Photo credit: Nora Ryan

A disordered monolayer made of granular objects when connected together can reconfigure to generate self-supporting structures with complex, non-symmetrical curvature.

Lighting and optical effects within the “grains” generate patterns that encode a specific reconfiguration history, thus highlighting the material’s ability to “remember.” Amorphous Stories work is based on ongoing research at the Jaeger Lab on reconfigurable design matter, located at the intersection of physics, material science, and architecture.
Credits

Amorphous Stories, Self-Matter Exhibit, Ars Electronica 2024
Artwork: Noah Lawson, Baudouin Saintyves (supervisor) / Science : Baudouin Saintyves, Yuntao Gao, Heinrich Jaeger