Digital Materiallurgy: on the productive force of deep codes and vital matter

This paper expands the discourse surrounding digital forms of making by scrutinizing the role of materials within computation, ultimately proposing a speculative working model that charts new territory. The growing importance of materials within technological research makes this an appropriate time to consider the nuance of their role within it. Currently, material innovation is happening along two central tracks: the customized cutting, sculpting, and forming of conventional materials with Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) fabrication equipment and the development of new materials through innovations in material science. Both tracks rely on a limited set of material protocols which enable process-based control and eliminate the intrusion of any unpredictable material variable. Although efficient, such an approach limits architecture's ability to procure novel material engagements. A few designers are developing an alternative model where computational codes are coupled with eccentric materials to produce unusual results. Digital materiallurgy, as I have called it, is part technique and part attitude, it relies on intentionally ceding limited design control to unpredictable matter thus capitalizing on matter's innate ability to produce unexpected formal and material complexity. Digital materiallurgy identifies the intersection of computation and eccentric materiality as a departure point for architectural innovation. By purposefully inserting material heterogeneity and inconsistency into computational means and methods, this work pries apart the apparently seamless relationship between digital design and physical production. By blurring the distinction between physical material and digital form, this work offers an integrated aesthetic experience, one that fetishizes neither the virtual nor the vintage but fuses both into a richer, wilder present