Research Colloquium with Aileen Iverson-Radtke

On Wednesday, May 22, at 11:00, the third Research Colloquium of the spring semester 2024 will take place. Our guest, Aileen Iverson-Radtke from Air - Architecture, will give a presentation titled “Cybermodeling Accessing Active Computational Matter.”

Following the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions and discuss.

The lecture will take place on campus at Salzufer 6, 10587 Berlin, in Studio 3.

We warmly invite students from all disciplines to participate in this cross-disciplinary exchange. Immerse yourself in inspiration and embrace new perspectives!

About the talk

Cybermodeling research uses electronics to bridge between digital and analog realms. In this research, analog models are fitted with electronic circuitry, and microsensors become smart object cyborgs that act as an interface to digital modeling and replace mouse and keyboard. Cybermodels bind digital to analog, virtual to real, existing partially in each environment. Microsensors in cyber models pick up and convey the analog model's environmental data and manual manipulations. This allows their digital avatar to attach and respond to hand-tooling manipulations by the designer as well as local site conditions. In architectural terms, cyber modeling connects digital models to their immediate site conditions. What happens next is unexpected, disorienting, surprising, and astonishing.

Electronically connecting digital matter(mesh, surface, B-spline, etc.) directly to dynamic spatial forces and atmospheric conditions in real-time animates digital matter in such a way as to create a ‘live’ digital design object. Thus, the design process, working with live subjects, becomes one of dialogue and negotiation between the architect and the model as the latter directs the conditions of its formation (site forces and manual manipulation) through the properties of its analog-digital material nature.

The goal of cyber modeling is to activate the internal properties of digital matter so that the media we model with has its own divergent tendencies. Cybermodeling research doesn’t exist but is emerging through its activation in various labs, workshops, and seminars with groups of digitally intrepid explorers.