Epistemic Wall

Soroush Farzin-Moghadam, Assistant Teaching Professor || Architectural Engineering

2021-2022

Project Description

This art installation is an interactive wall with a translucent fabric structure and equipped with motors, which explores new forms of storytelling and engaging the community about WPI’s expanded global programs. Audiences could interact with the slow-moving surface, while a projector shows representations of data about global projects on the surface of the interactive wall.

The Epistemic Wall is an experiment for exploring the interface of physical reality and the digital World through an art installation. This interactive wall is composed of kinetic fabric equipped with motors to explores new forms of storytelling and engaging the community about WPI’s global programs. A simple wooden structure is used for the wall, while movable fabrics hung from the baseboard.

Sixteen movable fabrics in different shapes interact with audiences. Multiple sensors capture a user’s present and gesture while the projector superimposes images on the epistemic wall. Sixteen servo motors control positions of fabrics and create different configuration based on a user’s interaction. Interaction of an audience with Epistemic Wall can be used to explore the possibility of the Kinetic Architecture in shifting boundaries between the digital and physical world.

The Epistemic Wall is an experiment (research) for exploring the interface of physical reality and the digital world through an art installation.

Highlight the Experinece with the Global School

“The world is full of uncertainties; we, as academics, sometimes take our limited knowledge too seriously and underestimate the unknown. As a result, our predictive models or our good intentions have unexpected and disastrous results. In this art installation, I will explore interconnectivity of globals project, which together improve understanding of the complexities of the World.”

Soroush Farzin

Previous Global Lab Fellow