Finding Fluid Form

In December 2006 we organised the symposium Finding Fluid Form at University of Brighton, School of Architecture and Design inviting practitioners and theoreticians from the fields of art, architecture, dance performance, cognitive science, robotics and biology to discuss how concepts of morphogenesis informs their practice. Bringing together practitioners from both the arts and sciences the aim for the symposium was to explore how the fluid technologies of interaction design and robotics can avoid formalism instead suggest indeterminacy in form.

The symposium was attended by an open audience from the fields of arts, architecture, robotics and computer science. Each of the two days of the symposium were structured around a session of formal talks in the morning followed by a workshop performance in the afternoon. Reflecting the cross disciplinary interests, the talks were arranged in three sessions: Models of morphogenesis and computation, Biological models of morphogenesis and Siting emergent experiences / ideas of dynamic contexts in network and performance.

Finding Fluid Form was a wide forum for the exchange of experiences of working with live systems. Bringing together dance performance and the sciences that explore notions of formfinding through complex and interacting systems the hope was to bring about a cross-dissemination of ideas of liveness, of how embodied approaches to learning can suggest not only the evolution of responsive behaviours, but also but also the shaping of a physical manifestation, a thickening of form.

Finding Fluid Form was attended by 80 audience and was a collaboration between The School of Architecture and Design and the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at University of Sussex by architect Mette Ramsgard Thomsen and robotisist Jon Bird.

Collaborators
Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA), The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Architecture
University of Brighton, School of Architecture and Design, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at University of Sussex.