Milan Design Week was crazy and I am still processing!!
Over the past week, I got to share Of Curves and Hands, a project exploring kolam-making through gesture, plotters, code, and impermanence, with hundreds of people from completely different backgrounds and contexts as part of Prototype Island at Milan Design Week 2026.
The work is an extension of Anatomy of a Kolam, an ongoing research project I began during my time as a Design Research Fellow with the Singapore Art Museum’s SAM Design Collection. In the MDW version, visitors could create kolams through hand gestures, which were then added to a growing repository of kolams made by 3 plotters each equipped with self-erasing markers.
Very grateful to everyone who stopped to talk and share their thoughts with me throughout the week, and also to everyone who simply zoned out next to me watching the machines draw for a while.
MDW became a deeply valuable learning experience. On a practical level, the installation itself was complex to set up (4-1 plotters and an ungodly amount of cables; I was fully in cable management hell for a bit, huge kudos to the amazing production team for their help). But beyond that, explaining the work to a completely new audience constantly shifted how I thought about the project. I kept making small tweaks to the system, my explanations, and my conversations every day, treating the exhibition like one long user-testing opportunity. Reminder to self that my work and practice is constantly evolving; always under construction.
Thank you so much @hunnwai , @eiannnnn , and @designsingapore for this opportunity, thank you to the amazing exhibition team @lanzavecchiawai and thank you to all the lovely designers who were also part of Prototype Island for being such great company and huge inspirations!! (And lastly, @akasegaonkar for all the help!!)
Arrivederci, ciao, until we see each other again!!
First two images courtesy of Mark Cocksedge.
Can a machine learn a cultural ritual without taking away its human touch?
Exhibiting at 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱, Aditi Neti’s 𝘖𝘧 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 is an interactive installation that translates the gestures of 𝘬𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘮 making into mechanical drawings. Visitors are invited to guide the process with their own hand movements, generating traditional geometric line drawings through a computational system. By preserving variation, rhythm, and imperfection, the work explores how technology might reinterpret cultural continuity in unexpected ways.
Each interaction produces a physical drawing while contributing to a growing collective archive – a record of many hands participating in a shared ritual.
This work is part of “Anatomy of a 𝘒𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘮”, an ongoing research project by creative technologist and design researcher Aditi Neti (@functionditi ), whose hybrid practice explores how fluid cultural systems can collaborate with rigid computational processes.
Plan your visit to Milan Design Week 2026, and experience 𝘖𝘧 𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 in person.
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱
Exhibition: 21 - 26 Apr 2026, 10am - 7pm (CEST)
Singapore Night: 22 Apr 2026, 7pm - 11pm (CEST)
Panel Talks: 21 - 22 Apr 2026
Foro Buonaparte 54, Brera Design District
Free admission
Visit bit.ly/dsgprototypeisland to learn more.
Images courtesy of Aditi Neti.
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𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦 𝘐𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 is a showcase presented by the DesignSingapore Council, curated by Hunn Wai and Eian Siew. Open from 21 - 26 April 2026 during Milan Design Week, the showcase unfolds across three themes to holistically examine what it means for a country to treat itself as a living prototype.
#DesignSingaporeCouncil #MDW2026 #MilanDesignWeek #PrototypeIsland
I haven’t sketched or drawn in a long time. This wasn’t the case in 2018: back then, my most prized possession was my Prismacolor pencil set of 72. (If there was ever a fire in my Bangalore home, I would have probably ditched my passport, but taken the pencils.) Of course, since then, though I’ve embraced a career in the creative industry, I find myself with no time to sketch anymore, jumping headfirst into design softwares and code instead.
@anaslara__ and I moved into our current place a year ago. We call it ‘notboathouse’, because it is not a boathouse, and also not in the apartment Boathouse Residences on Upper Serangoon View.
We spent a lot of time and effort thrifting furniture on Carousel (and not-thrifting at IKEA) to make a very colourful living room. A lot of our time is spent here: eating, working, entertaining, procrastinating. When my dad visited, he repeated multiple times: “You have turned this HOUSE into a HOME!”
Anyways, this place tingled the sensors in my brain and made me crave sketching with my Prismacolors again. Around February I gave myself about 20-30min a day to just attempt to preserve this safe haven, albeit rough and scribbly and imperfect, in my sketchbook.
I won’t be in this place forever, but this place will forever be in my heart!! And most importantly, special credit to Ana who adds even more color to the scenery.
HAPPY ONE YEAR IN NOTBOATHOUSE!
How do I make my AxiDraw (truly) draw a kolam?
What I’ve learnt over the years spent with my best (robot) friend- precision is easy for the AxiDraw. However, it lacks the small improvisations that add value to a hand-drawn kolam. It does not vary slightly in response to breath or balance, like a human might. At best, my AxiDraw might serve somewhat as scribe, replicating a design that I feed to it, or tell it to compute a pattern using a DFS algorithm. Yet, unless its motions emulate the nuances produced by the human hand, I do risk reducing the kolam to a static output rather than preserving it as a living practice through tech.
Maybe a positive way to look at things- this disjunction is not necessarily a failure. It can become a site of inquiry. When I use the AxiDraw, the act shifts from drawing by feel to drawing by instructions. While the machine itself doesnt always mistakes; the system does. The rice batter smudges, my cotton applicator doesn’t lift high enough, the rubber band I use to tie it to the AxiDraw slips because it is wet!
Materiality is another thing- with the AxiDraw, I made Maavu Kolams or wet rice Kolams. I’d soak the rice overnight and grind it to form a paste. This paste would change in consistency over hours or even a few minutes, and not even once did I really achieve a smooth consistency over one kolam batch.
These flaws and surprises are not bad, but maybe serve as a different way the ‘human touch’ lives on through the machine. Maybe this whole AxiDraw system redistributes that intention across code, tool, and chance. A plotter-made kolam still starts with choice and curiosity; the pattern changes, but the spirit of making stays. At least, that’s my conclusion.
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This is part of ‘Anatomy of a Kolam’, a project undertaken as part of the inaugural 2024-25 cycle of the Design Research Fellowship. (Organised by SAM Design Collection, an initiative of Singapore Art Museum, this new platform supports alternate pathways for and forms of design(-adjacent) research.)
Images of Still Rendering: Projects by the 2024-25 Design Research Fellows are courtesy of Singapore Art Museum. Photos by Marvin Tang.
How does one draw a kolam?
The kolam is a sight familiar to me, adorning many a threshold in many a household in Bangalore. A series of lines snaking around a set of dots. (For those who may not know, a kolam is a traditional South Indian floor-drawing practice made with rice flour, often created daily in front of homes as a form of ritual and welcome.)
However, the question of how I would actually begin to draw one eluded me. I knew it neither in a practical nor a theoretical sense, I didn’t know how to begin.
Therefore, a visual study became essential as my starting point. I had to observe not just the outcomes, but the gestures: pinched flour between fingers, bent-over and crouching women tracing symmetric patterns from memory.
This interactive collage, or limited archive, was my way into understanding the embodied knowledge behind kolam making. It contributed to the early stages of research for my project, Anatomy of a Kolam, undertaken as part of the inaugural 2024–25 cycle of the Design Research Fellowship.
(Organised by SAM Design Collection, an initiative of @singaporeartmuseum , this new platform supports alternative pathways for and forms of design(-adjacent) research. @bernytlm )
'Yet To Be Defined': A Frontage Installation for the BA (Hons) Faculty of Design Graduation Showcase.
Design is not just about creating the perfect artefact. It is also about the magic that happens while foraging and working through what may at first seem imperfect or unfinished. A prime example of this are the offcut pieces created through the process of making and designing, which evoke exciting beginnings of ideas and possibilities beyond the work in view.
Our installation comprises of acrylic offcuts gathered from different BA programmes that were overlapped with each other, suspended and illuminated. These offcuts greet visitors at the entrance and serve as a reminder and a visual representation of the months of relentless experimentation and hardwork showcased within the gallery.
I worked on this installation with my lovely friends @nnojo_@dusake@zyckadelic (Otherwise known as the 'Full Frontal Frontage Force'). There were many learning points gathered along the process, but I guess we can add a whole new array of skills to our repertoire, including fishing line tying and tiny hole drilling.
The Graduation Showcase is open till 31 May, so please pop over and check out our installation and all the amazing works!
Also, shout out to the model/blurry figure debut of @anaslara__@lasallesingapore
'make, shift' (1) was an experimental series of six workshops organised by @sojamo@gideon_kong and @nadineouellet last November. The workshops, involving students and professionals, aimed to create a clear link between computational and visual studies through a series of open experiments.
@franklyafiq and I were tasked with documentation and creating a visual identity to be used in posters and EDMs (2) for the exhibition. We chose the two-dimensional floor-plan of our exhibition space (3) as a starting point, using p5.js to morph its vertex points and generate permutations and combinations of shapes based on the workshop titles. We also used this to create abstract moving visuals (4).
We integrated our generative shapes that were derived from our exhibition space physically back into it, through applied tape on the walls and floors (5). The room was shaped super oddly to begin with- so having these very pointy, stretchy and triangular strokes of blue tape lurking in the corners and pointing across the room drew people into the space even further.
The project culminated in a exhibition opening on January 16th 2023 (8). This was a fun one!
@lasalledesigncommunication
