Symposium

Second Nature: Natural - digital synthesis
Peter Hasdell
University of Manitoba
http://www.arch.kth.se/a-url/interspace.htm

Summary
The paper presents work conducted in the Architecture and Urban Research Laboratory. A+URL conducted investigations into artificial ecologies and metabolic systems and developed interactive prototypes that learnt, borrowed, or derived from natural systems, constructing part natural - part artificial assemblages functioning as small-scale quasi-ecosystems. Microprocessors, sensors, human inputs and feedback systems, washing machine parts, plotters and fruit were employed to construct these. The works of A+URL were exhibited in the Kulturhus in Stockholm Sweden and can be seen at http://www.arch.kth.se/a-url/interspace.htm. Typical assemblages included the Fog Table: which mimicked the Aurora Borealis’ plasma clouds by moving a cloud of fog according to changes in a magnetic field. Singing Lemons investigated the process of photosynthesis, developing a musical instrument responding to people’s movement and light. Terra-iser constructed ever-changing random landscapes according to the movements of people around its orbit and was informed by landscapes formed by glaciers.

The natural biotope, now irreversibly altered through human impacts no longer exists as a normative condition. In parallel, the digital realm has proliferated and has become ubiquitous as our prosthetic extension to the world. As these two trajectories develop - one digital, one natural - new possibilities emerge for a hybrid condition that is natural and digital at the same time: a ‘second nature’. As a digital-bio-tope, ‘second nature’ allows for diverse kinds of hybrid cybernetic species to occur, entities informed by mimesis from nature yet suffused with the soul of bits. More specifically, as the digital realm evolves new forms of distributed computing employing cognitive, sensory, and interactive attributes as in built feedback mechanisms, the overall behavioural characteristics of a digital system are able to interact with the complex dynamics of both human and natural systems. The underlying research is situated between theories of ecology, bio-systems concepts and artificial life on the one hand and emergent properties and non linear science on the other. Reference is made to theories of feedback in dynamic systems as a issue of the self regulation of complex systems. These are ideas intrinsic to the understanding of sustainability and ecology as forms of dynamic thinking.

Biography

Peter Hasdell, an architect and academic, studied computer engineering before graduating in architecture from University of Sydney and from the Architectural Association (London). Has taught architecture, design and technology in Europe and North America, including the Bartlett School London, and the Berlage Institute Amsterdam. He is currently Professor of Architectural Technology at the University of Manitoba. Formerly associate professor / programme director of the Architecture and Urban Research Laboratory in Stockholm investigating mediated environments, metabolic systems and artificial ecologies. His research work investigates metabolic systems and interactive technologies with a focus on ‘artificial ecologies’ and issues of sustainability.