Exploring Filtering

In the week-long short project »Exploring Filtering«, Cluster member and interaction designer Thomas Ness, and textile designer Veronika Aumann dealt with the topic of Filtering with an open-ended mindset. The goal of this creative exploration of filtering processes was to gauge and express them in a practical and tangible way, respectively.

The point of departure for this was not a particular substance to be filtered or a specific substrate to be attained. Rather, the interest lay much more on the actual processes of filtering in and of themselves and the filter as an object. In the »Design Lab«, different kinds and methods of filtering processes were tested hands-on with familiar prototyping materials and techniques and transformed into six narratively and visually impressive representations.

The short project functions as a playful starting point for further discussion on the topic of filtering. The experimental installations illustrate different filtering processes, while also outlining each material activity.

A simple and open definition that served as a common foundation for the practical exploration was formulated in the project: Here, the crystallization of single aspects from a whole is meant by filtering. Thereby at least two distinguishable parts, states, or forms of a substance, separated from one another, are depicted.

One approach consisted of using substances that are often filtered, as filters (such as air or water), and to filter materials that are often used as filters (such as textiles or sponges). A further approach was to observe, as far as possible, the filtering processes as detached from certain outcomes, as well as to highlight a broad range of principles and effects. Through this, a unique attention to the filter and its transformation during the filtering process was developed.

Filters can be described by that which they filter, by that which they filter out, or else by the way in which they filter. All three methods of description provide access points to the topics addressed in this short project.

The six experiments (Color vacuum, Attraction, Color fan, Air bubbles, Liquification and Color filter) are attached to the Cluster’s three filtering methods (selecting, extracting, modifying) and emerge from mechanical or chemical processes.

What was noticeable during the entire design process was how fluid the transitions were into the filtering process of the three described approaches (what is filtered, what is filtered out, and how it is filtered) and how strongly this intersecting affected the creative experimentation.

__

Prof. Thomas Ness is a Cluster Professor for »Embodied Interaction« in the department of product design at the weißensee school of art and design berlin.

Prof. Veronika Aumann is a textile designer. She teaches at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart, does research in the context of the PhDArts Programme of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts in Leiden (NL) for her doctoral dissertation »Digitale Materialien«, and is a member of the Forschungskreis at the weißensee school of art and design berlin.