00:00The title of the show is AAA, Experiments in AI, Arts and Architecture, and the idea
00:16behind it, as the title says, is that it is mainly a big experiment over the next, what's
00:22that, four or five months to January.
00:26It is AI, art, and architecture because I was working at the ETH in the AI center and
00:34built up an AI and art program, and Daniel had this idea of having a school of schools
00:42or an academy of academies, and we were talking about this for a while, and then, like, first
00:49he wanted to invite a couple of different schools, and then finally we came up to the
00:53point where we said, let's just do the AI, art, and architecture experiment school, so
00:59to say.
01:00And with my job at the ETH, which is over now, I had access to a lot of different faculties,
01:06so I was visiting a lot of these faculties trying to see who's interested in art and
01:12who uses AI in what field, and out of this we could then extract different professors,
01:18faculties, labs, researchers, to come here and do seminars, and also to do public talks
01:26during these four months.
01:39So the experiments have, I wouldn't say chapters, but maybe like four elements.
01:44One of them is a big stage, it's called Mehrwerk, which has been done by the Lab of Circular
01:52Engineering and Architecture, where they reuse material to build this stage or tribune.
02:00And the idea over there was, at the very beginning, that Daniel and I said, we need a seminar
02:06space in the Kunsthalle for these seminars that will take place, which is the second
02:11element, and so we asked Katrin de Wolf, professor of the Circular Engineering and
02:16Architecture, to build a pavilion, and this is now, let's say, the first very strong element
02:25of the experiment.
02:28The second part is, as I mentioned, seminars, so there will be weekly seminars where we
02:34basically invited different professors from the ETH to do the seminar here at the Kunsthallen.
02:43So there's one on Tuesday afternoon, which is with Vanessa Schwarzkopf from the Circular
02:48Engineering and Architecture Lab, there's one on Wednesday morning with Philipp Ursprung
02:54from the Theory of Art and Architecture, Theory and History of Architecture, then there's
03:00one with Tiziano Derme from Professor Dillenburger's lab, where it is about using mushrooms and
03:07mycelium networks for construction material in the inside.
03:13Then on Thursday there's one that I am giving in the, that's the Department of Information
03:20Technology and Electrotechnics, and it's computer scientists, I don't know the clue of computer
03:24science, but I'll work with them on the idea of creative thinking.
03:30And last but not least, Daniel, we appointed Daniel now, Baumann, to be a lecturer at the
03:35ETH in the Architecture Department, and he is doing a course or a seminar which is called
03:42the School of Subcurating.
03:45And this School of Subcurating will then create another element, also the seminars, which
03:50will be small exhibitions happening during this time.
03:55So with the School of Subcurating, the students will present art projects that have been published
04:01already in magazines and use these magazines and books and online publications to create
04:07an exhibition, basically bring it from 2D into 3D again.
04:13Also Tiziano Derme will present, together with the students, models of constructions
04:20where you have mushroom growing around them.
04:23So it will be four terrariums, which have also been now shown at Ars Electronica a couple
04:30of weeks ago.
04:32And also Vanessa with her students will be experimenting on how to construct playgrounds
04:38and use generative AI as a creative medium for architecture.
04:44And the fourth element, and that's maybe the most public one, is that we have every Thursday
04:51night, always at seven o'clock, starting on the 10th of October, we'll have professors
04:57and artists engaging in conversations from a lot of different departments.
05:03So it's from, it will be the first one is Eleni Khadzi from Structural Mechanics and
05:07Monitoring.
05:08We'll have somebody, Inge Hermann from Nanoparticle System Engineering.
05:12We'll have Bob Samner and Fabio Zünd from the Informatics and Game Technology Center
05:20and so on.
05:21There's like a lot of evenings happening like that, yeah.
05:25We'll also have artists like Yaniv Oron doing sound or Ljot Grever who works with robots
05:32painting them or Alexander Mordvintsev who's from Google Deep Dream who developed one of
05:38the very first generative AI programs.
05:43So yeah, the experiment means that one has to come a lot of times, basically every Thursday
05:49and dive into these different worlds of research and art.
06:19So here we are reusing old materials from former ateliers from the ETH campus and as
06:44you can see there are former trusses from a roof and now they are transformed into a
06:49seating element.
06:50Yeah, the idea of these former pavilions that were built on the campus of Angerberg is that
06:54they could be used temporary and then disassembled and reused but it's not really what happened
07:00to them and here what we're trying to show is that we can use these materials over several
07:04cycles and build different structures with them.
07:07So everything is thought in the detail so that we can reuse the material several times.
07:12In particular the trusses, we try to as much as possible not drill or cut into them so
07:18all the joints are kind of bracing them in a way that they're not harmed and we can really
07:24reuse them as many times as possible.
07:27And then at the same time it serves as a kind of platform for all the students to sit next
07:32fall semester so we will have all our lectures here and all our courses and also other courses
07:37from different professors that we will teach here and also build something with the students
07:42together which will be also then part of the exhibition.
07:56So starting actually now we will design with the students playgrounds and every student
08:04group will do a playground element and then all together it will be assembled as a playground
08:09and they will use all certain types of digital advantages.
08:15So we will use AI, we will use computer vision and XR and many different types to kind of
08:22see the transformation of a circular design or circular design strategies and so this
08:27is what we will do with the students and the final design will be these playgrounds.
08:41The idea is a bit that we kind of touch the surface of everything so the students get
08:47to know everything they can work with later so they kind of get introduced to all of these
08:53ones.
08:54Of course we in our lab we are using those tools in a more specific way but with the
09:01students we kind of wanted to introduce them to these technologies to kind of have the
09:05first step so it sounds complicated but the course will not be so complicated so we will
09:11do it like a low threshold so everyone can participate.
09:25So we are both working for Catherine de Wulf in the lab for circular engineering for architecture.
09:30I'm doing a PhD on generative AI for circular design strategies.
09:36I just started so the specifics will come a bit later but we are all working on a different
09:45type of technology and so I'm working on generative AI and I have a background in architecture
09:50so it's more about how does generative AI kind of shape the design of circular design
09:56strategies.
09:57Is it even possible to use it for circular design and yeah.
10:09I think there's been like definitely a rising interest over the past decades or so in trying
10:13to implement circular design in the industry.
10:16Of course there's many challenges with that on the sourcing of material, the storing,
10:21matching demand and availability and I think it's one it's actually the mission of the
10:26lab to try to find solutions for that to really implement in the industry these circular methods
10:32and the way the lab is doing this is through digital tools and trying to find how different
10:38digital strategies can actually help this transition and this implementation of circular
10:43design in the industry.
10:45So that's also what the class is going to be trying to introduce the students to different
10:50digital tools that can help towards the transition and the pavilion is also a kind of demonstrator
10:56as a first step towards this direction.
11:00So this is basically an experiment to see how it goes, how we can reuse materials, what
11:05are the limitations, what kind of problems do we have to solve so it's more like a smaller
11:13scale project but of course we want to upscale it so that would be great.
11:18So it's a first step.
11:29I mean especially the architecture and construction industry is the industry that is most harming
11:37the earth so I think it's one of the main sectors that we really have to shift towards
11:43a more sustainable thinking.
11:45Yeah there's definitely a crisis in the mind of architecture students who know they are
11:49being trained to design buildings but these buildings are using resources and like Vanessa
11:54said harming the environment and so I think in this moment material reuse and circularity
11:59comes as a very interesting direction for students to actually find a meaningful way
12:04to engage and to use their design skills and training in a way that's more sustainable
12:11and that makes sense for the future of this industry.
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