::Restoration::
Following the exhibition at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, the METAfolly has undertaken extensive renovation to repair damaged components of the skin and supporting structure. The restoration was successfully carried out at the archive centre of FRAC by our team, we are currently undertaking research for an upgrade to the sensing and actuating system of METAfolly to integrate the latest advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This is being carried out in collaboration with Nick Puckett of OCAD University. For more information on exhibiting METAfolly at a future event please do not hesitate to contact us.
::Description::
ecoLogicStudio's “METAfolly" is a sonic environment which aims at establishing a playful dialogue with the user enabling the development of a form of meta-language based on material experience, patterns recognition as well as a real-time meta-conversation. It revisits the architectural “folly” type as a synthetic organism.
A field of digitally materialized sensitivity agitates a proliferation of 300 piezo-buzzer analogically modulated in 4 different tones; programmed to operate like a swarm of crickets they react to the speed of visitors' movements around the folly, developing ripples of sound that bounce back and forth until dissolution, synchronisation or complete interference; the convolutedness of the geometry produces the emergence of unique sonic niches to be decoded by the human ears inside the folly.
META-Folly argues for computational cyber-artificiality to substitute nature as reference for the development of new architectural codes; offering refuge and consolation to the emerging crowd of urban post-ecologists, it gives up searching for a green Arcadia and is determined to embody an abstract / mathematical version of it.
The project draws the line of a future convergence of cybernetics and environmental psychology, digital computational design and parametricism, digital craftsmanship and DIY interaction design, radical ecologic thinking and material activism.
The outcome may be an improbable assemblages of ‘urban trash’ (recycled polypropylene, hacked sound kits, steel rods, chameleonic nano-flakes) but within it we find a new aesthetic and spatial milieu, a new form of material life.
Commissioned by the FRAC Centre in Orleans, it is now part of its permanent collection.
::Fact sheet::
Each of the 6 Hubs is subdivided into interactive clusters made of 5-6-or 7 tiles. Each cluster is equipped with 1 active tile, containing within itself an active tendril.
The surface of the tiles is covered in a special camaleontic nanoflake pigment. When hit by light at a certain angle the pigments change colour from green to blue and yellow.
Laser cut connectors hold the fibres in place at each bifurcation point giving stiffness to the bundle. The bundles start at the base of each hub and terminate in each of the vertices of the skin.
Each active tile contains an active tendril. The tendril is a unit of interaction and integrates a piezoelectric buzzer; each tendril is connected to a microprocessor Arduino host at the base of the Hub.
The HUBs’ base also hosts a proximity sensor; this can sense the visitors presence and movement and send the signal to the processor that activates the buzzer accordingly to a custom designed pattern. The visitor then hears the response and acts accordingly; his/her reaction is then registered and fed back
::Credits::
Project by ecoLogicStudio: Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto
Restoration by Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto, Konstantinos Alexopoulos, Mauro Mosca
Original METAfolly construction supported by Andrea Bugli, Philippos Philippidis, Mirco Bianchini, Fabrizio Ceci, Phil Cho, George Dimitrakopoulos, Manuele Gaioni, Giorgio Badalacchi, Antonio Mularoni, Sara Fernandez, Daniele Borraccino, Paul Serizay, Maria Rojas, Anthi Valavani.
With special thanks to Nick Puckett for supporting the set up of the interaction system and behaviour.
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