Implementing Advanced Knowledge
bits
6.4.1 Interview
Alessio Erioli
Interview: Alessio Erioli
(The text that here follows is an extract from an interview prepared by Jordi Vivaldi and executed by Aldo Solazzo.)
In this interview Alessio Erioli is mainly talking about the relevance of technology and biology in the field of design, specially on those aspects that have been crucial for the competition RESHAPE. Along the text, Alessio will use many references related to other topics and will focus on how can we import the research done in those fields to the notion of design. Nowadays biology is one of the most important sources of inspiration for architecture and engineering, especially for concepts like evolution or adaptation. Which are the benefits that biology can offer to fashion design? Is it a source of inspiration in your work as well? I have to say that biology is a very important lens through which I see things for our work, and it is for sure a beautiful source of raw models that give access to big degrees of complexity. However, I do not limit my self to biology. It is not the main field or the only one in which I am interested. It is peculiar to see how many people speak about evolution in biology, but do not conceive the fact that the concept of evolution evolves itself, it is a concept that is in constant evolution, even if it seems self-referential. In a certain manner biology is a handbook for complex harmony, specially in terms of morphology and organisation. However, I look it as a source of monstrosity as well. Nature and biology have always been understood as a source of harmony, but in my opinion it is fascinating when biology produces monsters. What is important to understand is that monstrosity it is not just about solving problems through very cute solutions, but in terms of aesthetics it is a very good inspiration to step out of the usual routine. For me, biology its mainly a source of sophistication and complexity, and the manner in which this field can contribute to fashion design has to do with a certain sensibility to successfully channel it into the realm of aesthetics. Cover - Geometrical exercise, IaaC Archive Figure 1 - Workshop project, IaaC Archive Figure 2 - Workshop project, IaaC Archive 2
The use of technology often leads us to a linear process where “optimisation� becomes a reason for moral and cultural validation. How design can escape from this misunderstanding, turning technology in something else than a tool which optimises a process? As I see it, there are two questions embedded here. One related to the notion of optimisation understood as a cultural and moral validation, and another one related to processes and technology. It is interesting to realise how much misunderstanding there is in this topic, as you were saying in your question. What surprises me on the one hand is how much architecture and engineering are looking at biology, but at the same time how little they know about it. This becomes obvious when you realise that most of architects and engineers
Figure 4 - Moss Voltaic Prototype, IaaC Archive 4
that are using biology are implementing experiments done by someone else, without having a deep understanding of the general scope. One the other hand, in most of the cases they are using general optimisation as a linear processes, which is a quite symptomatic of this misunderstanding: nature is exactly the contrary of linearity. All to often there is this reduction to linear indexical relation in between cause and effect, which could be labeled as pure parametrics. Optimisation processes are there, but consequences are not linear and not predictable. These processes tend to complexification of roles, and specially it is hard to understand who does what and which is the particular contribution of a part in the whole. Not everything does everything but rather there is a multiplicity of roles that performs a multiplicity of tasks. This tendency is the usual trend in complex systems and reality, rather than this ideal reductionism related to a simple optimisation process. General optimisation it’s a very complex tool that requires a very precise definition and a deep understanding of the problem to be sure that indeed it exists only one solution. Same issue with genetic algorithm. Confusion come when you extend this in general way of thinking, with the notion of optimum. Actually, this is an issue that ended when we step out of modernity. In relation to the notion of technology, for me technology is not just a tool but a medium with which we have a symbiotic relation, no matter how low tech it is. In terms of optimisation, going back to the first part of the question, I had a very nice conversation with a technological expert that was using the concept of optimising in a very interesting manner: Design process understands optimisation as a clarification of the discourse, which means that in a certain point you have to be coherent, and the more you can clarify your discourse, the more you can “optimise” it. At some point you need this clarification, but not by putting constraints in your objectives but by putting coherence in the way you follow. This notion of optimisation is connected with the idea of performance, not mainly intended as an act, but intended as a measure, as an objective measure of an effect. When in some of my lectures I speak about performance, I’m always putting two different contexts in which you can understand the idea of performance. One is related to a problem solving strategy, when you have a precise goal to pursue and therefore a very clear and framed problem. In this case, the notion of performance is very clear: you can speak about pre-objective performance because you have an external system of management that you can follow. In the other case, the concept of performance is oriented to creativity and open-closed processes, where you have to deal with other agents. For example, when you have the need of providing a high speed to a skier, on the one side it means that he needs to go as fast as possible, and this would be related to Figure 5 - Workshop project, IaaC Archive
the first understanding of performance. But on the other side, you have a snowboarder in the snow pipe, and his goal is to impress the jury. This case it is not as lineal or measurable as the case of the skier: snowboarders speak about performance, but they have a very subjective idea of performance, and the way you improve it is opens up a realm of opportunities in terms of expression that you cannot completely predict and enters in the realm of the non-linearity. Probably we are also shifting from designing objects to designing systems. Optimisation can be something that generates impredictable results. One of the main characteristics of wearable technology is its ability to incorporate electronics, in order to generate different structures of data. In this regard, which is the role of Data in your production? Which is its potential? I am constantly dealing with data structure in design processes, specially articulating and distributing information out of this data, and in this sense it is very important to clarify the difference in between information and data: Information is that part of data that is relevant in a certain context. If we take as a premise the fact that we are a system placed in a larger ecology (which we can read in a multi scalar manner), we can realise that there is a constant data exchange in between system and subsystems. At the same time, it is true that we are already informational processes machines, and if any embedded data into electronics should be seen as an extension our senses, there is still a long road to have, we at the very first steps. As an example, in science fiction there is a book called Accelerando, where the author speaks about metacortex, which is a cloud of information that has a symbiotic relation with the brain of one character. Beside it, there are many informational agents that scan the informational cloud and articulate it better by autonomously separating what is junk and what is relevant for the character. Little by little it becomes more and more complex and at the end you can send copies of yourself to speak with copies of other people. The way in which things will evolve follows a totally open-ended structure, more complex and more sophisticated than what we could imagine at first glance.
One of the biggest challenges of RESHAPE is the relation between the restricted rules of the “Market� and the freedom every researcher needs to succeed in his task. Is it possible to merge and balance these two realities, translating those differences in a added value? I’m not a market expert, but I have a particular answer. Market and antimarket economies, as Manuel Delanda refers them, are deeply linked: the evolution of the market can lead to the birth of an anti-market entity, and its 6
evolution can deal to a new market. In this sense, I would like to spend some words about freedom and about balance. Freedom might be a little misplaced here. Lets say that there is the need of a deep research. I desperately advocate for research. But I advocate for that research that outside the given definition of rationality, is able to produce real novelties. However, to do that you need resources, and some times market economy cannot make it because it is framed by many restrictions, but anti market can do it. It is very important to have a strong crowdsourcing with certain ideas, certain innovation etc, but sometimes to go to the next level or break barriers, you need quantity in terms of money, knowledge etc. For example, there is people who see F1 as a waste of money, while for me is a big reason to produce research. You don’t really know from which field will novelty appear, and there are many surprising cases in history that proofs that. What is important to underline is that only in certain circumstances you have the possibility to produce research, and the solution to very particular problems of one specific field can have a very positive repercussion to the improvement of our daily general life.
Figure 3 - Workshop Project, IaaC Archive Figure 4 - Workshop Project, IaaC Archive
Copyright © 2014 Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia All rights Reserved.
IAAC BITS
IAAC
DIRECTOR:
IAAC SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:
Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
EDITORIAL TEAM Manuel Gausa, IaaC Co-Founder Silvia Brandi, Communication & Publication Jordi Vivaldi, IaaC bits Editorial Coordinator
ADVISORY BOARD: Areti Markopoulou, IaaC Academic Director Tomas Diez, Fab Lab Bcn Director Mathilde Marengo, Academic Coordinator Ricardo Devesa, Advanced Theory Concepts Maite Bravo, Advanced Theory Concepts
Nader Tehrani, Architect, Director MIT School Architecture, Boston Juan Herreros, Architect, Professor ETSAM, Madrid Neil Gershenfeld, Physic, Director CBA MIT, Boston Hanif Kara, Engineer, Director AKT, London Vicente Guallart, IaaC Co-Founder Willy Muller, IaaC Co-Founder Aaron Betsky, Architect & Art Critic, Director Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Hugh Whitehead, Engineer, Director Foster+ Partners technology, London Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio Salvador Rueda, Ecologist, Director Agencia Ecologia Urbana, Barcelona Artur Serra, Anthropologist, Director I2CAT, Barcelona
DESIGN: Ramon Prat, ACTAR Editions
IAAC BIT FIELDS: 1. Theory for Advanced Knowledge 2. Advanced Cities and Territories 3. Advanced Architecture 4. Digital Design and Fabrication 5. Interactive Societies and Technologies 6. Self-Sufficient Lands
PUBLISHED BY: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia ISSN 2339 - 8647 CONTACT COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE: communication@iaac.net
Institut for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia Barcelona
8
Pujades 102 08005 Barcelona, Spain T +34 933 209 520 F +34 933 004 333 ana.martinez@coac.net www.iaac.net