Being Material

"In 1995, MIT's Nicholas Negroponte predicted that "being digital" would have us entering a realm increasingly unconstrained by the materiality of the world. Two decades later, our everyday lives are indeed ever more suffused by computation and calculation. But unwieldy materiality persists and even reasserts itself. At the intersection of art, science and technology, "Being Material" revisits Negroponte's prediction by exploring new and unexpected convergences between the digital and the material in the practices of artists, designers, engineers and scientists who work with programmable matter, self-assembling structures, 3D/4D printing, wearable technologies and bio-inspired design. This book will radically intervene into the understanding of how material dynamics limit, expand, transform, and/or vivify our biological, social and political lives. "Being Material" will revisit the history of material science (particularly at MIT), contribute to "new materialism" in critical theory, and place both projects in dialogue with kindred and contrasting philosophy, art practice and critique. The editors and contributors refine and expand on such cross-field investigations by developing a contrast among five different material genealogical lineages: programmable, wearable, livable, invisible, and audible"--