Nadia Susanto – Looking Outwards – 06 – [OLD FALL 2019] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

The Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab created the Silk Pavilion. This project explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication. What makes this structure so unique is that the overall geometry was created using an algorithm that would assign threads across the patches providing various degrees of density.

Mediated Matter was inspired by the amazing silkworm and their ability to generate their own version of “3D art” out of only a single multi-property silk thread. The silkworms also create the unique randomness aspect of this as over 6500 silkworms were utilized, and this will definitely generate the random threads and patterns shown in the final product.

What I admire most about this project is that it had computation involved as the researchers did use the silkworms as a computational schema for determining shape and optimization of fiber-based surface structures. However, I am just so amazed how they brought in real-life insects to perform the art for them, not a computer that randomly generated it.