There are libraries of mythology around the basis of human strength. Samson, Aesop’s bundle of sticks, Superman. Prometheus, a particularly polarizing mythological figure, defied Zeus by giving fire to humans, whom he had just created from a combination of clay, god's breath, and hair. They thrived as a result. They could cook their own food and forge their own weapons—and this really irked Zeus, who preferred cowering worshipers to empowered subordinates. Prometheus was punished with an eternity of violence, in the form of an eagle plucking out his liver in a never-ending loop, like Groundhog Day. On one hand, his is a cautionary tale of overstepping boundaries. But to romantics, Prometheus represents the advancement of science and technology—a hero empowering humans regardless of consequence.
It is perhaps innately human to wish to be stronger—any 5-year-old knows just what superpower they want; you are an *idiot* for not understanding the merits of flight vs. invisibility. But is the goal for human strength to become gods on earth? As Zeus feared, maybe that’s too many gods in the kitchen?
For us digital natives, technology is the mythical brush fire that can make us transcend the limits of our mortal flesh. Humans, are masters of our domain, for the very reason that we can use information to our advantage.
Technological progress is not belligerent like a Greek god—yet. The best innovations have been incremental and span across seemingly unrelated applications. As we use fire for everything from creme brulee to rocket engines, we, in our contemporary data glut, will inevitably find both frivolous and deeply innovative ways of interacting with the information we are collecting. Should we build civilization or weapons?
Strength is in intention. Hold onto yours.
— New Lab's Tech Fancy Team (David Belt, CEO; Mari Kussman, CIO; and Molly Erman, Editor)
Studio Bitonti is a design consultancy that specializes in using additive manufacturing to create innovative materials and customized products. Founder and CEO Francis Bitonti pictured here (center), has long been on the leading edge of additive manufacturing.
“The last thing I want to create is a timeless design,” Bitonti says. Strength can’t be static; what we need is “agility, adaptability, and ability to be repurposed and reused."
In this new realm of materiality, the means of production becomes the consumer good. (Pictured here are Studio BItonti's Peter Wildfeuer and Li Chen.)
The Reaction Table by Studio Bitonti is made of 3D printed steel, and is one of the first of its kind to use metal 3D printing technology to build full-scale functional furniture. The design was developed using custom computer algorithms.
StrongArm Technologies, founded by Michael Kim and Sean Petterson in 2012, started with a vision of “industrial athletes”—a term meant to give well-deserved status to the men and women whose jobs demand arduous labor, without the benefit of trainers, specialized gear, or multi-million-dollar salaries.
At first, StrongArm focused on physical devices that augmented posture and form to encourage safer lifting and other motion. Today, StrongArm also uses data to reveal inherent strengths in these industrial athletes. The company’s FUSE platform collects data from a small sensor worn on a worker’s body, runs it through an algorithm, and relays the analysis to a user dashboard.
For those who use their body as a tool—heavy lifting, repetitive motion, long shifts of pure physicality—strength isn’t abstract, and neither are the injuries and other risks faced every workday. Yet StrongArm Tech’s solution can be found in the cloud: a platform that uses algorithmic analysis of data—collected from the workers’ own bodies—to make real-time adjustments that enhance users’ natural abilities and create safer environments.
The company, founded by Sean Petterson and Michael Kim in 2012, started with a vision of “industrial athletes”—a term meant to give well-deserved status to the men and women whose jobs demand arduous labor, without the benefit of trainers, specialized gear, or multi-million-dollar salaries (looking at you, Tom Brady). At first, StrongArm focused on physical devices that augmented posture and form to encourage safer lifting and other motion.
Now, StrongArm has pivoted from increasing strength through external interventions to using data to reveal inherent strengths in these industrial athletes. The company’s FUSE platform collects data from a small sensor worn on a worker’s body, runs it through an algorithm, and relays the analysis to a user dashboard. The data can identify areas of risk, potential for injury, and drags on performance—and gives companies the ability to manage workflow in real time, rather than adjusting over weeks or months of study. “With data we are identifying when a person is naturally stronger and measuring their ability to work safely and productively,” explains Petterson, who is the company’s CEO. The communication platform allows “blue-collar workers to have a direct line to make an impact on the C-suite.”
Next up for StrongArm: a reimagined sensor, the V5, developed with the help of 10XBeta, another New Lab member. Based on feedback from their clients, the sensor, released last month, has 14 times the sensing power, double the battery life, and, says Petterson, “looks cooler.”
Above all, Petterson focuses on those industrial athletes—and they’re not an easy audience to impress. “This is a very no-bullshit industry,” Petterson notes. “But we can help them go home with less pain, spend the weekend with their kids, have a better life and a stronger career overall.”
“This is a very no-bullshit industry,” says Sean Petterson, CEO of StrongArm Tech. “But we can help them go home with less pain, spend the weekend with their kids, have a better life and a stronger career overall.”
At Studio Bitonti, a design consultancy that specializes in using additive manufacturing to create innovative materials and customized products, quality construction has evolved, says Francis Bitonti, founder and president of the studio, from “an operation of dexterity and physical skill”—old strength!—to one “represented numerically.” That fosters greater access, greater personalization, and greater flexibility to react quickly to changing markets and environments.
Bitonti has long been on the leading edge of additive manufacturing: creating the first functional 3D-printed metal table; constructing a 3D-printed dress for Dita von Teese (a black gown that fit like a glove, albeit a see-through one); devising a beautifully asymmetrical, lightweight scoliosis brace, the prototype of which was acquired by Cooper Hewitt. “We try to be the ones setting the pace,” says Bitonti.
In this new realm of materiality, the means of production becomes the consumer good. A few years ago, Bitonti predicted to an interviewer that, “the next generation of products will be digital files, not things.” Bitonti now concedes that his early ambitions—a vision in which additive manufacturing could be done at scale, without assemblies—outpaced the technology. “There are laws of physics!” he says wryly. But the studio’s next step—Genysis, an API that gives developers access to the mathematical formulas Studio Bitonti uses to create microstructures—advances toward that digital file future. Genysis has already been made available to Studio Bitonti’s current clients, and a wider launch is planned for the coming months.
As the stream of data—as a means to enhance our lives, make us smarter, more capable, and, yes, stronger—rises to a flood, value may lie more in an ability to be swept away than to endure. Bitonti, for one, believes that the everlasting object is a relic. “The last thing I want to create is a timeless design,” he says. Strength can’t be static; what we need is “agility, adaptability, an ability to be repurposed and reused,” he argues. “Rather than being timeless, maybe that thing is just really good at dying.”
1. At New Lab, we believe that all responsible technology requires a keen eye on design. Our question for you: Does design need technology? Design transforms any kind of revolution in technology, or in science, into life. Without that important translation, technology would remain either abstract, or hard, unpleasant, dangerous—however you want to put it—to use. What I feel institutions like New Lab can do is, they can make a case for the technology world to insert design at the beginning of the process—not just at the end. In truth, the companies that do best are the ones that make design participate in the whole process. Design is really necessary for technology. And vice versa.
2. In your research and curatorial work, have you been taken by a particular cultural display of strength that differs from the Western world? If so, how might they challenge our ideas and limitations of what strength can be? I am currently working on a new project called “Broken Nature”; it’s about design that can build reparations with nature—even human nature. In my research, I found so many great examples of strength. One that I just looked at is these root bridges that exist in certain parts of India—they’re made using the roots of trees. And they are as strong as concrete bridges, if not more so. I feel you can really find strength everywhere. It’s such a vast and wide concept; you can pretty much find it everywhere.
3. What are you excited about in the future of strong architecture?I am excited by lightness. I am excited by what might look like the opposite of strength, but which in truth is not. I am interested in lightness of footprint, lightness of imposition on people’s lifestyles, lightness of the use of materials, lightness in the use of infrastructure.
4. What do you think entrepreneurs can learn from artist’s practices? I don’t make art, so I always shy away from this type of question. What I think, though, is that entrepreneurs can learn a lot from being immersed in culture, and not keeping themselves separate from it. You don’t have to say this to a New York entrepreneur, it’s almost moot. But there are some tech worlds that are averse to culture—I see it a lot in Silicon Valley, and I can’t really understand why. I believe that culture—art, design, museums, performance spaces, concerts—always expand your mind. Entrepreneurs are human beings, and human beings are creative. More now than ever, entrepreneurs need creativity. It is part of what will make their enterprises succeed.
5. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why? Teleportation—and that’s because I really would love to be able to have breakfast with my parents, and dinner in Delhi. I just would like to go wherever I want, whenever I want, instantly. Yeah. Teleportation, that’s what I want.