ACADIA Halifax 2007

a




b


Just shy two week now, myself and six of my cohorts (+) Professor Harrop visited Halifax for eight days, with the focus on participating in different workshops exploring emerging technologies and fabrication systems, as well as attending presentations at the ACADIA conference. On the side, though, I had eight days to make a great little adventure out of exploring the city, catching up with friends from Waterloo (also attending the conference and workshops), and venturing out to the South
Shore whose beautiful coast I had not set eyes (or stomach) on in fourteen years: Remember Peggy's Cove Ma?!


W O R K S H O P S



c


I was in the ceramics workshop, headed by Neil Forrest, Professor of Ceramics at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). The workshop was spread over three days, which included some presentations from visiting industrial artists and engineers R&D'ing sustainable systems (inc. Monty Stauffer, formerly resident artist and now employee at Kohler Arts/Industry Program, and Dr. William Carty from Alfred University researching sustainable ceramic wall systems), and time to get hands messy making clay forms for the press and slip moulds. Originally, the intent of the workshop was to work with the ram press (see video), but unfortunately, we never did. However, we did get to watch the NSCAD students go through the process of making moulds for the press.



Three days wasn't enough for me to go through iterations of mould making and form exploration, so I stayed on a few more days to keep working (thanks Neil for the extra time and space!). Two weeks ago, I knew very little about the make-up of ceramics and how it could enhance sustainable systems in architecture and other high tech industries. Now I know a little bit about ceramics, and would hope the learning curve keeps going up in the near future.

One way would be to try to integrate what I started making at the workshop into my own studio dedale work. I would be very interested to bring ceramic pipes into the beast mechanism of my MachinaKafe. Back in Halifax I made a mould of four generic forms of pipes. This is my first ever slip mould, and I should like to run some tests now that I back in the 'Peg.



d

a. The grain elevators at the Halifac Harbour. b. Thicket, Porcelain. Work by Neil Forrest, Professor of Ceramics, NSCAD, Halifax. c. Ceramic molecules: hexagonal in form, easy to compress and keep tightly packed. The molecules call trace sound vibrations and will organize themselves in a pattern according to the shapes of sound waves passing through the material. There is also a positive and negative pole to each molecule - ceramics can carry currents. d. my third attempt at mould making: four differnt pipes for a slip mould.

P R E S E N T A T I O N S

The second half of the week in Halifax was chalk full with Paper sessions and presentations of new research in "all things" related to the topic of "Expanding Bodies". There was a mix of professionals and academics presenting papers ranging from "The Ocean Tracking Network" to "Designing Mixed Realities: Principles, Projects and Practice". There were also a series of keynote addresses. Roy Ascott's was edgy and thought provoking. Others were not so hot...When the air the lecture room got stale my friends and I would take off on our "exploring Halifax" sessions - morning, noon and night!








Surreal Suburbia, Halifax, Gregory Beck Rubin October 5 2007