825210 UE Prototyping/Design Build

summer semester 2023 | Last update: 02.02.2023 Place course on memo list
825210
UE Prototyping/Design Build
UE 4
5
Block
annually
German

This seminar, titled Landscapes of Biodegradability, will focus on the production of a large 3D printed biodegradable land art project to be installed on the Alps at Universitätszentrum Obergurgl. In recent studios we have observed how the Alps, while recalling idyllic portraits of unspoiled nature, are today also a surprisingly poignant reflection of the effects of climate change. We have filmed the striking phenomenon of retreating glaciers and we have drawn their microbiome, revealing human’s historical impact on it. As observed, Glaciers’ dissolution is releasing a unique diversity of ancient contaminants while also fuelling an intense and entirely new metabolic activity. Bio-organic growth manifests itself, like in the unique red coloration of the snow, as well as in the unexpected nutritional qualities of the micro-algal colonies proliferating within the melting crystals. In this studio, students will take inspiration from this body of research to model and then 3D print micro-habitat sculpture, made of biodegradable polymers (Nonoilen pellets with added algae pigmentation).  

These sculptures will then be installed permanently is the alpine landscape, at Universitätszentrum Obergurgl, forming a new biodegradable land art work.The studio will then culminate in a collective time-lapsing experiment, to produce a film of the biodegradation process, witnessing the dissolution of the sculptural installation into the unique complexity and beauty of the emerging alpine ecosystem. 

Furthermore, the studio will seek to reveal the influence these “Landscapes of Biodegradability” will have on its evolution, as they inevitably feed their own unique microbiome.

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