[dorkbotpgh-announce] related event: CODE-FORM-SPACE SYMPOSIUM, SPRING 2009

[j. eric townsend]

Casey Reas & Marius Watz: Tuesday evening at CMU at 5pm, McConomy Hall!
As part of "Code,Form,Space", a weeklong symposium on computational 
design and digital fabrication! Details below.

An extensive series of events are scheduled on CMU's campus 
Tuesday-Friday, including 3 lectures, a demonstration workshop, panel 
discussion, and an exhibition of new works by artists (and visiting 
spring lecturers) CEB Reas & Marius Watz opening on Saturday, February 
7, at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Read on for complete details....


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CODE-FORM-SPACE SYMPOSIUM, SPRING 2009
A mini-symposium on generative form and digital fabrication
Carnegie Mellon University
February 3-7, 2009

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 reconfiguring 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.

=========================================
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

REAS & WATZ DIALOGUE / School of Art Lecture Series
Tues. 3 Feb, 5-6pm
In CMU McConomy Auditorium
C.E.B. Reas and Marius Watz work, independently, at the global forefront 
of generative and algorithmic art. In this unusual lecture format, Reas 
and Watz will trade short presentations about their complementary 
approaches to digital fabrication, rule-based systems, and the use of 
computer programming to produce their work. This dialogue is 
co-presented with the CMU School of Art Lecture Series. More info: 
http://lectureseri.es.

WORKSHOP
Weds. 4 Feb, 8:30-11:30am
In College of Fine Arts (CFA) 317
C.E.B. Reas and Marius Watz visit Adjunct Professor Ian Ingram's 
"Digital Fabrication for the Arts" class to demonstrate their process 
and share tips and techniques for generating physical forms from code. 
Space may be limited. To attend, please RSVP before February 3rd by 
email to: golan at andrew.cmu.edu.

LUNCHEON + DISCUSSION
Weds. 4 Feb, 12-1pm
In Margaret Morrison 203
View the morning's workshop results and enjoy an informal lunchtim 
ediscussion with C.E.B. Reas, Marius Watz, Ben Pell, and "Code, Form, 
Space" co-hosts, Professors Jeremy Ficca (School of Architecture) and 
Golan Levin (School of Art).

BEN PELL LECTURE
Weds. 4 Feb, 5-6pm
In CMU Giant Eagle Auditorium
Architect Ben Pell investigates the intersection of contemporary 
ornament, display culture, and digital fabrication. In this one-hour 
presentation, Pell discusses new interventions for urban and domestic 
spaces produced by his firm PellOverton, an architectural research and 
design practice based in New York since 2003.

MOS LECTURE
Thurs. 5 Feb, 5-6pm
In CMU Giant Eagle Auditorium
MOS Architect partners Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample engage 
interdisciplinary research spanning art, design, environment, and 
computation. In this one-hour lecture, they present a diverse range of 
innovative projects made possible through new approaches to digital 
craft, including a puppet theater (with artist Pierre Huyghe), a 
generative rug system, a prizewinning 9/11 memorial, and the first-ever 
American drive-in theater produced by a non-profit cultural arts space.

CODE and FORM EXHIBITION OPENING
Sat. 7 Feb, 5:30-8:30pm
At Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
CODE and FORM, an exhibition of new generative artworks by C.E.B. Reas 
and Marius Watz, runs February 7th through April 19th at the Pittsburgh 
Center for the Arts (PCA). Located at 6300 Fifth Avenue, in Shadyside, 
the PCA is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-5pm, and Sundays from noon-5pm. 
There is a $5 suggested donation. More info: http://www.pittsburgharts.org

CREDITS & SPONSORS
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. We are grateful to the following 
sponsors for making this event possible: The Enkeboll Foundation; the 
Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, School of Art, and 
School of Design; the Offices of the Dean of the College of Fine Arts, 
Vice President of Research, Vice-Provost for Education, and Studio for 
Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon; Bitforms Gallery, NYC; and the 
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

=========================================
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

C.E.B. REAS is a visual alchemist obsessed with networks; he writes 
software machines to explore unknown artificial forms and systems.

Reas lives and works in Los Angeles. He is an associate professor and 
Chair of the department of Design | Media Arts at UCLA. Reas has 
exhibited his work internationally at institutions including Laboral 
(Gijon, Spain), The Cooper-Hewitt Museum (New York), and the National 
Museum for Art, Architecture, and Design (Oslo); at independent venues 
including Telic (Los Angeles), <>TAG (The Hague), and Ego Park 
(Oakland); at galleries including Bitforms (New York), BANK (Los 
Angeles), and [DAM] Berlin; and at festivals including Sonar 
(Barcelona), Ars Electronica (Linz), and Microwave (Hong Kong). He has 
lectured at institutions including The Royal Academy of Art (The Hague), 
and the NTT ICC (Tokyo), and at artist-run spaces including Machine 
Project (Los Angeles) and Atelier Nord (Oslo). With Ben Fry, Reas 
initiated Processing in 2001. Processing is an open source programming 
language and environment used worldwide for creating images, animation, 
and interaction. See: http://reas.com; http://processing.org

=========================================
Merging organic form with hard-edged geometry, MARIUS WATZ uses 
generative processes to create abstract visual narratives.

Marius Watz is an artist and performer working with visual abstraction 
through generative software systems. He is known for his bold use of 
colors and hard-edged geometric compositions, producing work for live 
projections, print and audiovisual performances. Recent experiments 
include output for physical formats through the use of digital 
fabrication technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting. Watz has 
exhibited internationally in festivals and exhibitions like Club 
Transmediale (Berlin), Todaysart (The Hague), Emocao Art.ficial (Sao 
Paulo) and Abstracts of Syn (Vienna). In 2005 he founded Generator.x, a 
curatorial platform for generative art and computational design that has 
resulted in a series of exhibitions, concerts and seminars as well as an 
influential blog. He is currently a lecturer at the Oslo School of 
Architecture and the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. See: 
http://unlekker.net; http://generatorx.no

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BEN PELL is an architect with an addiction to graphic behavior and other 
forms of excess.

Ben Pell is an architect and co-founder of PellOverton, an architectural 
research and design practice based in New York since 2003. He is on the 
faculty of the Yale School of Architecture, where he teaches graduate 
design studios and seminars which examine contemporary interests in 
ornament, display culture, and digital fabrication. Mr. Pell has 
previously taught at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, 
where he co-edited a publication of graduate student work entitled: 
"IKEAGRAMS: Project on the Waterfront". The work of PellOverton has been 
exhibited in New York and Los Angeles, and was recently recognized with 
a 2008 AIA Design Award, and a 2008 Young Architects Award from The 
Architectural League of New York. Select projects have been published in 
The New York Times, 306090, Architectural Record, Metropolis, Surface, 
and Blend magazines, and will be featured in a forthcoming publication 
from Princeton Architectural Press entitled: "Resonance: Young 
Architects 10". See: http://pelloverton.com

=========================================
The first thing to know about MOS is that we are a collective of 
designers, architects, thinkers, and state-of-the-art weirdos.

Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith are principals in MOS, a collective 
which designs private houses, institutional buildings, urban strategies, 
research, books, installations, and other projects that are less easily 
categorized. Sample and Meredith teach at Yale and Harvard while 
maintaining the practice. Today, as they have grown, MOS continues to 
operate as a close-knit experimental office that works on each project 
through playful experimentation, serious research, and old-fashioned 
problem-solving. MOS engages architecture as an open system of 
interrelated issues ranging from architectural typology, digital 
methodologies, sustainability, structure, fabrication, materiality, 
tactility, and use, as well as larger networks of the social, cultural, 
and environmental. This process of participation and inclusion – radical 
inclusion – allows MOS to produce and inflect environments at a 
multiplicity of scales and around the world. See: http://mos-office.net

For more information call or email the School of Art at 412.268.2409, 
artscool at andrew.cmu.edu.

-- 
J. Eric "jet" Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09

design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net;  HF: KG6ZVQ
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