DESIGNANO SEMINAR – IMERA MARSEILLE

“Designano – The Aesthetics of imperceptibility” is a research project developed in the frame of a fellowship at IMERA Marseille (IAS of Aix-Marseille University) aiming at deciphering the paradoxical nature of nano-objects and their performativity across scales.

We live today in a world where research on nano-scale materials promises to revolutionize the near future. Nano-fibers of a myriad of materials will be soon part of the unseen infrastructure that will shape our world, our knowledge, and even our bodies. The main focus of the project is to understand the issues that design will face by using nano-technologically produced and/or treated materials. Interdisciplinary collaborations have shown that there is need for a better understanding of what defines a case study from both a technical and a social point of view. This seminar attempts to add another layer to already existing design engineering tools related to the material selection processes (Ashby, 2004) and materials experiences research (Karana, 2010; Miodownik, 2007), by focusing on scenarios of use and human- materials interaction.

Nano sized objects are not directly perceived by the senses. However, their way of existence depends on the practices and instruments necessary for their coming into existence (i.e. TEM – Transmission Electron Microscopes, STM – Scanning Tunneling Microscope and AFM – Atomic Force Microscope). The fact that atoms and molecules’ way of existence cannot be detached from the tools that enable us to visualized them, pushed several authors to point out to the aesthetic and mediated dimensions (through representation, microscopic manipulation, etc.) involved in the scientific study and the production of nano-objects (to name just a few: Lorraine Daston, 2010; Bernadette Vincent-Bensaude, Sacha Loeve, David Goodsell, Ljiljana Fruk). This paradoxical relationship asks for a closer scrutiny of the nature of ‚intellectual‘ and ’sensory‘ knowledge (Pomian, 1998) and puts into question the theoretical models used until recently in the definition of physical objects.

Although there are a series of studies on the epistemological approaches in the field of nano-sciences (Bernadette Vincent-Bensaude, 2009, 2011), there is still concern about the changes that occur in the field of the product design discipline when dealing with nano engineered materials. As a constructivist discipline, design is caught in the middle between fabrication constraints and meaningful applications. The conceptualization of materials as “machines” (see the research on “molecular machines” lead by Nobel Laureates Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir James Fraser Stoddart and Bernard (Ben) L. Feringa (2016) provides both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities are related to adaptive and performative materials. The challenges reside in an approach of materials as tools, upsetting the traditional idea of inanimate matter that has to be modelled. In this context, the well-established crafts-based pedagogies are to be revised, placing the performativity at their center. Still, one might ask how the performativity could be addressed from a constructivist point of view, and how it acts between scales.

Given the increased number of researches in the field of materials which are about to shape the world we will live in, the understanding, the control and the regulation of new materials require the involvement of aesthetics and design methods and approaches. In this sense, the proposed seminar aims to go beyond the already existing design engineering models that are focusing their research tools on material properties (materials characterization) and manufacturing processes and materials selection (Ashby, 2004) and less on scenarios of uses in relationship to these performative materials.

In order to address these issues, the present seminar will focus on two aspects: the nature of images and aesthetics in the nano-sciences, as well as the issues related to the contexts and situations of use across scales. The addressed issues will be related to the mediated nature of nano-moieties and molecules, the difference between the characterization of materials versus the contexts and the situations of use across scales, and the performativity across scales.