Georgia Skartadou

Olympou 62
Thessaloniki, Greece
54631
gxskar@gmail.com
+306978715922

November 7, 2016

To whom it may concern,

This cover letter accompanies my manuscript, which has been submitted online for publication consideration in
Leonardo Journal. The project submitted in a 2-page statement form is entitled as “ABIOGENESIS 0.1: Self-Reproducing
Micro-Robotic Environments”. It was produced as a final design thesis during my graduate Diploma studies in Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), Faculty of Engineering, School of Architecture, February 2016.

ABIOGENESIS 0.1 is a process of design that occurs after a theoretical investigation about the intercourses
between dipoles such as subject-object, natural-artificial, intention-randomness, and design-non-design. Design shifts
from the conceived object to the processes materializing the object. The project borrows and implements a wide range of
concepts running in the current scientific discourse (micro-robotics, artificial life, simulated environments) in order to
investigate the limits and capabilities of produced word, image and space. Design tools get incarnated through a narration
so as for the design action to gain space, time and materiality. The final result is a 3d simulation of an automatic micro-
robotic platform, which when in communities-groups of familiar units forms a system capable of producing spaces and
environments, while in the same time reproduces itself.

Leonardo Journal represents for me the ideal environment for further discourse on the produced material, through
the work it has established in creating an interdisciplinary network between arts, sciences and technologies. The submitted
project as well as its creator are to be found in a constant oscillation between aesthetic expression and scientific
documentation. While art and science are typically considered to follow divergent paths in ways of reflecting the world
and the human factor, one can argue that when interpreted as different aspects of the same human intellect forces they
can be combined in order to enrich the range of possible answers to the same agonizing questions. Leonardo is an
exemplary effort expressing the coexistence between those two practices and providing a fertile ground for ideas
promoting this coexistence.

ABIOGENESIS is accompanied by a wide range of audiovisual and multimedia material (executable codes,
images, prints, 3d models, simulations) that exceed the demanded two-page statement’s specifications. While the
manuscript tries to describe the whole project in detail it is possible that many aspects of the project can be further
explained through this material. For that reason I have attached a URL in my online submission (at Step 1-URL to web
page section) where the sum of the work is available.

I owe my acknowledgements to my supervisors Ass. Prof. Stavros Vergopoulos and Prof. Dimitris Fragkos for
their guidance, encouragement and advice as well as the trust and freedom they provided me with throughout the whole
duration of the project. Special thanks must be submitted to Christos Nasioutzikis, external collaborator of the project
and undergraduate in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, School of Informatics for his critical assistance in subjects
including algorithm implementation in design environments and simulation realization.

I also declare that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another
journal. Parts of the audiovisual material have been submitted to an architectural competition and a Media Arts Festival,
and their results are still pending.

I shall look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours faithfully,
Georgia Skartadou