Designing Physical Artefacts from Computational Simulations and Building Computational Simulations of Physical Systems

Designing in the 21^st century often necessitates high-level knowledge or use of computational systems. In contemporary art and design practice these computational systems are frequently embedded in products that have a physical presence in the real world. The cluster was specifically interested in two types of computational systems known as Cellular Automata Systems and Multi-Agent Systems and how they could be used in design. Through the activities of the cluster a team of experts from a range of different disciplines, who had not worked together before, came together in order to design and specify a series of artefacts based around the use of computational simulation. The main aim of the cluster project was to form a new research community focused on simulation and digital art and design. Many members of the cluster gave their time freely to argue and consider the best way to build the Net Work prototype.