This past year set an exciting precedent for the intersection of technology and materiality, as highly innovative design products produced through material design practices activated cutting-edge technologies.

From projects that developed novel production materials for digital fabrication, to those that harnessed computational design to democratise material exploration and subvert digital surveillance, there has been no shortage of technological innovation in the materiality of art and design here. STIR has maintained a close focus on the space, shedding light on the most exciting projects and practices developing globally.

Here is our best of 2023, focusing on the intersection of tech and materiality.

1. Scarlett Yang's multidisciplinary practice synchronises on material tactility

Artist and designer Scarlett Yang approaches material as a programmable software. She works out of a studio in London where she creates otherworldly, translucent biodegradable design prototypes through her experiments with algae and silk proteins. She sat down with STIR in March this year to discuss her bio-design practice.

Yang experiments with these biomaterials to develop a substitute for 3D printing plastic resin, which behaves similarly to plastic but is biodegradable. Discussing what she finds the most exciting about biomaterials, she told STIR: “With a lot of biomaterials, you can engineer the properties. Say if I want to make this material into a couture dress then I can make it softer. Or a harder one that’s more sculptural. It’s all modifiable. All of these materials you can pick and choose, blend and collide. There is a perception that naturally-made colours have to be nude or beige, for example. But you can do so much more.”

2. ‘Polagons’: A tool for framing colour-changing mosaics

Ticha Melody Sethapakdi, a PhD student in electrical engineering and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) to create Polagons. In August, she sat down to discuss the digital tool with STIR. Polagons democratises access to colour-changing mosaics, which was hitherto a niche facet of mosaic art that was only mastered by a handful of practitioners such as the late American artist Austine Wood Comarow, who is credited with inventing a form of light art known as Polage.

Comarow tapped into birefringence, a property of regenerated cellulose, from which cellophane is made, which polarises the light passing though the material. The thickness of the cellophane affects the angle at which light is deflected, and when the sheets are placed in between two polarisers (materials which only allow certain polarities of light to pass through them), they appear coloured. Along with the thickness of the cellophane, their relative angle of placement to the polarisers also changes the colour one observes.

While most mosaic artists would have hitherto not been able to master a niche property of cellophane’s materiality the way Comarow did, this is no longer the case. Polagons allows users to design colour-changing mosaics from a set of templates they are presented with, before using 3D printing technology to bring these to life. They may also import their own templates, as well as their own programmable raw materials, which is a feature Sethapakdi added to ensure the greatest possible democratisation of the craft.

3. Cap_able: a wearable algorithm shielding the wearer from mass surveillance

Federica Busani, the co-founder and strategy lead at Cap_able, indulged in a conversation with STIR in August to discuss the Italian brand.

Cap_able’s three pillars are collaboration, awareness and people, and the brand creates garments that are meant to aid in the preservation of individuals’ rights in an increasingly tech-centric world by subverting digital surveillance systems.

Cap_able’s debut wearable design project Manifesto offered a line of knitted garments that use "adversarial images" resembling the pelts of animals such as giraffes, to mask their wearer’s biometric data against facial recognition technology, which is often deployed without the consent of individuals. Busani expanded on this, telling STIR, “By wearing a garment with a woven adversarial image, the biometric data of their face is either undetectable or associated with an incorrect category such as a dog, a giraffe or a zebra—almost as if sneering at the surveillance systems. The adversarial patches, that have until now only been printed, become one with the fabric’s texture through Cap_able’s patented method.”

4. Design thinker and AI proponent Ila Colombo in conversation with STIR

In August, STIR interviewed the highly celebrated design director Ila Colombo, who responded to our questions through her AI avatar. Colombo is the design strategist and AI prompt technician at Ross Lovegrove Studio in London, United Kingdom, where she works with the Welsh artist and industrial designer that the studio takes its name from.

Colombo pursues a product design practice that blends biomimicry design, which seeks to emulate natural systems and elements, with artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge facets of digital technology. She uses 3D printing technology to bring these designs to life, with her inspiration drawn from the natural world placed front and centre.

In her interview with STIR, Colombo expressed optimism about the effects of the coming AI revolution. She believes that there will be an “evolution of the workforce,” and her AI avatar told STIR: “While we may see a sharp decline in human agency where repetitive or rule-based tasks are concerned, new professional roles will also spring up as a result of the same technologies.”

5. Flora Miranda's 'ROUTER' explores the possibilities of code-driven fashion design

Flora Miranda is an Austrian fashion designer and the CEO of tech-fashion venture IT Pieces, which presented ROUTER at multiple venues across Antwerp, Belgium (September 29-October 29, 2023). IT Pieces works with corporate organisations to visualise data gathered over the course of their operations, transforming this information into wearable fashion.

Explaining the venture’s methodology, Miranda told STIR, “We connect data inputs to digital visuals that react to this data. The digital visuals are created to be directly linked to production techniques such as embroidery, knitting and weaving, among others.”

For ROUTER, IT Pieces collaborated with six companies, across sectors, to present the public of Antwerp with a boldly original fashion offering. These companies included Advantage Austria, KBC, Cegeka, Cresco, Myrrha and S(n)-Trackers, which each worked with Miranda and her venture, through sessions led by her, to create garments from their data.

These were some of STIR’s most interesting stories featuring projects and practices at the intersection of tech and materiality from 2023. From product designers that activated AI in their production processes, to fashion design that is grappling with digital rights, these stories speak to a high level of innovation currently unfolding.

Going into 2024, the future seems bright at the intersection of tech and materiality, and we at STIR look forward to bringing you the very best of the space.

STIR curates an enjoyable read of year-end round-ups, celebrating the best from the world of art, architecture, and design that STIRred 2023. Did your favourites make the list? Tell us in the comments!