TEXT-2350 / IDISC-2350 Spring 2020
Instructor: Joy Ko, jko01@risd.edu
Website: https://tinyurl.com/digitalmateriality-sp20
Weekly Class: Thursday 1:10-6:10, Co-Works (first floor of Fletcher Building)
Class TA: Channy Huh, chuh@risd.edu
DESCRIPTION
The material qualities of textile design and fabrication refer to our relationship to all aspects of the physical and tangible world, thus presenting a unique platform for artists and designers. While computation has long been responsible for pushing the traditional techniques of textiles – weaving, knitting, printing– to high levels of mechanical industrial expression, digital sensibility and know-how of digital technologies are now increasingly seen as means to push the frontier and very definition of “fabric”. In this course, students will learn to modulate the performance and behavior of fabric through its geometry and other systems of continuous structural surface within a computational framework.
Initial approaches to digital design more often than not embraced and exacerbated a Modernist presumption that the definition of geometric form is separate from the assignment of material. Consider, for example, the manner in which materiality is reduced to the application of a texture in ray-traced rendering. Recent developments in design and fabrication technologies, however, suggest an altogether different vision for digital materiality. In this counter-narrative–reflected in the recent enthusiasm for the parallel development of advanced manufacturing techniques and invention of smart materials–rather than signifying the final dissolution of form and material, technological innovation might herald their eventual synthesis.
For textiles, even in the age of computer-controlled tools, the hand and tacit material knowledge have remained instrumental participants in the integration of pattern and structure into fabric. As technological innovations now allow for added dimensionality and functionality in fabric, drawing and intuiting in the same manner has become more difficult, and computation is now regarded as a key additional interface for material exploration. Through readings and studies, this course will introduce computational concepts geared towards equipping students to leverage the contemporary material culture of textile design. Topics that we will delve into include digital technologies for novel additive/subtractive approaches, 3d-printed textiles, modeling versus simulation, using digital design to reduce material waste, and creative surface interfaces. This course will provide students with the opportunity to push the boundaries of fabric design across disciplines and studio practices.
A CO-WORKS CLASS
This class is a Co-Works class, and thus benefits from this considerable resource. Sited on the first floor of Fletcher building downtown and led by director David Kim and lab manager Brynn Trusewicz, this is not just a collection of tools but also a place of instruction and a community in itself. In addition to the workshops scheduled for equipment training, peer tutoring is also available across a number of areas covering output tools, software platforms and workflow. Limited class time will be devoted to training on certain core equipment (lasercutter, UV printer, vacuum former, 3D printers), so it your responsibility to be properly trained on and certified for any additional equipment that you hope to use. The investment in time required to use the various tools differs, and adequate time (out of class) will need to be properly allotted.
COURSE WORK
Work in this course will be guided by a series of readings and creative projects. Anticipated dates are given in the course schedule; real-time adjustments will be announced in class and posted on the website. Class time will be actively distributed between lecture, discussion, workshops, presentation and critique. It is each student’s responsibility to take notes during class, and it is expected that students utilize feedback given during critique to improve the technical and conceptual aspects of their work. A significant portion of the material for this course will be presented only in class, so attendance is required. Students are required to do all readings, which will serve as a conceptual backdrop for the design and development of the projects.
1. In groups, students are responsible for conducting the class discussion for one set of readings. This means developing a list of questions to guide the discussion and a visual slideshow that highlights the issues within the texts, supports positions with precedent work and imagery, and addresses the relevance of these concepts to digital fabrication and making.
2. The major work will be a class project comprised of studies that take advantage of the computational tools that you will be introduced to. The overarching goal of this class project will be the creation or transformation of “fabric,” in the broadest meaning of the term, in digital and physical form, and its connection to specific fields of study and existing techniques and applications. Hand-work, process, sampling and the presentation of ideas for end use, are crucial components of this project.
EVALUATION
Students will be evaluated according to the formal and conceptual resolution of their project, the effectiveness of their solutions, and the extent to which the project engages with their field and the new technologies to which they are exposed. In recognition that students are coming to the class with a range of experience with programming languages and software programs, students will be evaluated on the extent to which they realize their potential and show ambition in their goals both through computational work and in the physical samples produced.
Attendance and participation: 20%
Presentation of reading and slideshow: 20%
Project (including all studies): 60%
TOOLS
You wil have access to all tools, including textiles-specific ones, at Co-works, but you are responsible for getting trained and certified on any equipment beyond those that are covered during class time.
You wil NOT have access to any equipment housed in the Textiles department beyond those that you are already trained to use (applicable to Textiles students).
Coding and 3d modeling software programs that we will be using:
* NodeBox 3– Visual Programming Language. This platform, which allows scripts to be “written” by manipulating visual nodes, will be the common means through which this class will engage with and understand the capabilities of code. Emphasis will be on exploring its use as a generative design tool.
* Rhino (version 6) - 3D Modeling Environment. Focus will be on a general introduction to this platform as a conduit to the fabrication platforms we will use. A number of approaches to constructing 3D models will be introduced, demonstrating the key tools needed for a broad grasp of the program.
Other programs that we may touch on if we have time:
* Grasshopper (included in Rhino 6) - Visual Programming Environment Plugin for Rhino. This environment effectively transforms Rhino into a reasonably powerful parametric modeler. Importantly, there are now a number of plug-ins for Grasshopper that allow for interactivity (Kangaroo, Firefly) and good surface and mesh manipulation (Weaverbird, Mesh Edit), in general better modeling with physical and material-like properties.
* Marvelous Designer - Garment Modeling and Simulation Environment
The class will be guided by a series of readings and studies, loosely organized into two units on Geometry and Sensing.
Introductions
Lecture: computation and digital fabrication, (post)digital textilic practices, materiality
Workshop: NodeBox and Rhino
Co-works tour and introduction given by Brynn
Class project description
ASSIGNMENT
Study 1, due Week 2
Presentation: Study 1
Workshop: NodeBox and Rhino
Co-Works training: 2D / 3D fabrication tools
ASSIGNMENT
Study 2, due Week 3
Presentation: Study 2
Workshop: NodeBox and Rhino
Co-Works training: 2D / 3D fabrication tools
Reading groups assignment
ASSIGNMENT (due next week, week 4):
Study 3
Reading 1
Discussion: Reading 1
Desk Crits/Presentation: Study 3
Nature Lab scanner demos
Workshop: Rhino
Midterm discussed
Work time / Desk crits
Midterm Critique - CANCELLED
Check-in
Midterm projects (as-is) presentation
Discussion of second unit on Sensing, expectations for assignments (Readings, Study 4 and Final)
Lecture: Immateriality/materiality, fabric as concept (slideshow)
Workshop: Grasshopper / NodeBox custom code
ASSIGNMENT
Reading 2, due next class (Week 9)
Study 4 or any of the optional prompts, Week 10
Workshop: Physical Computing Basics given by peer tutor Jennifer Huang (slideshow)
Reading 2 presentation and discussion
Development of Study 4 through workshopping and individual meetings
Presentation of Study 4 in VR Fletcher 606 with guest critics Evelyn Eastmond and M Eiffler
Final Project Briefs due
Reading 3 presentation and discussion
Guest Lecture Cindy Kao on developing on-skin interfaces
Final project development / Individual meetings
Final Review in VR Fletcher 606
_GEOMETRY
The class project begins by asking you to identify a quotidian object and to transform it using the computational tools that you will be introduced to, eventually creating a textilic piece that engages your field or chosen area of study in a novel way. The initial object may be something that you have previously made, own or found; it could be something that is in your living space that you use every day or one that is generally considered waste; it can already exist exclusively in digital form but it should not be one that you have seen only as an image on the internet
Your initial interest in the object might vary from the satisfaction it gives you (or lack thereof) to its potential as a textile. Perhaps it is a garment in need of repair or an assemblage of fabric scraps. The choice of these objects will, as a class, reflect the range of properties of fabric and how it functions for different disciplines and studio practices; for a painter, it might be a thing to stretch on a frame; for a furniture designer, it might be a sling or upholstery; for an apparel designer, it might suggest the contours of a human form; for a jeweler, it might be something to embellish; for an architect, it might be the façade of a building. While your eventual intervention may change throughout the course, it will behoove you to consider your object at multiple scales and to understand the material composition and constraints that dictated its form.
You will be asked to develop a series of studies, both analog and digital, which will be the focus of in-class critique. This will allow you to engage with various tools and familiarize with the computational platforms that you end up employing for your final output. Every effort should be made to describe the technology-craft balance in your evolving piece. Reading assignments will support the depth of inquiry.
Using your chosen object as the point of departure, create 4 sketches (drawings, models, sculptures, samples, swatches, other) that explore and extend its materiality (keep in mind the four quadrants of materiality: material, form, process and affect). Try to make these as different as possible through a variety of mark-making (including computational mark-making of the kind that you might have already been exposed to) representative of your approach in your field of study. Your approach may engage conventional attributes of textiles–color, repeat, pattern, continuous surface, reproducibility –or a hybrid of media including works on paper (painting, printing, collage), physical models, object construction via a mold, or other approaches. Continue to refer to the concepts and ideas that drive your interest in the object you’ve selected.
Pattern and repetition are core features in the making of all textiles as well as in computational thinking. Alongside developing fluency with digital fabrication platforms, you will be given a basic introduction to code through the visual programming language NodeBox. Recognizing the role of code as the mediating language enabling collaborative human/digital fabrication, this will also facilitate an exploration of pattern logic – working through a set of rules to create pattern–through computation.
Create a response to your object in the form of an image series that involves altering a collection of geometry within NodeBox. You may start with a pattern (inherent to or derived from the object) and create a series that alters it. You can explore a specific technique for achieving variation (such as the use of an attractor point to alter basic properties of the geometry (length of lines, radius of circles, sides of polygons) or graphic properties (color, line weight), using transformations (translation, rotation, scale, mirror), or invoking control flow (the use of conditionals to introduce selective interruptions). For pinup, prepare an image sequence showing the progression from its initial configuration to your chosen result.
Just as the Jacquard loom united the hand and the machine by translating a 2D image into a flat fabric, the additive/subtractive techniques of advanced manufacturing now make it possible to conceive of a more direct translation of a 3D model into material that occupies three dimensions (eg. via judicious cuts that allow the fabric to drape on a non-flat surface, fashioning reinforcements and substructures out of patterns of extruded materials, aggregating flat stacks to create strata).
Create one digital and one physical sketch that explore the potential for added dimensionality using computational tools. One approach might be to recreate your object or one of your responses using 3D modeling operations and physicalize using a combination of digital fabrication and hand production. Alternatively, you may consider deploying 3D scanning as an efficient means of capture and then manipulating the resulting mesh in Rhino, such as by exerting kinematic actions and transformations, or direct “pulling” and “pushing” of mesh points to reveal unseen geometric distortions (and opportunities) that can elucidate insights into its production. When creating a physical response, observe the material consequences of the output tools and consider how these might be used. You are encouraged to work back into the piece you make with pours, molds, paint, and other hand-based techniques.
From a textile point of view, this is a new frontier where fabric is no long necessarily tied to traditional techniques. When you think about it, all constructed textiles (excluding vinyls, leather, skins and the like) emerge from ancient hand-based processes. A loom, for instance, is a mechanism designed to orient tensioned yarns on a grid. Knitting is the linkage of a single yarn to itself in rows of loops. With new techniques such as 3D-printing, however, nothing about the way the machine creates is tied to a hand-based technique, except what takes place within a computational environment. One could say that in preparing a volume to be printed, the "craft" has travelled from the hand to the mind. In fact, any lattice, impression, contour, film, tile or other repeating form, can emerge independent of those techniques that directly connect it to the human hand.
Moving forward from the experience gained and feedback from Study 3, create a piece that can become a sort of fabric using at least one of the output tools at Co-works. This could be an armature, a lattice, a structural system, a component part, or any variety of these and other forms. Work from your initial object as a source of inspiration – visually, materially, socially, conceptually – and explore within the space of your field, in history, presence and materiality. Whether your piece takes the form of a digitally printed fabric or exists in a computational environment as a video or projection, challenge the way that the output from these tools can be as articulate as in digital space or as expressive as with hand-based techniques. There is no restriction on what output tool you use for this study, or whether your piece is two-dimensional or three-dimensional, but you should be aware of and plan for the varying lengths of time typically needed to gain comfort in your tools of interest. Employ techniques that are most familiar to you and integrate in the computational tools and digitally fabricated elements as a larger vision for fabric in application. The context for your work is crucial. Where is your “fabric” meant to go? How does your fabric exist in both digital and physical world? How does it perform and what is its nature?
_SENSING
This second unit further challenges a key quality of fabric which is its responsiveness to interaction. We will be interpreting and attempting to progress this quality using computational tools in two different ways.
The first interpretation is to acknowledge this more intellectual, mental approach to the making of fabric, working with an immaterial material and proceeding in the most elusive of sensory directions: the suggestion of softness, drape and hand; in other words, the physicality of fabric as an idea. In this setting, improved computational environments that more closely resemble the experience of the world around us and allow us to better “feel” the physical characteristics of fabric become paramount. While there are now a number of accessible design environments that allow for better modeling of objects with physical and material-like properties, the gap between modeling and simulation has not yet closed, and the hand still plays a critical role in the process of physicalizing from a digital or virtual model. At these intersections between the digital and the analog, the material and immaterial, emerging digital tools and material practices rooted in craft and design traditions, lie questions such as What is the hand in the work? What is the direct, and indirect? What rules and interventions are most natural?
Develop both a digital and physical swatch – a piece of or a sample of fabric, not necessarily rectangular but reproducible and suggesting repetition – that exhibits hybrid behavior. Your exploration might start off in Nodebox as varying geometric pattern or in Rhino/Grasshopper as a surface that is an amalgam of different construction techniques or rendered with different textures. Alternatively, there may be a process in the physical realm that you are familiar with that alters behavior in fabric (e.g. felting, calendering) and your exploration involves trying to create or augment that effect digitally. You could also start off with separate physical pieces (consisting of different materials or assembly logic) and employ digital fabrication to craft a transition that connects these pieces as a continuous structural surface. In developing these differentiated structures, start to think about operations that drive machines and how they relate to textile operations (fold, drape, crease, tear, stitch, flatten pleat, wrinkle etc.). In going back and forth from the physical to the digital, try to be aware what the elemental unit is that you are working with – e.g. the “yarn” (weave), the “stitch” (knit) – as well as the parameters (thread density, yarn diameter, stitch size) that are opportunities for variation.
The second interpretation of fabric’s responsiveness to interaction is found in the burgeoning arena of smart textiles, those that have the capacity to react to the body (as in wearables) or stimuli in the local environment. Material “intelligence” is most often achieved through the integration of sensors and electronic circuitry, including using the growing class of functional and performative yarn, but strongly suggests a future where a textile surface can truly act as an interface that enables an exchange of energy and information between substances or entities put into contact.
While we will not have much class time to devote to the hands-on of fundamentals of physical computing, workshops and peer tutelage on electronic circuitry available at Co-works together with the availability of inexpensive sensors and accessible and extensible interfaces (e.g. Arduino, Duoskin) will allow those interested to experiment in this space.
With these additional skillsets, students expand into their own designs and applications to develop a fabric that is responsive to interaction.
Projects will be discussed and vary by individual.
Discussions are a critical part of this class and provide the contextual anchor for the creative projects in this course. There are three sets of readings throughout this course.
Are.na channels have been set up to house relevant content for all reading discussions.
In groups , students are responsible for conducting the class discussion for one set of readings. This involves developing a list of questions to guide the discussion and a presentation that highlights the issues within the texts, supports positions with precedent work and imagery, and addresses the relevance of these concepts to art and design.
As individuals, please plan to do all readings. To help focus your reading and what you bring to the discussion, you are asked to prepare a brief (~250 word) response about each text; this is not just a synopsis of what you have read, but a distinct reaction to the premise of the text. Please have these uploaded to the Are.na channel at least 24 hours in advance of the discussion so that the discussion leaders can incorporate these as they see fit for the discussions.
PATTERN AND TRANFORMATION
TEXTILITY OF MAKING
Malcolm McCullough, Abstracting Craft (1998), Chapter 1
Ingrid Bachmann, Hand Labour and Digital Capitalism (2007), essay from The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth and Cultural Production (edited by Joan Livingstone and John Ploof)
MATE/REALITIES
Hal Foster, The Return of the Real (1996), excerpts
Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window (2006) (Chapter 3 The "Age of Windows")