The Intelligence of Computational Design

Luciana Parisi in her chapter goes on to discuss the creative act towards novelty that comes from the nonhuman computational synthesis of logics and granular calculation of variations away from human cognition and perception based on given premises. The essay proposes an instrumental approach to design as a technology or a cognitive activity able to transform the environment by inducing new correlations of vast amounts of varied data flows. This chapter addresses the emergence of this neo-materialist approach as a symptom of a new conceptualisation of nature that no longer corresponds to the cybernetic view of an artificial system of feedback relations. It further suggests that there are some important inconsistencies between the computational conception of nature and the new rationality of the natural. Computational materiality implies a naturalisation of design intended as techne, or instrumentality, and defined not by logical aims, but operations, procedures and means that cut across strata, rules, forms and go beyond the specific constraints of each and any form.