Text by CLOT Magazine
DesignMorphine is a creative hub focusing on the promotion and education in the field of computational design through workshops, lectures, projects and research exploration, applying knowledge to architecture, design and all branches of the arts.
With an international team of more than 30 members, DesignMorphine is promoting and advocating its philosophy globally to those with all levels of knowledge. Their newest workshop to happen is Algorithmic Accessories, which will focus on designing and fabricating jewellery using parametric manipulation and code-based machinery. Fabrication with 21st-century machinery is increasingly becoming a vital skill for those working in all branches of design, from architecture to furniture or fashion. Some require a large apparatus, and some can be obtained with a small-scale 3D printer.
By learning how to design and how to build in the micro-world, one can start to understand the basics of digital fabrication. Therefore, the Algorithmic Accessories V4.0 Workshop is not only aimed at jewellery designers but at all who are interested in pairing computational design with real-life, buildable strategies. Jewellery designing is an ancestral technique which has always required careful crafting and state-of-the-art machines.
However, the current skill of the craftsman lies not in his ability to handle a tool but in his understanding of it. One can develop an entirely new language of expression by comprehending the 3D printing language and its particularities. This language can continuously and infinitely digress through algorithm-based design, which in its optimised parameters, can produce incalculable results.
During the workshops, the students will create modelling and fabrication strategies for one of the smallest elements that are used to embellish the human body – a ring. The challenge will be to design something that is printable, that considers the machine’s logic and that, of course, is aesthetically relevant in the current design paradigm. DesignMorphine, through its diverse work and the very mixed approach of the workshops, aims to not only teach a specific software but, with every workshop, to bring a story to life. The Algorithmic Accessories will revive the age-old gesture of human decoration in the most contemporary of ways.
The workshop takes place from February 20 to 23, 2019, and the tutors will be Eva Blšáková and our collaborator Lidia Ratoi.
