LFU:online

Participants will gain theoretical and practical knowledge on territorial and microscopic methods to read and reinterpret systemic processes. The final production of a collection of artefacts has 3 main objectives. Experimental: Experimenting with new bio-digital processes for the production of synthetic crystal artefacts. Artistic: Highlighting, through art and design, the powerful connection between these processes and the alpine landscapes from which they did originate. Speculative: Can these novel production processes offer solutions to solve problems at the territorial scale? Can glaciers be synthetically re-crystallized?

The VU “Art, Design & Environmental Challenges” provides tools and design methods to investigate the effects of climate change on a material, digital and intellectual level and to apply them to the design on a territorial and microscopic scale. Among other things, satellite images and biological models are put in relation to each other in order to stimulate a design translation of these models.

Abstract:

The Alps recall idyllic portraits of unspoiled nature, featuring peaks, glaciers, lakes and pastures. Yet, perhaps paradoxically, the Alps are also a surprisingly poignant reflection of the effects of climate change. Retreating glaciers are perhaps the most striking phenomenon of all; they are formations of geological time that are melting in front of our eyes. And with them vanishes a repository of data, stored in the crystalized particles, every layer a year of history, a cycle of life. In Wattens this history in inextricably connected with the unique story of Swarovski. Powered by the then eternal waters of alpine glaciers the process of creating perfect synthetic crystals was born. A unique fusion of science and art has contributed to make this crystals world famous. Nevertheless, their soul remains connected to those frozen landscapes, and the forces shaping them. So how is the dramatic change affecting three territories today reflected in the nature of Swarovski’s synthetic creatures? This advanced design studio investigates a new method of digital crystal synthesis. Powered by nature and human ingenuity just like the original one, the innovative process is now driven by the latest advances in biology, bio-chemical engineering and computer science. With our team of post-graduate researchers, we propose to design and prototype a new collection of synthetic crystals that are grown rather than fabricated and that capture in their morphological articulation the vanishing features of Alpine glaciers. The outcome will reflect the melancholy for what has gone as well as act as a surrogate memory of it to be kept for posterity. But most of all it will be a living prototype of a new way to make the future, through a new technology of nature. Art and science once again united in imaging the future.