various techniques and materials.

MACHINIC EMPATHY

ONLINEIntro to Arduino-based electronics; Set up a circuit to read analog data (changing electrical potentials) from the surface of living components - House plant(s), living mushroom and/or mycelium, and your own skin.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

ONLINE
This Hands-on workshop explores the creative potential of alternative energy with microbial fuel cell techniques. A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a device which utilizes microbial respiration to convert chemical energy into electrical energy.

2019

RECONTEXTUAL RECIPE

CIVIC ART LAB X GREENSPACE NYC 2018.This hands-on workshop covers the basics of molecular gastronomy techniques, including gelification, spherification and emulsification. Together we explore the biophysics that turn food into sculptural and performative materials and create idiosyncratic textures, flavors and aesthetics with unexpected mixtures.
HELLO@DECOMPOSE.INSTITUTE