Formafantasma and Martino Gamper among speakers announced for Milan FOMO talks

Formafantasma and Martino Gamper among speakers announced for Milan FOMO talks

Milan 2014: a series of talks will launch this afternoon in Nike’s Aero-static dome at Palazzo Clerici, forming part of the FOMO algorithmic publishing project organised by Joseph Grima with Dezeen.

Three afternoons of talks called On The Fly will kick off today with Clemens Weisshaar, Atelier Bow Wow, Folder, Linda Fregni and Bart Hess discussing the theme of weightlessness in design.

The talks will take place at Palazzo Clerici inside a dome created by Arthur Huang, founder of MINIWIZ, which uses Nike’s Flyknit technology to create a temporary events space.

They are free to attend and each afternoon the speakers will tackle a different theme related to design practice, presenting a minimum of two images to accompany their talk.

During the talks a real-time publishing algorithm – developed by Joseph Grima’s design research group Space Caviar and called Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) – will automatically create written articles from live speech and social media streams using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag.

Fear of Missing Out publishing algorithm_dezeen_5
The FOMObile in action at Palazzo Clerici in Milan

These will be collated in a PDF that will then be printed and saddle-stitched on the spot from the FOMObile – a roving publishing press with its own built-in power generator and solar-powered wi-fi hotspot. The resulting publication will be distributed for free in Milan and made available on the Dezeen website.

The On The Fly talks will be FOMO’s first test in a real-world environment. Anyone, anywhere will be able to take part by using the #OnTheFlyMilan hashtag on social media on Wednesday 9, Thursday 10, and Friday 11 April between 5.00 and 7.30pm CET.

Today’s event will be moderated by Joseph Grima, founder of Space Caviar and the former editor of Domus.

Talks on Thursday will be hosted by Gianluigi Ricuperati and will include Ianthe Roach, Pier Nucleo and Italo Rota, who will all discuss the theme “seamlessness”. On Friday, Marco Velardi will host Formafantasma, Martino Gamper and Anna Meroni talking about sustainability in design.

Scroll down for the full schedule for On The Fly:


9 April, Weightlessness with Joseph Grima

17:00 Clemens Weisshaar
17:30 Yoshi Tsukamoto, Atelier Bow Wow
18:00 Folder: Marco and Elisa
18:30 Linda Fregni
19:00 Bart Hess

Weightlessness will explore how external masses and strains, or lack thereof, shape the thinking and production of design. How does the experience of our environments impact on the design process? What does this mean for the final product? With a shifting landscape of outside forces, what does this mean for practice? What would freedom, or weightlessness, from this mean for our work and for us?

Formafantasma and Martino Gamper among speakers announced for Milan FOMO talks
Nike’s Aero-static dome created by Arthur Huang

10 April, Seamlessness with Gianluigi Ricuperati

17:00 Olimpia Zagnoli
17:30 Italo Rota
18:00 Pier Nucleo
18:30 Marco Raino
19:00 Ianthe Roach

Seamlessness will ask whether consistency is good for design. Is a process, or product, designed without interruption a good thing? Is a perfectly consistent object or idea something positive? What can the messy convergence or merging of technologies, processes or people add to a project? How do these transitions and interfaces of design change or challenge us for the better?

Formafantasma and Martino Gamper among speakers announced for Milan FOMO talks
The Nike Aero-static dome

11 April, Sustainability with Marco Velardi

17:00 Formafantasma
17:30 Brent Dzekciorius
18:00 Anna Meroni
18:30 Martino Gamper
19:00 Arthur Huang

Sustainability will take the practice of contemporary practitioners and explore the social, political, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability. What is the impact of designing sustainably? How do we sustain interdependence between process, products and disciplines? These conversations will attempt to understand the life cycle of design, and the flows of work systems.

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speakers announced for Milan FOMO talks
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"Software is now an integral part of a physical object" – Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

German designer Clemens Weisshaar argues that cutting edge software from race car engineering and hypersonic aircraft will underpin design in the future in this movie filmed at Dezeen Live during 100% Design.

In the movie, Clemens Weisshaar, one half of design duo Kram/Weisshaar, introduces the computer-controlled X-51 hypersonic test missile, which is designed to fly at several times the speed of sound.

“There are physical objects out there, including every Airbus aircraft, that wouldn’t fly anymore if you switched off the computer systems,” he says. “Software becomes an integral part of a physical object […] and that’s not even the future, it’s now.”

Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

Above: the X-51 hypersonic test missile

He then talks about an Audi race car created by engineers with whom he recently collaborated on a high-tech, ultra-lightweight chair.

“Those guys, they think completely differently – they really think of energy as investing energy in an object to make it very light, but then you need the return on the investment by saving energy afterwards,” he says. “Only if you break even and actually save energy after 100,000 kilometres on the road, only then is it worthwhile doing it. Otherwise, it’s a waste.”

Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

Above: an Audi race car

Weisshaar also criticises as “naïve” the idea that making furniture from wood is always the most sustainable option, and adds: “Design students these days tend to think that everything they can make with a cordless drill is amazing. That’s also naïve.

“The age of mass production hasn’t stopped – we’re more and more people on this planet, so we can’t customise products for everybody.”

Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

Above: Istanbul

Showing a slide of the Istanbul skyline, he comments on the Multithread furniture he showed at the Adhocracy exhibition during Istanbul Design Biennial, which has metal legs produced in a new 3D printing process.

“Now there’s technologies where you can actually melt on metals straight away and print metal objects straight away. That’s what we’re using – it’s called selective laser melting,” he says, adding that 3D printing with plastic has largely produced trivial objects like ashtrays and egg cups. “We don’t do the much-hyped 3D printing of plastics […] now there’s technologies where you can actually print usable objects.”

Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

Above: diagram of a lioness’ muscles and skeleton

He then shows an image of the muscular and skeletal structures of a lioness, explaining: “There’s so much chemistry, engineering, bio-engineering going on that nobody really understands it, not even doctors or biologists […] the big challenge of the 21st century is to control entire systems, complex systems, and understand all of it.”

Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live

Above: software analysing forces acting on furniture

The final slide depicts a computer program analysing the forces acting on a piece of furniture, which Weisshaar used to prototype pieces such as the chair for Audi.

“We take engineering code that lets us calculate the forces acting within an object, and we’re bringing that into design software we’re writing,” he explains. “We want to use it to see things that the eye can’t see […] in many cases you make assumptions, you think there’s a lot of strain on the joint there, but it’s not, it’s somewhere else.

“We’re using [this technology] for tables and chairs now because we think that tables and chairs really deserve this kind of attention,” he adds.

Weisshaar’s other work with designer and computer scientist Reed Kram includes computer-designed concrete stools and pedestals and eight robotic arms installed in Trafalgar Square.

Dezeen Live was a series of talks between Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs and a selection of designers and critics that took place at design exhibition 100% Design during London Design Festival this September.

Each of the four one-hour shows included three interviews as well as music from Dezeen Music Project. We’ve been posting all the movies over the past few days and you can watch all the movies we’ve featured so far here.

The music featured in this movie is a track called Business Class Refugees by Indian producer Earth SyncListen to more Earth Sync songs on Dezeen Music Project.

See all our stories about Benjamin Hubert »
See all our stories about Dezeen Live »
See all our stories about London Design Festival 2012 »

The post “Software is now an integral part of a physical
object” – Clemens Weisshaar at Dezeen Live
appeared first on Dezeen.