I am delighted to announce “Code, Form, Space”, a mini-symposium about generative form and digital fabrication, which will be held at Carnegie Mellon University during the week of February 3-7. Nearly all of the events are completely free and open to the public – and include lecture presentations by such distinguished computational artist/designers as C.E.B. Reas, Marius Watz, Ben Pell, and Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample of MOS Architects. I’m co-directing this event in collaboration with Jeremy Ficca (Professor of Architecture and Director of the CMU Digital Fabrication Lab), the CMU School of Art Lecture Series, and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. If you’re around Pittsburgh that week, please drop by! More information is below; the image links to a printable PDF brochure:

SYMPOSIUM SUMMARY:
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 – C.E.B. 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.

PUBLIC EVENTS:
DIALOGUE Tues. Feb. 3rd, 5-6pm, McConomy Hall: C.E.B. Reas and Marius Watz.
LUNCHEON + DISCUSSION Weds. Feb. 4th, 12-1pm, MM203: Reas, Watz, Pell, Ficca, Levin.
LECTURE Weds. Feb. 4th, 5-6pm, Giant Eagle Auditorium: Ben Pell.
LECTURE Thurs. Feb. 5th, 5-6pm, Giant Eagle Auditorium: MOS Architects.
EXHIBITION OPENING Sat. Feb. 7th, 5:30-8:30pm, PCA: C.E.B. Reas and Marius Watz.
All events are held on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
except for the exhibition opening at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
For more information, please see the PDF brochure, linked above.

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