Examining the practice of Kai Franz, Serial Nature bridges the tangible world of matter and the abstractions found in the workings and logics of computation. This book can be seen as a window into a practice that proposes alternative methodologies in art and architecture’s engagement with technology. Additionally, Serial Nature also proposes a new model for a practice that subverts traditional processes in favor of working methods and processes that are alternatively inventive and playful, absurd and disheveled, and deadpan sincere. This book features more than 30 projects from Franz’s practice that find form in sculptures, prints, machines, software-programs, systems, and on screen, from the hijacked automated sculpture maker Plopper (Dual Axis Precision Deposition System), to the gravity-induced software simulations. Serial Nature is characterized by an explorative tone, the book invites six outside voices to critically reflect and discuss various themes that emerge in Franz’s work:

»Nick Seaver’s essay Working with Algorithms: Plans and Mess examines the translations between plans and actions, between the physical and the digital in Franz’s work. Robert Brennan’s text History and Nature discusses the ways in which Franz’s work with cellular automata sometimes hides its method of production, revealing how our notions of history and nature are singular. Aleksandr Bierig’s essay Piling One Stone on Another considers Franz’s relationship to the architecture of the informe, and whether delegating responsibility of design to materials and algorithms gets close to revealing the line in the sand between a definition of architecture from non-architecture. Adnan Yildiz wrote a letter to Franz about investigations in art-making and practice. Mimi Cabell contributed a piece of speculative fiction using the Plopper‘s process as impetus. Finally, Martin Beck has written about the Plopper as a philosophical machine, through ideas of the diagrammatic becoming manifest in 3D printing and what the Plopps might tell us, philosophically, through Hegel. These writers are cultural anthropologists, curators, art theorists, architectural writers and philosophers, respectively, among their other interests. In Franz’s varied work, there is scope for discussion in all of these fields. A book such as this is a wonderful opportunity for a view into an artist’s studio and practice that is hard to pin down and define in a shorter format.«

(From the introduction to Serial Nature by Phoebe Stubbs)