Looking Outwards 09 : A Focus on Women and Non-binary Practitioners in Computational Art

The work I chose to look into for this week was the project called ‘Reverb’ by Madlab.CC. MadLab.CC is a research studio that aims to invent better ways to communicate with machines that make wearable crafts. MadLab.CC is headed by Madeline Gannon who is a researcher, designer, and educator that gradated with a PhD in Computational Design from CMU. She is also the founder and principal researcher at Atonation which is separate studio that aims to combine research, and functional alternate futures. Madlab.CC is headquartered in Pittsburgh, but she also gives lectures and talks around the whole world at various conferences.

The project, Reverb, is a context-aware 3D modeling environment that lets one personalize a piece of wearable print to their own body. The technology behind it consist of computer vision, digital design, and digital fabrication that ultimately translates the physical assets into printable geometry. Something I admire about the aspects of this project is the way the computational geometries are informed by human contours and gestures. This makes the technology feel as an integrated conversation with the real-world. For the general person, there is a sense of customization and having something “one of a kind”. Rather than fitting the human into some kind of computational form, the form is the one fitting around the human.

Link : http://www.madlab.cc/reverberating-across-the-divide