PROGETTI AUTOMATICI WORKSHOP
Facoltà di Architettura, Università di Trieste, Gorizia, Italy, 2012

Coordinators: Aleksandra Jaeschke, Salvo Pappalardo


“What can a body do?“ this question serves as the basis for one of the most groundbreaking philosophical constructs, Spinoza’s practical philosophy. 
We attempted to ask the same question experimenting with a very common material, paper. We tried to release its potential examining it in a direct way, without mediation, without interpretation, without imposing our will, simply treating it as a material field capable of expressing itself purely on the basis of its intrinsic qualities.
What does a sheet of paper want, what can it do? How does it express itself?
We tried to understand the behaviour in performative terms, analysing material properties and applying operations to trigger specific effects. We observed self-organizing tendencies, identified parameters, defined valid intervals, registered maxima and minima. We followed bifurcations to trigger yet other effects. We applied local transformations to trigger global effects.

We witnessed crises and catastrophes, but we transformed them into new opportunities.
The work resembled a gym workout, a series of precise exercises to perform on paper and to be performed by paper. We acted to understand and perfect our actions in order to learn from paper and with paper.

Components. Sheets of paper.

Connectors. Adhesive tape. String. Paper clips.

Operations. Folding. Curving. Cutting. Fixing. Weaving. Piling up. Twisting. Etc…

Transformations. Moving. Rotating. Copying. Mirroring. Aligning. Scaling. Arraying. Etc…

Dimensions. One-dimensional – Ordering a system along a line.
Two-dimensional – Expanding a system across a surface.
Three-dimensional – Expanding a system across space.

Tools. Needles. Stapler. Scissors. Cutter. Pliers. Punch. Camera and tripod. Computer.


The workshop was coordinated with participation of Giulia Favi and Francesco Tuppo (Università di Trieste).