I make design tools for building-scale sculptures composed of soft, textile structures. A central objective in my work is to discover novel ways that traditional craft can be transformed with emerging technology. As the Senior Designer and Project Manager at Studio Echelman, I have developed a large library of computational tools, which have helped transform artist Janet Echelman’s design process from guess-and-check simulation to one led by inverse form-finding, loom optimization, and documentation automation.
Collaborating with the engineers of the world’s tallest building, a team of mathematicians, fiber craftsman, and designers, I have led changes in the studio’s production away from the shaping of nets through cutting with shears, towards shaping via encoding dimensions into the looming process. This significantly reduces waste, accelerates fabrication, and strengthens the structure of artworks. Aesthetically, these tools made possible the controlled and complex forms that I designed for Janet’s most complex work to date, Butterfly Rest Stop (2024).
While working with Janet, I have independently produced technology-oriented artwork commissioned or supported by organizations including Google, Epson, the City of Boston, MIT, the ZERO Foundation, CICA Museum, University of Notre Dame, University of Cincinnati, Illuminus, SIGGRAPH, La Festival Internacional de Linguagem Eletronica, Cyberarts, and others.
Each project serves as an opportunity to experiment with new representational systems. A large ink painting commissioned by Google, Mouse, offered an occasion to explore the programming of gesture into a CNC machine. Commissioned during the Covid lockdown, House Divided enabled me to play with generative variation through the simulation of countless permutations of my apartment interior. Similarly, Expansion, a projection-mapping of an iconic Boston landmark for Illuminus, provided the chance to craft an interactive link between pedestrians and the built environment.From computational textiles to generative environments, my curiosity towards the systems that underlie creative media is an enduring thread in all my work.
Email: smithalexanderdaniel @ gmail.com
