Politics of Digital in Latin America

capa_homo-faber.pdf 1 17/10/2018 14:52 politics of digital in latin america rodrigo scheeren pablo c. herrera david m. sperling editors 2.0 politics of digital in latin america RODRIGO SCHEEREN PABLO C. HERRERA DAVID M. SPERLING EDITORS são carlos instituto de arquitetura e urbanismo 2018 CONTENTS CONCEPTUAL 46 [TAMACO] Furetsu PROTOTYPES 48 [LAPAC] Funicular Shells + 50 [DOMVS] Computational Resources, Design Processes TECHNOLOGICAL 52 [FAB LAB MONTEREY] Bichos PRODUCTS 54 [OPEN BRAIN] Attractors and Voronoi 56 [GP ARTE, DESIGN E MÍDIAS DIGITAIS] Form(a)ctivity II 58 [FORMS] Coastal Fog Tower 60 [DUM DUM LAB] Discrete Structures 62 [MORFOLAB] Bio-Inspired Parametric Surfaces 64 [NEXUS] Leaf Brick 9 Homo Faber 2.0: 66 [IEHU] Curved Folding A political approach on the current state of 68 [EDRO] 360º Furniture production in Latin America 70 [FABHAUS UC] Knot # 72 [LM+P] Northeast House 1.0 74 [UTFSM] XIII Architecture Competition Madera21 18 [CIPIT LAB] Maker, Tinker, Learn COLLABORATIVE 76 [TU TALLER DESIGN] Maker Home 20 [NIMBU] Interactive Electronic Modules PROCESSES 78 [SUBDV] Lounge for Brazilian Venture Capital Firm 22 [LEAUD] ArchBricks Building Blocks + 80 [DESSIN TECHNISCH] Viajes Rosario Boutique Travel Agency 24 [NÓ.LAB] Responsive Object in the Teaching Process TECHNOLOGICAL 82 [FRONTIS 3D] General Facade, Square 85 Project SUBVERSION 26 [ESTUDIO GUTO REQUENA] Mapped Empathy 28 [LAMO 3D] Tornado, Ruled Surface Pavilion 30 [ONION LAB] Helix Sculpture ARTISANAL- 88 [FABLAB UNIPILOTO] Artisanal-Digital Tile Fabrication 32 [LABORATÓRIO PARA OUTROS URBANISMOS] 3D Error DIGITAL 90 [FAB LAB MAYA] Craftswoman Lab 34 [FAB LAB LIVRE SP] Accessible Utensils + 92 [FAB LAB UNI] Pedal Loom 1.0 + Loom for Blind People 2.0 36 [PRONTO 3D] Design, Fabricate, Assemble and Transport CULTURAL 94 [LED] Modeling as Memory of Vernacular Artifacts 38 [ACONCAGUA FABLAB] Convivencial Technological Action ARTIFACTS 96 [+IDLAB] Alada 40 [FAB LAB VERITAS] Kölbi Mobile Fab Lab + Mini Fab Labs 98 [LABFAB MVD] Dieste Pavilion 100 Map of cities and countries in the exhibition 104 Information about laboratories politics of digital in latin america Homo Faber 2.0 A political approach on the current state of production in Latin America Two decades have passed since the implementation, diffusion and development of the use of digital fabrication in the areas of Computer-Aided Architecture Design (CAAD) in Latin America. Throughout this period, different temporalities and specificities in the region became noticeable. The first opportunity to capture and understand a part of this process happened during the CAAD Futures 2015 Conference - “The next city”. From the initiative sponsored by professor Gabriela Celani (UNICAMP), professors David M. Sperling (USP) and Pablo C. Herrera (UPC) organized the exhibition “Homo Faber: Digital Fabrication in Latin America”, which presented works from 24 consolidated and emerging laboratories from six South American countries that had been created between 2005 and 2014. “Homo Faber 1.0” - how we call it - demonstrated for the first time to the world the potential of digital fabrication in Latin America. Conceived around the subject “Informing Materials and Materializing Forms” (Sperling and Herrera, 2015), this exhibition represented, until that date, the main effort to systematize, categorize and present processes and dynamics of digital fabrication in the fields of architecture, design and construction. After an inaugural period in the headquarters of the Associação Escola da Cidade in São Paulo, between 7 and 31 July of 2015, the exhibition moved to the Museu Exploratório de Ciências of UNICAMP, then to the Institute of Advanced Studies of the USP in São Carlos, and finally to the Convention Center of the UFSC. In 2018, a special selection of Homo Faber took part of the “Digital Craft in Semi-peripheral Nations” exhibition organized by the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), opened in Mexico City. Homo Faber 1.0 was designed, including a catalog, an audiovisual repository on the web and a set of digital fabricated objects using various digital programming and 9 homo faber 2.0 politics of digital in latin america manufacturing technologies under the inspiration of architects, designers, students and Ulrich Obrist, for whom an exhibition expresses possibilities of connectivity, of creating professors of architecture schools. Some recurrent categories of uses were identified bridges and networks between technology, politics and the community, driven by the in the set of projects: Prototyping of small objects, Fabrication of architectural models, perspective of the academia and the profession of architecture. Architectural components, Construction models and Fabrication of machines. Seven Winner (1980: p.121) argues that “no idea is more provocative in controversies about recurrent applications were also identified from the analysis of processes and results, technology and society than the notion that technical things have political qualities”. mentioning those from highest to lowest use: Design prototypes, Models of Architectural Technology, in its different forms, determines and defines conventions and imitations Heritage, Pedagogical objects, Components for the construction industry, Objects for of modes of production, of the tasks and the work that shapes society. As Winner said impaired people, Objects/processes for development of communities, Models for Art before (1977: p.2), “in one way or another, technology has been a central theme in and Museology and Machine Invention. This exhibition became an important milestone political thought for the past two hundred years”. In the case of architecture, Picon (2014: by identifying architecture as one of the professions that assumed new design processes viii) argues, based on Bruno Latour’s definition of politics (2004 [2000]), that digital and a dynamic role in uses of innovative digital tools in the academy: from 3D printing, the fabrication appears as a political issue because it regulates the relationships between most used technology, to the first explorations in the region using robots in architecture. men and their actions. However, even politicians fail to direct a sustainable connection In the context of the XXII Congress of the Iberoamerican Society of Digital Graphics between initiatives powered by technology and their intentions to serve the community. (SIGraDi/ São Carlos, Brazil - November 7th to 9th) that assumes “Technopolitics” as The chosen theme for this exhibition demonstrates how some uses of digital fabrication its central theme, Homo Faber 2.0 focuses on the “Politics of Digital in Latin America”. technologies, from their disruptive nature, impose new policies on processes, academic Montaner and Muxí (2011, p.65-66) argue that “political action from the architecture has programs, curriculum development, production lines, implementations, and adoptions. always existed, although there are professionals who deny such a relationship and who Than, the aim of this exhibition is to being bound to politics and society, showing the do politics by omission. If politics is the social organization of a group that is developed in potential of digital fabrication and its impact on communities, evidencing how the a space, depending on where it is acting in the creation of this space, it will be inclusive identity of the projects evolves the constant experimentation of form and material for or segregating, inclusive or exclusive, will be governed by the aspiration to redistribute the development of new products or the improvement of existent ones, from the object quality of life or according to the perpetuation of exclusion and the domain of powers. to the architectural scale. That is why architecture is always political”. From that approach, digital fabrication in architecture and design is no exception. Treré and Barranquero (2018, p.50-51) explained Homo Faber 2.0 also takes technology and politics as a reflection in Latin America of the that technopolitics in Latin America emerged in the second decade of the 21st century, consolidation of new technologies in the architectural production since the second decade although research throughout the history of technological artifacts or Studies in Science of the 21st century - as Gabriela Celani (2016) also pointed out when she reviewed some and Technology (STS) has been developed for more than thirty years. case studies that were shown in the first exhibition. Although the academy in the region promotes explorations with emerging technology, its progress is the result of the policy Since the second decade of the 21st century, digital fabrication has been part of the of those countries that have the most economic resources and research funding to make political discourse in various areas and was based on the “make almost anything” model it sustainable in universities and architecture studios (Sperling, Herrera, Scheeren, 2015). that Neil Gershenfeld promotes in the MIT’s Center of Bits and Atoms. To this is added the However, the dialogue between politics and technology is not only about science and political initiative of the “mass making” of Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang (Lindtner, technology investments, but about choices in uses of technologies and their assimilation, 2015, p.8) that incorporates Gershenfeld’s vision of the mass scale. In 2016, Shenzhen was themes and cultural characteristics of the work, knowledge produced and people already known as the cradle maker when

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