Eric Paulos on Plastic Dynamism
BCNM faculty member Eric Paulos recently presented a seminar at Stanford titled "Plastic Dynamism: Delightful Decomposition, Desetruction, Decay, Deformation, and Digestive Designs". In the talk, Eric describes a post-making process that extends past final static object — "not just in their making but in their unmaking". Eric demonstrates how through this unmaking, designs change over time alongside sustainability and re-usability.
From the seminar:
I don't want you to think about [plastic] in terms of that material. Think about plastic as something that is malleble or something that is elastic or something that has plasticity. This terminology comes from the futurists who wrote about this concept of plastic dynamism. They were talking about it at the turn of the last century as the idea of motion and static and the tension between them as you look at particular processes, materials or artistic proceses. They saw this tension as something quite interesting and compelling, and I want to draw that out as also this kind of poetic contention.
"Between real and ideal forms, between new forms and traditional forms, we have discovered a form which is variable, evolutionary, and quite different from any concepts which have existed up till now. We have discovered form in movement, and the movement of form. Only through this dual conception of form can we give a hint of plastic life in our work, without having extracted and removed it from its living environment, which would mean arresting its motion".
Watch the entire seminar here!