《亟需变革》| 维多利亚与艾伯特博物馆（V&A），伦敦设计节2017
我们定义增强现实为一种物质性的现实；一种增强的物质性，我们在材料驱动的过程中跨平台利用数字技术。
Studio INI展示了“亟需变革”，一项设计实验，探究数字自动化与工艺中材料驱动直觉的兼容性，以形成能够自我变革及其所处空间的物质。这件作品是我们对物质性持续探索的一部分，并且是为了响应维多利亚与艾伯特博物馆委托的数字设计主题“跨越边界”而创作的。
增强的物质性 | 增强的物质性寻求回应我们对物理设计环境‘刚性’架构的变革需求。这种物质性是由持续可变形的结构定义的，它们自己“成形”、“变形”并重新“成形”，改变它们所占据的空间。
变革 I | “亟需变革”使用吹制玻璃来展示这一点。它通过数字气动脉冲周期和手工干预被吹制、变形和再成形。玻璃在其结构的不同点上冻结（约500°C），使我们能够创建出变形过程的视觉记录：一种嵌入式的逻辑。
变革 II | 反过来，这些玻璃制品成为光和其所占据空间的转化的透镜。这个透镜是玻璃吹制件是如何制成的印记，对每件作品都是独一无二的。通过这种嵌入的信息，它们在包围、变形、重新定向和投射光线时改变了空间。
玻璃，以其通过光折射和聚焦环境的能力，是试验我们对增强物质性的概念的理想媒介。
平台 | 从她在MIT媒体实验室开发全自动3D打印玻璃平台的工作团队经历，到她接受的传统吹制玻璃技艺训练，Nassia自然而然地被吸引去探索介于两者之间的世界，在那里直觉和自动化可以共存。装置展示了一系列通过融合工艺和数字自动化过程制成的吹制玻璃作品，这些过程被设计成在整个成型过程中不断转变材料。我们试验了一个基于算法的系统，该系统关联了直接处理玻璃与空气压力和抽吸的自动化。这样，我们重新定义了手在玻璃成型过程中的角色。
我们并不追求制造实用工具。相反，我们寻求建立一个由规则而非形态驱动的过程。遵循材料内在属性和行为的工艺规则，与遵守精确自动化数字系统的计算规则相结合。我们使用手的位置来提供一个直观的桥梁，控制这两种方法。于是，新过程变成了一种规则与直觉之间的认知游戏，使我们能够开发一系列作品，捕捉心、手和计算逻辑在共生方式下共同创造的演变。
这一混合过程推动了界限，探索了在设计物质性中边缘地带的可能性，这里形式是材料和制造过程的功能，而不是过程是形式的功能。
Studio INI项目团队 | Nassia Inglessis, Edward Brial, John Bertolaso, Ageliki Yiotis, Luke Walker.
IN NEED OF TRANSFORMATION | V&A - Victoria & Albert Museum, London Design Festival 2017
We define augmented reality as a material one; an augmented materiality in which we co-opt digital platforms across material driven processes.
Studio INI presents ‘In Need of Transformation’, a design experimentation investigating the compatibility of digital automation and material driven intuition in craft, to form matter that can transform itself and the space it inhabits. This work is part of our ongoing exploration of materiality and was created in response to the Digital Design theme of crossing boundaries as commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Augmented Materiality | Augmented materiality seeks to respond to our need for transformation in the ‘rigid’ architecture of our physical designed environment. This materiality is defined by continuously transformable structures that 'form' and 'deform' themselves and the space they inhabit.
Transformation I | ‘In Need of Transformation’ uses blown glass to demonstrate this. It is blown to form, deform and reform through digital pneumatic pulsation cycles and manual interventions. The glass freezes (at ~ 500°C) at different points across its structure, allowing us to create a visual record of the process of cyclical deformation: a form of embedded logic.
Transformation II | In turn, the glass pieces become a lens to light and to the transformation of the space that they inhabit. This lens is the imprint of how the glassblown pieces were made and is unique to each piece. Through this embedded information they deform the space as they engulf, deform, redirect and project the light.
Glass, in this capacity to refract and lense its environment through light, is an ideal vector for experimenting with our ideas of augmented materiality.
Platform | From her past work, in the team that had developed a fully automated platform of 3D printed glass in the MIT Media Lab to her training in traditional glassblowing techniques, Nassia was naturally drawn to explore the world in between, where intuition and automation can coexist. The installation involves the display of glassblown pieces made through a fusion of craft and digital automation processes designed to perpetually transform the material throughout its formation. We trialed a new algorithm-based system that correlates direct handling of the glass, with automation of air pressure and suction. In this way we recast the role of the hand in the process of forming glass.
We are not seeking to make practical tools. Instead we are seeking to establish a process driven by rules rather than form. Rules of craft that abide to the inherent properties and behaviour of the material, in conjunction to rules of computation that abide to a precisely automated digital system. We used the positioning of the hand in order to provide an intuitive bridge controlling both approaches. The new process then became a cognitive game between rules and intuition, allowing us to develop a series of work that captures the evolution as the mind, hand and computational logic co-create in a symbiotic manner.
This hybrid process pushes the boundaries and explores the fringes of a designed materiality created where form is a function of the material and manufacturing process rather than process being a function of form.
Studio INI project team | Nassia Inglessis, Edward Brial, John Bertolaso, Ageliki Yiotis, Luke Walker.
