“Nyame Dua: On Natural Intelligence ”

Abstract:
This presentation shares a geometrical model of spacetime as a technical knowledge system drawn from ancient and archaic African sources that convey additional dimensions of space and reality for arts, science and design co-creation to reach and teach. Specifically, through a case study in collaborative art, architecture, design and engineering co-development we map a global network of academic and non-specialist participation to engineer and iteratively prototype across several generations a novel system for “crafting space”, demonstrating a hyperlocal, i.e., global-locally-networked, “transformal” approach to bridge the gap between grassroots fabrication and digital innovation in the West African context.

Nyame Dua is an Akan symbol — a class of related sayings and graphic link between physical and spiritual realms — that refers, in the Twi language of the Akan people to something akin to “Tree of God”: formed from a multi-pronged branch planted upright in a house or shrine’s courtyard, balancing a basin of water and talismans; a household altar — drawn from the forest, abode of ancestors — and installed within architecture, where it operates as an antenna enabling interaction with the spirit world, via æther, the fifth element, quintessence, expressing the energetic consciousness of space.

Bio:
DK Osseo-Asare is cofounding principal of transatlantic architecture and integrated design studio, Low Design Office, based in Austin, Texas and Tema, Ghana; associate professor of architecture and engineering design at Penn State, where he directs the Humanitarian Materials Lab, a research lab architecting materials for basic and advanced human well-being; and co-initiated the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform. His commissioned art and engineering design works exploring innovation in low-carbon archi-technology built at the human-scale have featured at arts and cultural institutions and biennales world-wide.