This project technologically, conceptually and above all creatively explores the idea of the "double”, diving deep into the world of doppelgängers, copies, fakes, reflections, twins, reuses, shadow images, skeuomorphisms, data decay and avatars. The aim is to test the emerging potentials of augmented and mixed reality (AR and XR) for designers: firstly for the design process, but also for the (digital and/or analog) manufacturing process and the use of products in the age of their technological reproducibility and variability.
The semester will kick off with lectures (e.g. by Paula Strunden) on the topic and an excursion to several "doubles" in and around Weimar. In a first task, you will immediately get hands-on by designing and producing "shifted doubles": existing objects and furniture from the excursion that will be reinvented, varied, or deconstructed using the “wrong” material and/or manufacturing method. In a second phase, the "Digital Doubles" are introduced: digital models that enter into dialogue with physical artifacts as optically superimposed manufacturing instructions, as parallel worlds to be manipulated, or as visualized extensions of a physical fragment.
"Doubles" is accompanied by two project-integrated workshops: "Low-Threshold Grasshopper for Designers" (Sofia Fernandez) and "Accessible Robotic Filming and Fabrication" (Michael Braun). In addition, it will be flanked during the first half of the semester by the skills module "Mixed Reality for Designers" (using the Rhino plugin Fologram, among others) and theoretically underpinned and reflected throughout the semester in the theory module "Computerized Materialization 2.0: Paradigms, Processes and Practices”.
Lecturers: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Thomas Pearce, Philipp Enzmann