Hexagram x ELEKTRA – MATERIA : Labo Public de création de savoirs numériques

For the next few days, the Speculative Life BioLab will participate in a three-day public workshop as part of the international digital art festival ELEKTRA. The event is divided into 10 thematic clusters all of whom are collaboratively exploring the theme of MATERIA, “which questions the return to materiality, working with matter and tangible media in response to the frantic development of the virtual realm”

Alice Jarry and Marie-Pier Boucher will activate the Bio-Inspired Soft Membranes and Adaptive Surfaces cluster where “participants will engage with the growth and maintenance processes of bio-inspired membranes such as bioplastics, algae, invasive plant species, and abaca. The flexible and filtering properties of these surfaces will inform the creation of foldable and adaptive membranes. In close collaboration with the module ‘Soft Robotics: Form, Inform, Deform’, the behaviours of these membranes will be tested using pneumatic systems and airflows relevant to “soft robotics”. Practice-based activities will relate to discussions and visits of urban sites addressing the critical, social and political dimensions of air and membranes in the built environment.”

Come visit us at Îlot Balmoral!