Benjamin Schlabs is a second-year physics major and a member of Brown College at Monroe Hill. After spending his first semester enrolled at UVA’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as a mechanical engineering major, he decided to switch into the College of Arts and Sciences to allow himself a more well-rounded liberal arts education. Ben, an American military dependent, attended German schools from Kindergarten in Germany through graduation from the German School Washington, D.C. where he received his Abitur in his majors, mathematics and physics, and his minors, world history and German literature.
Ben is currently working with his partner Sarah Saadian (4th year, History) on a research project for which they were awarded funding in the pilot-semester of Designing Matter, Ben’s first year at UVA. Their final project will make use of highly advanced face recognition software and other new digital technologies such as those being developed at DARPA and MIT’s Media Lab in an art installation designed to categorize individuals and give them visual and auditory feedback based on how well they fit into certain categories. The installation should demonstrate how the rational and quantifiable world of digital technology may manifest the irrational world of human interaction.
