Begin forwarded message:From: Brenda McCaffrey <brendamc@asu.edu>
Subject: Fwd: alchemy, media & engineering?
Date: June 16, 2016 at 12:18:59 PM MST
To: Brenda McCaffrey <brenda@bmccaffrey.com>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brenda McCaffrey <brendamc@asu.edu>
Date: Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: alchemy, media & engineering?
To: Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu>
Cc: Byron Lahey <Byron.Lahey@asu.edu>, Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>Yes, I think there's some value in thinking biomimetically (is that a word?) about all of this. I have some experience in this area also and have used biomimicry principals to create architectural models in Rhino.I think it would be fine to loop around into the biomimicry folks. I know my materials science friend, Ximin He, is very interested in this as well.It's a fun thing to "reverse engineer" how natural systems solve problems.No formal structure here so follow your impulses and see what happens. Feel free to send notes, sketches, links, etc. to post@materiality.posthaven.com and let's continue this thread.Thanks,BrendaOn Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu> wrote:Yes, I would be curious to know how the swarm of bees chose our orange tree as it’s place to rest. We have a huge swarm nesting in our tree right now. Crossing our fingers that they’re not satisfied and move along. :)From: <nanozeit@gmail.com> on behalf of Byron Lahey <byron.lahey@asu.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 16, 2016 at 11:20 AM
To: Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu>
Cc: "Brenda McCaffrey (Student)" <brendamc@asu.edu>, Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>, Robert LiKamWa <roblkw@roblkw.com>, Todd Ingalls <Todd.Ingalls@asu.edu>, Adam Nocek <Adam.Nocek@asu.edu>, Lauren Hayes <laurensarahhayes@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: alchemy, media & engineering?
From my perspective biomimicry is a very natural dimension of this line of thinking. I speculate that a lot of things we might classify as metamaterials might actually be found in natural/biological forms.Along those lines, I heard a science new story the other day about bees being able to detect electrical signals from plants. The researchers could verify the ability but weren't sure how the bees used this ability in the wild. It is not unreasonable to see this ability as a simple example of wireless, electronic sensing.Cheers,ByronOn Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu> wrote:Also, would this be an opportunity to connect in with biomimicry?From: Brenda McCaffrey <brendamc@asu.edu>
Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 3:30 PM
To: Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu>
Cc: Byron Lahey <Byron.Lahey@asu.edu>, Jessica Rajko <jessica.rajko@asu.edu>, Robert LiKamWa <roblkw@roblkw.com>, Todd Ingalls <Todd.Ingalls@asu.edu>, Adam Nocek <Adam.Nocek@asu.edu>, Lauren Hayes <laurensarahhayes@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: alchemy, media & engineering?
Hi all,A while back, I set up a Posthaven site for Materiality as a place to capture information.You can post to this site by emailing information to:Please let me know if you're interested in being added to the email list so you can see any new posts that come through.It's been a little while since I updated it so I'll bring it up to date in the next day.Best,BrendaOn Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 2:52 PM, Xin Wei Sha <Xinwei.Sha@asu.edu> wrote:Hi Brenda, and everyone interested in a fresh practical, theoretical, artistic approaches to new materials,Thanks for taking the lead in a fresh take on materials research here at AME.Conventional electronics, robotics, microprocessors and media processing are well covered at AME, so can we look beyond “physical computing” and present day “DIY” approaches to electronics, and start instead from a more sophisticated alchemical / poetic / critical approach to matter ?I’m eager to hear what you, Byron, Jessica come up with.For an idea of where international discourse and practice are at, look atAnd for some of the places to beat — or to diverge from — see:Neri OxmanHiroshi IshiiMediated MatterBio-art and bio-mimicry are red herrings, I think, for reasons well argued in Stepney’s “The neglected pillar of material computation,” Physica D 237 (2008) 1157–1164. (attached)There’s a whole world of theoretical discourse labelled “new materialism" which is worth exploring critically, perhaps when Adam’s back in the fall. Plus there’s a related but naive art scene thing under the label “new materiality.” Most of that has little access to emerging materials science, membrane chemistry, analog and “natural” computing, macro-quantum technologies (like room-temperature superconductors and cloaking), etc. AME can be the place to bridge and put radical fusion work on the world scene.Regards,Xin Weicc. Other faculty who have related expertise and interests.________________________________________________________________________________________Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts + Fulton Schools of Engineering • ASUskype: shaxinwei • mobile: +1-650-815-9962_________________________________________________________________________________________________On Jun 7, 2016, at 9:27 PM, Byron Lahey <byron.lahey@asu.edu> wrote:Yes. Count me in on the materiality studio research!Looking forward to discussing further.Cheers,ByronHi Xin Wei,Thank you for the quick response. I see the Materiality Studio ramping up in the Fall so I think we have some time. I wanted to put this out there for discussion now so we can get ahead curve. I'll touch base with Byron also to exchange some ideas about early materials experiments. I'm also talking with Jessica Rajko.We have had some conversations about materiality research ideas and I'm looking forward to pulling these threads together.In the meantime, I'll generate a detailed specification for what I think will be needed as a first phase of the work. I'm committed to being 100% engaged on the iStage throughout this work.Thanks,Brenda
--Brenda McCaffrey, PhD