Body, Machine, Prompt

Abstract

This theoretical and design-oriented study explores new creative possibilities, based on “digital” coding, abstraction and randomness, through a cross-disciplinary methodology that integrates inter-semiotic translation and Research through Design (RtD). In a post-digital context, design no longer concerns itself exclusively with the final object but rather with the procedures and operational networks that constitute it. Assuming the transformation of notational systems in the performing arts of the late twentieth century as a precedent, the research transfers to design the idea of notation as a generative interface, capable of defining conditions and variations rather than describing a univocal outcome. The process is oriented toward the production of visual and textile artifacts, material and immaterial textures, and aims to connect distant and dissimilar semiotic universes, hybridizing digital technologies and handmade practices, in order to verify how the same coded structure can produce coherent families of outputs while changing medium and performer. From this perspective, randomness is treated as a design material and a strategic variable, distinguishing between physical unpredictability (body and surface), optical unpredictability (light and space), and algorithmic unpredictability (artificial intelligence [AI]) with the aim of demonstrating how these forms of variability can be localized and governed throughout the entire translational chain. The process unfolds through a series of operations involving digital decomposition and analog restitution, based on Socrate, symphonic drama by Erik Satie. The opera is fragmented and reclassified into digital schemes and new systems of representation that function as an “expanded score,” serving as tools capable of activating three novel creative processes: Nomadic, Sedentary, and Cybernetic.