Lecture
Thursday 1 October 2026
New Auditorium Space, next to the Digital Workshop, 2nd Floor DAE
Silly Things
Simone Niquille
Once upon a time I thought research had to be serious, and then I realised it doesn't. Well, it's a bit more complicated than that.
During this talk we'll take a look at a handful of projects from my studio, their process and what it means to make silly things while asking serious questions. Knowledge is created and shared through many factors, from social forces, affect, intuition, negotiation. In my practice I use software as material to investigate and to create, driven by a suspicion about all we take for granted. While computer vision, computational photography and CG images are a core of my work, at its heart is a wonder for how we read and navigate the world.
Simone C Niquille is a designer and researcher. With technoflesh Studio, they produce films and writing that investigate computation as a contemporary optical system, examining how images are generated, processed, and made operative through technical infrastructures. Their work spans computer vision, 3D animation, computational photography, and synthetic training datasets, and explores how images no longer simply represent reality but actively structure perception and legibility. Working from within these systems, Niquille advocates for non-binary technology and resists machine learning as a tool for stabilising assumptions or reducing reality to classification.
Niquille initiated the parametric truth Lab at Design Academy Eindhoven and teaches across programmes in architecture, design, photography and critical software. They are a PhD researcher within the ARTILACS graduate school at HFBK Hamburg.
Their work has been exhibited and published internationally, including at the Dutch Pavilion of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale. They have been a Research Fellow at the Nieuwe Instituut, a Mellon Researcher at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, a Fellow in Digital Storytelling at the Dutch Film Festival, and a resident at La Becque. Niquille is the recipient of the Pax Media Art Award and holds degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam. technoflesh Studio is based in Amsterdam, NL. They are the recipient of the 2026 Swiss Grand Prix of Design, marking the first time the prize has been awarded in Media and Interaction Design.
