The major aim of this cluster is to form a new research community centred on simulation and digital art and design.

We will bring together a team of experts from a range of different disciplines, who have not worked together before, in order to design and specify a series of artefacts based around the use of computational simulation (ranging from the multi-agent system approach (MAS) through to the cellular automata (CA)) one and physical modelling (from a design and an art perspective) for building predictive models of stem cell behaviour in the living human body.

Please register your interest if you would like to join our cluster. Your information will then be added to this website and you will be invited to our workshops and seminars.
The disciplines, as specifically represented by the co-investigators of this project, are multi-agent systems (MAS), art and design, robotics and cellular automata (CA).

Questions to start the Cluster:

How can we use approaches to modelling and simulation from the related but distinct fields of cellular automata, multi-agent systems and artificial life in design?

What are the relationships between computational simulation and physical design that we might exploit?

Why do most robots look so uncool? What can we do to make cool robots?

What smart materials are there that we can program using simulation techniques? 
  
How can artists and designers and modellers and computer scientists talk to each other? How can we build a shared language?

Is there an idea of a case study that we could build as a community which might help us organise the space of issue we must deal with in inter-disicplinary efforts aimed at design?
 
One topic that interests me and seems relevant here is the distinction between different classes of simulation - in particular data-driven versus code-driven simulations.

It would be nice to have a session on distributed collaborative design - the process that drives open-source software, and that will increasingly be applied to real solid items from coat-hooks to pharmaceuticals.