Thesis Archive

'losing control' experimentally explores the potential of control loss as a methodology for a multi-inclusive, post-anthropocentric design in which the vitality - the aliveness - of all participants is paramount. To address this, this work focuses specifically on mycelium, the root-like fiber tissue of fungi that has recently attracted industrial focus in research for ecologically sound products and materials. Thus, mycelium finds application in the development of new building materials, packaging, clothing or meat alternatives, but is dried, and therefore killed, in the production process.

COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed our usual ways of human interaction and highlights the demand for remote haptic communication since most restrictions relate to avoiding physical contact. Especially for international students and staff, having a physical hug from family and friends became an extravagant wish, because of the high travel costs and time-consuming. This research aims at realizing remote and real-time haptic communication with Hugging Suit, a novel Air Actuators Matrix and Pressure Sensor Matrix that produce in the McKibben muscle structure, two-point discrimination values, and E-textile and provide pixelated and programable haptic force to the upper body.

Resistance actions form temporary utopian microcosms of democracy within the existing systems. The physical, social and political atmosphere of these realized utopias - as proposed by Foucault heterotopias - are essential for expressing and reversing the existing social orders. Social movements transform their surroundings in various ways: through barricades, graffiti, murals, flyers, and vandalism. These changes in public spaces possess value for societal memory. However, they are temporary by their nature, as the system works to erase the reminders of the disobedience act from the public environment. Collective memories are tied to our surroundings; when surroundings change, the connection between memory and space gets lost. This project investigates the possibilities of creating non-linear and non-authoritarian narration by collecting memories attached to a public space. A palimpsest of a Social Resistance is a VR storytelling experience translating found images and videos of the Gezi Park protest into 3d objects and combining them with a series of interviews to tell the story with a documentary approach. This VR environment aims to start a discussion on the transformation of the city, preservation of collective memories, and other topics like civil resistance, democracy, and freedom of speech.

Through theoretical and practical investigations of encounters, intertwinings and methodological mannerisms of architecture and art, this Thesis defines the field between them. It consists of a series of written and empirical experiments, documented in the diary-based book format.