Digital Reuse

3 units

From Rauschenberg’s Combines to the ancient architectural notion of spolia, the intelligent reuse of discarded or neglected material is a rich preoccupation in art and architecture. Practices of quilting, collage, montage, and kintsugi not only produce intricate and beautiful artifacts but also chart a fertile intellectual ground with deep epistemological implications. Today, AI, machine vision, reality capture, and 3D scanning and printing have changed the calculus of reuse, allowing artists and designers to apply emerging fields of research toward adaptive and generative armatures for reassembling loose fit or misfit material into new contemporary wholes. This course will introduce students to the theoretical, cultural, and technical foundations of applying digital technologies and generative processes to the reuse of waste, reclaimed materials, and adapted contexts. We will see waste as a dataset amenable to digital transformation, with material, geometric, and assembly constraints embedded in AI and computational processes. The course will be taught through a combination of theoretical, critical, and historical lectures, rigorous technical workshops, punctual guest lectures, and fields trips, with topics including 3D scanning, AI classification, generative geometry, and composite material design. The course will equip students to apply emerging digital technologies to imagine new, elevated, recombinant futures with radical reuse.