Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality
This is a collection of my contributions to the Concordia University Research Chair (CURC) in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality - under the direction of Dr. Alice Jarry.
The current context of ecological emergency requires developing new forms of interactions between technology, humans and ecosystems. Anchored in the department of Design and Computation Arts, the Concordia University Research Chair in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality examines the socio-environmental, technological and political issues pertaining to material production. Through research-creation that combines with practices in materials and environmental sciences, the Chair mobilizes new relationships with residual, bio-inspired, responsive, and bio-composite materials to develop aesthetic, critical, and methodological knowledge on engagement with materials that are resilient for the environment and communities. At the crossroads of cultural, scientific and citizen initiatives, the Chair is a platform for creation, innovation and dialogue. Its four specific initiatives are to:
· conduct art-science research to creatively respond to the socio-environmental issues related to materiality;
· promote the contribution of practitioners and citizens to research-creation;
· develop innovative and multilingual formats for knowledge transfer focused on the materiality of research;
· create a 'hub' in Critical Practices in Materials and Materiality, thereby benefiting students, researchers and participating communities;
During my time with the Research Chair, I worked collaboratively with:
Speculative Life Biolab - Alex Bachmayar
Centre Pompidou
BioInterface Lab [ Mcgill University - Material Engineering ]
National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment [InRAE]
Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems [ LAAS ]
Soft Dynamic Membranes: Air filtration as a material,
interdisciplinary, and socio-environmental exchange process
Fine particles and dust generated by transport, construction or heating have significant ecosystem impacts. For example on lung and heart health, rising temperatures and vegetation growth. These residues operate according to trajectories irreducible to the status of inert matter: Metabolic exchanges such as respiration underline the porous boundaries between industrial production methods, living things and the environment.
In the current context of ecological crisis, air’s toxicity, a milieu that is felt although invisible, is a growing issue. This research-creation project examines the material, spatiotemporal and socio- environmental aspects of air pollution. By creating bio-flexible and dynamic membranes that react with humans and the environment to filter the air, the experimentation and the method of filtration are envisioned as a mode of reflection in action, catalyst of plural social and cultural realities.
Through workshops and an exhibition, the project seeks to induce new sensory, responsive and critical relationships with air, and engages with the processual future of neglected materials and peripheral processes to reorient this invisible environment in an ecology of technologies and sustainable practices for communities, matter and the environment.
Research Team
Dr. Alice Jarry
Brice Ammar-Khodja
Jean-Michael Celerier
Jacqui Beaumont
Asa Perlman
Philippe Vandal
Ariane Plante
Excitable Materials: Co-creating new forms of engagement with magneto-rheological elastomers across the arts and sciences
At the intersection of design, digital arts and material sciences, this pilot study develops new synergies between the Faculty of Fine Arts (Topological Media Lab) and the Gina Cody School of Engineering (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering). The team explores novel forms of engagement with magneto-rheological elastomer (MRE). MREs are multi-functional materials with manifold characteristics that can adaptively be changed.
‘Excitability’, defined as the capacity of matter to affect and be affected by other bodies, is a qualitative notion that the team borrows from philosophical biology and social sciences to examine the behavioural and experiential potential of new MRE materials, and how they may be designed to acquire the capacity to sense, adapt, and to interact with the environment. We investigate these excitable materials via a hybrid art-science lense to examine concerns related at once to the built environment, and the experiential dimension of our relationship to matter.
The project mobilizes interdisciplinary partners towards bypassing the design-thinking separations between structure, sensing technologies, kinetic events, and the methods leading to design of responsive materials. This will lead to the synthesis of new forms of this material to enrich both the practice of and the discourse on sureactive materials and art-science methodologies.
Research Team
Dr. Alice Jarry
Dr. Ramin Sedaghati
Dr. Yiwen Chen
Jacqui Beaumont
Audrey Coulombe
Alireza Moezi
Dr. Hossein Vatandoost
Funding
Concordia Team Accelerator
Concordia Team Start-Up
Air filtration and graphene oxide membranes: Art-science creation of sustainable interfaces
At the crossroads of design and material science, this research-creation project with McGill University’s Biointerface Lab (dir. Marta Cerruti)
experiments with membranes derived from graphene.
Graphene oxide (GO) is an innovative and sustainable nanomaterial that demonstrates adsorption, nanofiltration and protective properties.
By implementing art-science residencies, creating filtering GO prototypes, and developing public workshops, this interdisciplinary project explores how the concept of ‘filtration’ can give shape to the socio-environmental issues of atmospheric pollution and how the adaptive processes of GO can induce new aesthetic, sensory and critical relationships with the built environment.
Research Team
Dr. Alice Jarry
Dr. Mart Cerruti
Dr. Gabriele Capilli
Jacqui Beaumont
Yiwen Chang
Philippe Vandal
Nima Zakeri
Funding
Concordia Petro-Canada Young Innovator Award
Sustainable co-creation of reactive graphene oxide structures in
a transdisciplinary approach to materials science and design
This project brings together scientists and artists to build responsive membranes and structures made of Graphene oxide (GO). The team explores how to make the material to change configuration upon an external stimulus (light, pH, ion concentration, etc). Already, the creation of responsive GO-based structures is a new concept from a scientific perspective.
The integration within art and design furthers the exploration from the nano to the macro scale, and apply them as part of technologies for the environment and health, and the built environment.
Examples of future scientific applications include responsive, biodegradable GO capsules responsive to pH changes for soil decontamination; selective ion sensors; and microscopic neural networks where GO capsules act as protocells exchanging chemical information prompted by their surroundings. Applications in the arts and built environment include responsive skins for buildings and the body and interactive installations.
The research addresses both at a fundamental and a practical level crucial questions at the core of current research in materials science and design:
Up to what point can materials mimic nature and become ‘alive’, changing themselves based on external stimuli?
What happens when materials and humans interact?
Can the interaction between materials and the environment help improve our own environment, through responsive sensors, filters, etc?
Can the materials we surround ourselves with be made sustainably?
Research Team
Dr. Marta Cerutti
Dr. Alice Jarry
Dr. Yiwen Chen
Jacqueline Beaumont
Philippe Vandal
Nima Zakeri
Funding
FRQ-Audace