Tag Archives: MIT

The Phoenix Rising: 3D Printing and Design Immortality

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Amit Zoran, MIT Media Lab
Tamar Rucham

“Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness…”

Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren

I am interested in the story of objects, both physical and virtual ones. While physical artifacts are ephemeral and mortal, without permanence, virtual objects transcend this limitation, attracting us by the new possibilities they introduce into our lives. I am interested in this dichotomy, and the story of objects, freedom and immortality, as illustrated in this story:

Amit:  I met my wife Tamar at Bezalel, the Israeli Academy of Art and Design. She was studying jewelry making, while I was working on my Master’s in design. Back then, Tamar specialized in silversmithing, making one-of-a-kind rings using hand tools. Improvising while working, Tamar made unique objects, which I admired, varying from figurative artifacts to abstract shapes. Continue reading →

Design Tools for the Rest of Us: Maker Hardware Requires Maker Software

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Ryan Schmidt, Autodesk Research
Matt Ratto, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

The evolution of computing is in large part driven by the development of novel hardware capabilities, which can only be fully exploited by new types of software interfaces. This is particularly evident in the early history of digital fabrication, where the development of CNC machines at MIT lead to an interest in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) tools, essentially to “create content” for this new hardware. Sutherland’s seminal SketchPad system [Sutherland63] – and hence the first Graphical User Interface – was one of the fruits of this endeavour.
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