School of Stickiness (ongoing-

School of Stickiness (S.O.S) is a research project that investigates the materiality and metaphorical implications of stickiness. Ranging from the way cells stick together and maintain their own shapes while constantly being under pressure as organisms breath and divide and procreate; to the way metaphors stick onto our human consciousness as we process our experiences. The project explores the potential and limit of thinking, living life in a (more) viscose reality.

With the advancement of (bio-)synthetic and digital technology, the question of what constitutes a (human) body sets the ground for what kind of future we envision. As part of the longterm tragectory of S.O.S, Interfacing Stickiness is a (digital) design fiction project revolving around the metaphor of stickiness in the digital and material context. The world we live in is (more) sticky than we thought, every contact leaves traces. Due to the sensitivies required to tune in different timescales, we as human lack what I consider a sticky literacy. Such literacy is essential as we experience the fading boundary between technology and the body. To cultivate this literacy, I am guided by the multimodal understanding of metaphors, which considers the way metaphors work beyond linguistic expression. We conceptualizes our experiences drawing from previous (fundamental) metaphors that adhere to us(repeatedly). By engaging with stickiness repeatedly, we can cultivate a sticky metaphor through which our specific experience can guide our (future) experiences.

This project includes a collaborative research embedded in the Koenderink biophysics lab at the department of bionanoscience at TU Delft, where I will follow researchers  that study how specific protein contributes to the formation and maintainance of cells by building synthetic model structures that mimic cell environment. 

This collaborative research is coupled with a routine material research with (bio-)polymers, everyday sticky materials, biofilms, electronic skin. And an archival and textual research across the plane of cinematic history of body horror, interface design, theories of embodiment (particularly about skin, immunity and identities) and contagion theory of (digital) communication. In October 2023, this project will have its first public presentation in the form of an "Inescapable" room.