Synthetic realities: New Frontiers in AI-driven Design, Fabrication and Materiality

Buch

Manuel Kretzer is professor for Material and Technology at the Dessau Department of Design, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences. His research aims at the creation of dynamic and adaptive objects, spaces and experiences with a specific focus on new smart and biological material performance and their combination with advanced digital design and fabrication methods.

Verena Bachl is a conceptual artist based in Berlin, Germany. Drawing inspiration from science as well as mythology, Bachl creates artworks that combine archetypal symbolism and intimate elements with objects and methods of industrial mass production. Bachl constructs worlds around concepts, weaving narratives that delve into the complexities of sexual identity, memory, and the enigmatic nature of uncertainty. Light installations immerse her sculptural works in a synthetic atmosphere reminiscent of their natural model, while a spatial approach to the work often unveils hidden layers of meaning and a reassessment of perspective. Her work illuminates pressing contemporary issues and challenges stereotypes by creating a speculative scenography for her combinations of figurative representation, minimalistic form and technological implementation with contrasting textures of metal, glass, and stone.

Adil Bokhari is currently a PhD researcher at the Chair for Digital Architectonics at ETH Zürich and conducts the architecture design studio for the chair: Studio Meteora. Previously he has been a guest professor at the Peter Behrens School of Arts in Düsseldorf, and has worked as a visual studies and studio tutor at the Dessau Institute of Architecture, Städelschule Architecture Class, and National College of Arts. Professional experience also includes Najmi Bilgrami Collaborative in Karachi, Zvi Hecker Architect in Berlin and Atelier Manferdini in Los Angeles.

Vera Bühlmann is a writer and translator between various emerging “vernaculars” in contemporary thought, especially with respect to philosophy, mathematics and architecture. Since 2016 she is professor for architecture theory at Technische Universität Wien TU, Austria, where she directs the Research Unit Architecture Theory and Philosophy of Technics (ATTP). Among her special fields of interest are the codification of artistic practices through mathematical thinking, digital architectonics, quantum literacy and aesthetics in a new materialist optics, as well as the role of rhetorics and literary reason for a novel and non-anthropocentric humanism. Born in 1974 in Switzerland, Vera Bühlmann studied English Literature and Language, Philosophy, and Media Studies at Zurich University and Basel University. She graduated with the distinction Summa Cum Laude for her PhD titled "Inhabiting Media, Annäherungen an Herkünfte und Topoi medialer Architektonik" from Basel University in 2009. In 2010 she co-founded the Laboratory for Applied Virtuality at the Chair for Digital Architectonics in the Department for Architecture, ETH Zurich (together with Ludger Hovestadt). From 2012-2013 she was a guest researcher at the Future Cities Laboratory at NUS Singapore, and since 2012 she is co-editor of the Applied Virtuality Book Series with Birkhäuser/de Gruyter, a book series which attends to the current societal challenges brought by digitalisation through a Liberal Arts approach that combines mathematical thinking with humanistic studies. Since 2021 she is an elected member of the University Council (Hochschulrat) of Berlin University of the Arts UdK.

Dr. Matias del Campo is a registered architect, designer, and educator. He is an Associate Professor at Taubman College for Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, and director of the AR2IL – The Architecture and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at UoM. He conducts research on advanced design methods in architecture, primarily through the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques in collaboration with the Computer Science department and Michigan Robotics - of which he is also an affiliated faculty member. Matias del Campo is the co-founder of the architecture practice SPAN.