I oAINFERSTUDIO is a digital design studio offering services in worldbuilding, editing, videography, VFX, and data
visualization, working with artists, architects, researchers, NGOs, film-makers, musicians and technologists to design visual
worlds that tell their stories.
Inferstudio also produces independent projects -
artworks, films and essays that focus on extended reality, personhood and identity, and Earth’s fragile landscapes.
Bethany
Edgoose, Co-founder and Director, is an editor, writer, and researcher. With a background in anthropology, her work
investigates the impact of digital technologies on new forms of personhood and identity. Before Inferstudio, she worked as
a cyber-security analyst and a nuclear security researcher. She graduated with distinction from the M.Sc in Anthropology and
Development at the London School of Economics.
Nathan Su, Co-founder and Director, is a designer,
technologist, and researcher. With a background in architecture, he works through virtual worlds to both speculate on possible
futures and reveal contemporary realities. He has recently worked as an advanced researcher for Forensic Architecture, and
has taught in architecture schools internationally, including at UCLA, the Architectural Association (AA), and Strelka Institute.
He studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and at the AA, where he received Diploma Honours.
Architecting
Matter(s)
From
c. 1200 as "a subject of a literary work, content of what is written, main theme;" sense of „arrative, tale, story" is from
c. 1300. Meaning "physical substance generally" is from mid-14c.; that of "substance of which some specific object is or may
be composed" is attested from late 14c. Meaning "piece of business, affair, activity, situation; subject of debate or controversy,
question under discussion" is from late 14c. In law, "something which is to be tried or proved," 1530s.
"events, affairs
of a particular sort," 1560s, from plural of
matter (n.).
"to be of importance
or consequence," 1580s
Architecture structures matter. In parallel, architecture engages with scales
of social and cultural matters, and today our living environments are increasingly augmented by digital processes, platforms,
and social media. Ultimately matter and matters reveal the health of our planet (1), observable by current technologies that
allow for an unprecedented spectrum of data gathered at nano or planetary scales. Hence, our notion of matter(s) encompasses
physical scales and processes beyond the visible, including the digital realm's immaterial building blocks and operations.
Interested
in cultural complexities and architecture's operations within it, the Sliver Lecture Series 2022/23, titled Architecting Matter(s),
presents material entanglements intertwined with networks of living things. As (architectural) design activities or investigations,
these engage with matter and matters simultaneously and beyond the borders of disciplinary thinking. From actionable idealism
of global operations to landscaping across vast territories, through the digital atoms of worldbuilding and back to physical
translations foregrounding spatial affairs, the series touches on what is the matter of/with ideas and realities we produce.
(1)
Seetal Solanki: Why Materials Matter: Responsible Design for a Better World
April 20, 2023: Rodia Valladares (Studio Gang)
May
25, 2023: Jeanette Kuo (Karamuk Kuo Architects)
