Computer-driven media are changing our environment, delivering images, sound and kinetic objects with ever greater density. Given that increasingly complex information technology verges on the limits of intelligibility and manageability, we face the challenge of building and inhabiting our spaces in ways that can make sense to us individually and collectively. How can we build rich responsive environments for shelter, sociality or play? How do people experience computer-mediated environments that now include not only virtual reality games and experimental theater, but also classrooms, airports and public spaces? In short, how can we build a world that is not complicated but rich?

In order to answer these practical and conceptual challenges, the Topological Media Lab was established to study gesture and embodied use of hybrid computational-physical materials. Dr. Sha and TML researchers investigate how we build, inhabit and use sensate or active matter. By this we mean combinations of computational and physical materials sensitive to environmental features or activities, responding by changing their form or appearance. We say material because the emphasis is not so much on objects or devices, but on continuous substrates.

The experimental aspect of this work proceeds at two scales. The micro scale concerns topological responsive media, which includes time-based media and computationally-augmented fabrics. The macro scale concerns the architecture of responsive media spaces, which includes augmented reality, sensor-based interactive environments, projected and ubiquitous media.

The experimental approach is based on a critical, theoretical project which treats the world as a continuous ontology. Prof. Sha’s theoretical work explores the limits of discrete representation, finding alternatives to linguistic-semiotic analysis in the form of non-metric topological, dynamical, potential-theoretic and other material patterns. This theoretical project is informed by a material and social phenomenology. This investigation is substantively based in a fusion of computer science, science studies and critical studies of new media.

Intertwining scientific work with cultural practice gives meaning and context to guide the research. Prof. Sha and associates collaborate with fellow creators such as the sponge and FoAM art research networks to materialize these ideas as artifacts, installations and public conversations such as the TGarden responsive media spaces.

PROPOSED RESEARCH THREADS
We describe some of TML’s principal inter-related areas of research: gesture and performance, realtime media choreography, active garments, responsive media, hybrid architecture.