Body Topologic

Team

Leonid Krykhtin
Ashwin Shah
Rana Zureikat
George Contalonis

Workshop

BODY TOPOLOGIC

Body topologic explores formation through non-linear processes of self-organisation in order to generate complex topologies. Working with non-linear dynamics, geometrical bodies are developed that generate surface and volume organisations in order to define a series of topological conditions. These organisations explored algorithmic notions of material intelligence whilst producing coherent complex orders by achieving a near-equilibrium rest or a dynamically stable state where by topological entities are made and broken.

We developed local organisations of elements that contain degrees of movement, resistance and elasticity similar to those developed with soda constructor. These organisations are generated through body design, and local decision-making abilities that allow bodies to interact with other similar bodies. Assigning agency to such bodies we focused on collective orders of organisation rather than on the individual bodies with the aim of dissolving individual expression in preference for higher global levels of order as topological and aesthetic conditions of emergence. Body topologic seeks to find an emergent order from the interaction between the worlds of material based non-linear physics, agent based design methodologies and the mathematical notion of topology as resultant complex and coherent field organisations. We operated through the writing and cataloguing of processing based algorithmic code coupled with Rhino/Maya modeling.

Explorations into swarm assemblies

“As fascinating as the idea of breeding buildings inside a computer may be, it is clear that mere digital technology without populational, intensive and topological thinking will never be enough.”