Reading & Thinging #2

28 January 2016

On Parapoetics and Paramechanics

In this session we explored Parapoetics and mechanical systems as ways to approach non-human, non-anthropocentric reading and writing systems.

Readings for this session included texts by Morten Søndergaard, Aaron M. Moe, a rawlings and Alfred Kempe, as well as machines from the Cornell University Kinematic Models Digital Library.

We also built a simple system for creating and exploring different types of linkages, and straight-line mechanisms.

Reading and Thinging is an informal get-together that crosses a reading group with a ’show and tell’ session – exploring different themes in philosophy, science and culture through a curated reading list and discussion of objects.The project is a collaboration between current FACT PhD researchers Alex Pearl and Sam Skinner, and FACTLab residents Thiago Hersan and Radamés Ajna, as an opportunity to make different areas of research, like philosophy, media theory and robotics, open and accessible, and to develop a community of readers, thinkers and thingers! that mixes theory and making.