Up next this week in First Year student workshops on Thursday December 2nd, from 7-8:30pm ET is: Blob intelligence – Collaborating with Slime Molds in Art & Design, led by Parsons faculty Oliver Kellhammer
The common slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, is more accurately thought of as a kind of social amoeba and exhibits intelligent behavior, despite lacking a nervous system. Its ability to solve ‘shortest path’ problems and complex mazes makes it a fascinating organism to work with for the artist and designer. Applications range from designing transportation networks and biocomputing to more artistic endeavours such as transferring dendritic patterns onto ceramics and fabric or making amusing ‘Magic 8 Ball’ type fortune telling games. In this introductory workshop, Oliver Kellhammer will demonstrate simple protocols for working with slime molds, preparing agar, multiplying cultures and designing networks and mazes to keep it and its human collaborators occupied.
Head over to your New School email on Thursday for the Zoom link!
