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Material Culture: Performance in Design (2023-2024)

Materials in the built environment have deep histories and politics surrounding raw material location, sourcing, transportation, mechanization, installation and performance. Simultaneously, these materials have performative fitness characteristics that are structural, thermal and aesthetic.

This project team examined design materials through a historical and cultural lens. In the fall, the team created a variety of individual and group studies around specific material performance prompts. The prompts engaged contrasting material performance characteristics (opacity, strength, affect), cultural material affect (gendering, aesthetic) and application to design. Team members produced short films, written texts, photo essays and practical material studies. The team was also visited by a series of guest speakers, including practicing artists, a gallerist, a material librarian, a curator and a design/academic offered domain specific insights to the research group through invited talks.

In the spring, the team undertook comprehensive, individual material research projects and visited New York City to visit with built environment material providers, sources and producers. The outcomes from these projects included artworks, critical cultural studies and applied material studies.

Timing

Fall 2023 – Summer 2024

Team Outputs

Multimedia applied material studies, including photo essays, written texts, artworks and critical cultural studies

 

Image: Team members visiting New York City in March 2024

Team Leaders

  • David Brothers, New Jersey Institute of Technology–Hillier College of Architecture and Design
  • Augustus Wendell, Arts & Sciences: Art, Art History, and Visual Studies

Undergraduate Team Members

  • Robert Devoe, Art History (AB)
  • Yinjie Hwang, Environmental Sci/Policy (AB)
  • Charlotte Song, Economics (BS); GCT in Literature Progrm (AB2)
  • Wenzhi Wang, DKU-Interdisciplinary Studies (BA)

Team Contributors

  • William Fick, Arts & Sciences: Art, Art History, and Visual Studies
  • Stephen Hayes, Arts & Sciences: Art, Art History, and Visual Studies
  • Julia McHugh, Nasher Museum of Art