Project: 
Arts & Crafts
Abstract: 
In the near future, smart materials will have computational power embedded in the form of graphene transistors or nanotubes. These will be the ultimate computational composites: materials that hold classic material qualities, such as structural durability, flexibility, texture, weight, and color, but that are also capable of sensing, actuating, and computing. Indeed, computers will not be things in and of themselves, but rather will be embedded into the materials that make up our surroundings. This also means that the way we interact with computers, and the way we program them, will change. Consequently, we ask what the practice of programming and giving form to such materials would be like. How would we be able to familiarize ourselves with the dynamics of these materials and their different combinations of cause and effect? Which tools would we need, and what would they look like? Would we program these computational composites through external computers and then transfer the code to them, or would the programming happen closer to the materials? In this article, we outline a new research program that floats between imagined futures and the development of a material programming practice.
Authors: 
VallgÄrda, A., Boer, L., Tsaknaki, V., and Svanaes, D.
Published in: 
Interactions. Volume 24. Issue 2. March + April 2017. Pages 36-41, ACM Press.
Date: 
Monday, May 29, 2017 - 10:30