Electronically modulated materials : effects and context

Abstract

Recent advancements and increased availability of technologies have led to the design of surfaces and materials that can encode physical properties into digital information that can be manipulated at will. While research at the nano and micro scales continues to develop new materials, the availability and improvements of microcontrollers in recent years has allowed designers to become involved in the developments of human and macro scale physical-digital surfaces. In this thesis I will develop a set of aesthetic issues and attempt to show examples of how I tackled those issues through a series of projects in the domain of physical-digital surfaces. These projects will range in scale and level of refinement from design proposals to working prototypes. The set of aesthetic issues developed for this thesis will contextualize the surface studies that I have been working on within an art historical context and also suggest areas for further investigation and experimentation.