Design Research_ Material Deception
The project explores the concept of authenticity and illusion by investigating the technical and material aspects of deception. It considers the dichotomy that for there to be invention, there must be artifice, revealing a link between the synthetic, artificial, imitative, counterfeit, and the potential for invention and originality. Using a crash test dummy as a tool to examine material deception, the project employs computer animation based on actual test results from the MIT Transportation Center. A genetic algorithm in a computer simulation represents the notion of material deception. The dummy’s reaction to crash force bends the surrounding space, visualized through deceptive simulation, while parametric controls offer alternative models. The same information used for the computer simulation can also guide the fabrication of the physical production.
