Materials Development as Transdisciplinary Research Process

Ab­stract:

This arti­c­le de­scri­bes the de­ve­lop­ment of a light-re­f­lec­ting con­c­re­te. Sin­ce 2009 the aut­hors ha­ve hea­ded the Bling­C­re­te wor­king group at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Kas­sel, Ger­ma­ny. This group, which brings to­ge­ther ex­perts from the fields of vi­sual art, ar­chi­tec­tu­re, in­ter­ac­ti­on de­sign, in­du­s­trial de­sign, ex­pe­ri­men­tal phy­sics, and ma­te­rials re­se­arch, is de­vo­ted to de­ve­lo­ping new ma­te­rial con­cepts. The Bling­C­re­te pro­ject be­gan as a se­ries of ar­tistic ex­pe­ri­ments with light-re­f­lec­ting ma­te­rials and the phe­no­me­non of re­tro­re­f­lec­ti­on. It is thus an ex­chan­ge in­i­tia­ted from the ar­tist’s po­si­ti­on, in which ways of kno­wing and wor­king that are spe­ci­fic to the sci­en­ces are har­nes­sed in or­der to po­si­ti­on and de­p­loy them in ar­tistic con­texts—and vice ver­sa. At the th­res­hold bet­we­en vi­si­bi­li­ty and in­vi­si­bi­li­ty Bling­C­re­te re­veals the con­tra­dic­ti­ons of ma­te­rial re­p­re­sen­ta­ti­on. The re­se­arch pro­ject picks up that th­read using such ob­ser­va­ti­ons to ge­ne­ra­te furt­her li­nes of in­quiry and re­con­cei­ve boun­da­ries. With mag­netic po­si­tio­ning we ulti­ma­te­ly de­part the spec­trum of the vi­si­b­le for the in­vi­si­b­le realm of na­no­s­ca­le elec­tro­mag­netic fields.

Key­words: Sur­face de­sign, re­tro­re­f­lec­ti­on, ma­te­rials re­se­arch, mag­netic po­si­tio­ning, art and sci­en­ce