The studio emerged at the intersection of materials and technologies in the and aimed at exploring the relationships between humans, apparatus and the act of making itself. We discussed the importance of the act of making as a process.  The metaphor of an architectural kitchen suggests the experimental nature of the studio, with a perpetual emphasis on making, regardless of its success or failure, where taste, ingredients and recipes are the drivers of knowledge making and sharing. The studio began with each participant’s experience of making in any context or form which helped expand the concept of making as a way forward in the process. In an ongoing generative movement that is at once itinerant, improvisatory and rhythmic, and may or may not have a finished end result; rather than a backward process from a finished object to an initial intention in the mind of an agent.

Through readings by texts of  Vilem Flusser’s essay ‘The factory’ and ‘Are we human’ by Beatriz Colomina & Mark Wigley the ideas of agency and apparatus were discussed with an historical review of tools, artifacts and their cultural relevance. Historically, the acquisition and transfer of knowledge is located through scriptures and other forms of literary records. Flusser believes an alternative approach of reading history through the spaces of manufacturing alongwith the artifacts and their making process itself holds a richer understanding of the culture, revolutions and life itself.

Here, the hand is the most primitive tool known to humankind which not only held its own agency in making but also ensured that the process of making happened with a constant engagement between human, environment and culture. With technological innovations, tools, machines and robots became subsequent simulations of the human hand. But the agency of humans here shifted to the programming and coding of the machines and robots whereas the agency of making became of the simulations. This participation of the human and non-human agency was discussed and explored through both research of existing practices, cultures and crafts; and material experimentations within this studio.

Continuing researches and experiments done in the previous years of the studio and the school, broadly two material experimentations were undertaken, 1) the gravity apparatus - exploring glass fiber and resin composites; and 2) additive processes to generate material forms. And 3) a research and analysis of the current material practices and locating the agency of making through human and non human means.