Material Interfaces:
Synthesizing Bodies Between Matter and Information

Instructor: Laura Tripaldi Date & Time: Nov 20, 27, Dec 4, 11 9 to 11:30 AM ET

DESCRIPTION: This four-session Seminar introduces the core concepts and practices of contemporary nanotechnology and materials science from a transdisciplinary perspective, providing a general conceptual toolbox for both scientists and philosophers. Although our material culture has privileged a view of technological bodies as inert, rigid, and vertically assembled, our growing understanding of materials and the rapid development of the practices of nanotechnology have unveiled their ability to self-organize in complex and dynamic structures. In the face of this emerging and emergent material intelligence, establishing new and flexible boundaries between mind and body, subject and object, natural and artificial, living and non-living, has become a critical technological and theoretical challenge. At the heart of our investigation will be the concept of the interface, which designates the superficial region where bodies meet, generating complex material networks. While our use of electronic devices suggests an increasing dematerialization of the interface, the challenge of nanotechnology is building more and more extensive and complex interfaces where new material and interconnected systems can emerge. This process of dynamic assembly raises fundamental questions concerning our relationship with technology. Guided by four specific nanomaterial configurations (the spiderweb, the virus, the quantum dot, and the photographic emulsion), we will investigate how interfacing bodies transmute matter into information.
Session 1, Spiderwebs: The model towards a new paradigm for our relationship with technology
Session 2: Viruses. Self-assembling material systems across and beyond nature
Session 3, Quantum dots: Engineering the boundary between matter and information
Session 4, Photographic emulsions: Feminist nanomaterials and the interface behind representation

IMAGE: Stuart Davis: Report from Rockport, 1940

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