Postdigital Artisans profiles 60 contemporary artists and designers, accompanied by rich illustrations of their postdigital work.

Digital technologies have profoundly impacted the arts and expanded the field of sculpture since the 1950s. Art history, however, continues to pay little attention to sculptural works that are conceived and ‘materialized’ using digital technologies. How can we rethink the artistic medium in relation to our technological present and its historical precursors? A number of theoretical approaches discuss the implications of the so-called ‘Aesthetics of the Digital’, referring, above all, to screen-based phenomena. For the first time, this publication brings together international and trans-historical research perspectives to explore how digital technologies re-configure the understanding of sculpture and the sculptural leading into the (post-)digital age. Up-to-date research on digital technologies’ expansion of the concept of sculpture Linking historical sculptural debates with discourse on the new media and (post-)digital culture

Postdigital Aesthetics is a contribution to questions raised by our newly computational everyday lives and the aesthetics which reflect both the postdigital nature of this age, but also critical perspectives of a post-internet world.

"There is today a pronounced and accelerated convergence in architecture. This convergence is occurring by doers not thinkers; in practice not academia; in building design, fabrication, and construction. It is about solution-centric individuals engaged in real time problem solving, not in abstractions. The nature of this convergence, where things are converging and what that means for architecture, is the subject of this book." —from the Introduction Those working in architecture and engineering feel pressure to work faster, at lower cost, while maintaining a high level of innovation and quality. At the same time, emergent tools and processes make this possible. Convergence is about the firms, teams and people who thrive in this environment as a result of their ability to creatively combine and innovate. It seeks to answer several timely questions: What are the tools and work processes that are converging? How are individuals and organizations converging their tools and work processes? What challenges and benefits are they seeing? What is the ultimate endgame of this convergence? What skillsets and mindsets would someone need to develop to work effectively in this changing environment? What are the implications of convergence on the role of the designer, and on design? On how we design, build, fabricate, and construct? On how we work? The book explains how convergence relates to, but ultimately differs from integration, consolidation, multi-tasking, automation, and other forms of optimization. The practice-based research builds upon the author’s research in BIM and in the collaborative leveraging of data in design and fabrication. As an investigation and meditation on the impact of technology on the education and making of design professionals Convergence explains what is happening in the world of design, and discusses the implications for the future of education, training and practice.

The New Aesthetic and Art: Constellations of the Postdigital is an interdisciplinary analysis focusing on new digital phenomena at the intersections of theory and contemporary art. Asserting the unique character of New Aesthetic objects, Contreras-Koterbay and Mirocha trace the origins of the New Aesthetic in visual arts, design, and software, find its presence resonating in various kinds of digital imagery, and track its agency in everyday effects of the intertwined physical world and the digital realm. Contreras-Koterbay and Mirocha bring to light an original perspective that identifies an autonomous quality in common digital objects and examples of art that are increasingly an important influence for today's culture and society.

Frictionlessness provides an examination of the environmentally destructive digital design philosophy of "frictionlessness" and the critical significance of a technological aesthetic of imperfection. If there is one thing that defines digital consumer technologies today, it is that they are designed to feel frictionless. From smart technologies to cloud computing, from from one-click shopping to the promise of seamless streaming-digital technology is framed to host ever-faster operations while receding increasingly into the background of perception. The environmental costs of this fetishization of frictionlessness are enormous and unevenly distributed; the frictionless experience of the end user tends to be supported by opaque networks of exploited labor and extracted resources that disproportionately impact the Global South. This situation marks an urgent need for alternate, less destructive aesthetic relations to technology. As such, this book examines imperfection, as an aesthetic concept that highlights existential conditions of finitude and fragility, as a particularly powerful counterweight to the dominant digital design philosophy of frictionlessness. While frictionlessness aims to draw the user's perception away from the exploitative and destructive conditions of digital production, imperfection forms an aesthetic source of friction that alerts users to the fragile nature of technology and the finite resources on which it relies. These arguments are elaborated through a close reading of three technological objects-a video game that was programmed to expire, an audiovisual performance that laments the fate of disused technology and a collection of music albums that dramatize a techno-cultural logic of relentless consumerism. Together, these case studies underline the value of technological aesthetics of imperfection and point to the need for a renewed ethics of care in relation to technology.

This book delves into the various methods of constructing postdigital research, with a particular focus on the postdigital dynamic of inclusion and exclusion, as well as the interplay between method and emancipation. By answering three fundamental questions - the relationship between postdigital theory and research practice, the relationship between method and emancipation, and how to construct emancipatory postdigital research - the book serves as a comprehensive resource for those interested in conducting postdigital research. Constructing Postdigital Research: Method and Emancipation is complemented by Postdigital Research: Genealogies, Challenges, and Future Perspectives, also edited by Petar Jandrić, Alison MacKenzie, and Jeremy Knox, which explores these questions in theory.

Proceedings of the 2017 BTES meeting in Des Moines, Iowa. Contains papers submitted for presentation on topics relating to architectural technology applications and pedagogy.

Surface is one of the most intensely debated topics in recent arts, humanities and social science scholarship. The changing technologies which manufacture the actual and virtual surfaces of today are radically altering our perception of thresholds and borders. In contrast to the responses to preceding industrial revolutions, contemporary concerns with surface seem preoccupied with its function of mediation or passage, rather than with that of separation or boundary. In Surface and Apparition, each chapter explores a different meaning and function of the material and immaterial qualities of 'surface'. Case studies include various surfaces from computer screens, 'artisanal' engines and glass architecture to gauzy veils, the planetary surface of supply chain capitalism, and spatial embodiment in street markets. International scholars of design, architecture, film, media, fine art, fashion, textiles, silversmithing, woodworking and archival practices account for how the material and the immaterial draw attention to each other in both their everyday and artistic practice. Each chapter addresses particular systems (from the human body to manually operated tools and machines); materials (for instance cloth, wood and light); modes of attention, movement and engagement. 'Surface' therefore functions in this book as a multidisciplinary method for attending to critical issues concerning human creative and technological endeavours.

Architects write a lot, especially now when conceptual aspects have become central in the advanced reflections and narrative forms increasingly intersect the quest of design practices far an ultimate legitimation. In the growing mass of the publishing offer, these keywords try to highlight recurrent issues, tracking synthetic paths of orientation between different critical positions, with particular attention to what happens in the neighbouring fields of the arts and sciences.