Thursday, October 04. 2018
Note: As a direct follow-up to the May 1968 celebrations, Makery published (in French) an article retracing a history of "inhabitable utopias", or different architectures that have since been experimented with or thought about.
The short article is mainly illustrated with an interactive timeline presenting these experiments carried out over the past 50 years.
Via Makery
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Depuis l’urbanisme utopique issu de Mai 68 jusqu’aux «Lieux infinis» mis en avant par le collectif Encore Heureux à la Biennale de Venise 2018, Makery balaie cinquante ans d’alternatives architecturales.
En savoir plus:
La webographie suit le déroulé de la chronologie ci-dessus.
L’image qui ouvre cette chronologie est le Makrolab de Marko Peljhan, à Rottnest Island, en Australie, 2000.
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Instant City, Peter Cook, Archigram, Royaume-Uni, 1968.
« Structures gonflables », exposition au musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, du 1er au 28 mars 1968.
Whole Earth Catalog, édité par Stewart Brand, de 1968 à 1971 aux Etats-Unis.
L’église gonflable de Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, par Hans-Walter Müller, France, 1969.
Inflatocookbook, du collectif Ant Farm, Etats-Unis, 1970.
Le laboratoire urbain d’Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri, Arizona, Etats-Unis, 1970.
La « ville libre » de Christiania, Copenhague, Danemark, 1971.
Le restaurant FOOD de Gordon Matta-Clark, New York, 1971, exposition Gordon Matta-Clark, anarchitecte, musée du Jeu de Paume, du 5 juin au 23 septembre 2018.
Superstudio, agence d’architecture, Italie, 1966-1978.
Shelter, Lloyd Kahn, Etats-Unis, 1973.
Lutte du Larzac, France, 1973-1982.
Sunspots, Steve Baer, Zomeworks, Etats-Unis, 1975.
Comment habiter la terre, Yona Friedman, 1976.
Casa Bola, Eduardo Longo, São Paulo, Brésil, 1979.
Les cabanes de Josep Pujiula à Argelaguer, province de Gérone, Catalogne, Espagne, 1980-2016.
Bolo’Bolo, P.M., 1983.
Le Jardin en mouvement de Gilles Clément, 1985.
Le Magasin à Grenoble, Patrick Bouchain, 1986.
Future Shack, Sean Godsell, Australie, 1985.
Brevétisation du container en habitat par Philip C. Clark, Etats-Unis, 1987.
Black Rock City, la ville éphémère du festival Burning Man, Nevada, Etats-Unis, 1990- .
Le projet A.G. Gleisdreieck, Berlin, Allemagne, 1990- .
Reclaim The Streets, Londres, 1991- .
Castlemorton Common Festival, Royaume-Uni, 1992.
Les maisons en carton de Shigeru Ban, Kobe, Japon, 1995.
Muf (Londres), Stalker (Italie), Coloco (Paris), Bruit du Frigo (Bordeaux), créés en 1996.
Makrolab, Marko Peljhan, Projekt Atol, Slovénie, 1997-2007.
Manifestations de Seattle contre l’Organisation mondiale du commerce, Etats-Unis, 1999.
Ecobox, Atelier d’architecture autogérée, Paris, 2002.
L’architecture du RAB, Exyzt, Paris, France, 2003.
Parking Day, Rebar, San Francisco, Etats-Unis, 2006.
Zone à Défendre, Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, 2008- .
Tactical Urbanism, Mike Lydon et Anthony Garcia, Island Press, 2015.
Cloud City, Tomás Saraceno, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Etats-Unis, 2012.
Fab City Global, création en 2014 et Fab City Summit, à Paris du 11 au 13 juillet 2018.
Assemble Studio (Royaume-Uni), Turner Prize 2015.
Elemental, Pritzker Prize 2016.
Accueil des migrants porte de la Chapelle, Julien Beller, Paris, 2016-2018.
Mai 68. L’architecture aussi !, Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Paris, du 16 mai au 17 septembre 2018.
Lieux infinis, agence Encore Heureux, Pavillon français de la Biennale internationale d’architecture de Venise 2018.
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Direct translation with DeepL (no links):
To know more about it
The webography follows the chronology above.
The image that opens this chronology is Marko Peljhan's Makrolab, Rottnest Island, Australia, 2000.
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Instant City, Peter Cook, Archigram, United Kingdom, 1968.
"Inflatable structures", exhibition at the Musée d'Art moderne de la ville de Paris, from 1 to 28 March 1968.
Whole Earth Catalog, published by Stewart Brand, from 1968 to 1971 in the United States.
The inflatable church of Montigny-lès-Cormeilles, by Hans-Walter Müller, France, 1969.
Inflatocookbook, by the Ant Farm collective, United States, 1970.
The Arcosanti Urban Laboratory, Paolo Soleri, Arizona, USA, 1970.
The "Free City" of Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1971.
The FOOD restaurant of Gordon Matta-Clark, New York, 1971, Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition, an architect, Jeu de Paume museum, from June 5 to September 23, 2018.
Superstudio, architectural firm, Italy, 1966-1978.
Shelter, Lloyd Kahn, United States, 1973.
Larzac struggle, France, 1973-1982.
Sunspots, Steve Baer, Zomeworks, USA, 1975.
How to Live on the Earth, Yona Friedman, 1976.
Casa Bola, Eduardo Longo, São Paulo, Brazil, 1979.
Josep Pujiula's huts in Argelaguer, province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, 1980-2016.
Bolo'Bolo, P.M., 1983.
Le Jardin en mouvement by Gilles Clément, 1985.
Le Magasin à Grenoble, Patrick Bouchain, 1986.
Future Shack, Sean Godsell, Australia, 1985.
Patenting of the container in housing by Philip C. Clark, United States, 1987.
Black Rock City, the ephemeral city of the Burning Man festival, Nevada, USA, 1990- .
The A.G. Gleisdreieck project, Berlin, Germany, 1990- .
Reclaim The Streets, London, 1991- .
Castlemorton Common Festival, United Kingdom, 1992.
The cardboard houses of Shigeru Ban, Kobe, Japan, 1995.
Muf (London), Stalker (Italy), Coloco (Paris), Bruit du Frigo (Bordeaux), created in 1996.
Makrolab, Marko Peljhan, Projekt Atol, Slovenia, 1997-2007.
Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization, United States, 1999.
Ecobox, Atelier d'architecture autogérée, Paris, 2002.
L'architecture du RAB, Exyzt, Paris, France, 2003.
Parking Day, Rebar, San Francisco, USA, 2006.
Zone à Défendre, Notre-Dame-des-Landes, France, 2008- .
Tactical Urbanism, Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia, Island Press, 2015.
Cloud City, Tomás Saraceno, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States, 2012.
Fab City Global, created in 2014 and Fab City Summit, in Paris from 11 to 13 July 2018.
Assemble Studio (United Kingdom), Turner Prize 2015.
Elemental, Pritzker Prize 2016.
Reception of migrants at Porte de la Chapelle, Julien Beller, Paris, 2016-2018.
May 68. Architecture too, Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, Paris, from 16 May to 17 September 2018.
Lieux infinis, Encore Heureux agency, French Pavilion at the 2018 Venice International Architecture Biennale.
More about it HERE.
Monday, August 13. 2018
Note: just after archiving the MOMA exhibition on | rblg, here comes a small post by Eliza Pertigkiozoglou about the Architecture Machine Group at MIT, same period somehow. This groundbreaking architecture teaching unit and research experience that then led to the MIT Media Lab (Beatriz Colomina spoke about it in its research about design teaching and "Radical Pedagogies" - we spoke about it already on | rblg in the context of a book about the Black Mountain College).
The post details Urban 5, one of the first project the group developed that was supposed to help (anybody) develop an architecture project, in an interactive way. This story is also very well explained and detailed by Orit Halpern in the recent book by CCA: When is the Digital in Architecture?
Also some intersting posts about Max Bense, Christopher Alexander, Cedric Price and Gordon Pask on the same Medium account.
Via Medium
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By Eliza Pertigkiozoglou
URBAN 5’s overlay and the IBM 2250 model 1 cathode ray-tube used for URBAN 5 (source: openarchitectures.com)
Nicholas Negroponte (1943) founded in 1967, together with Leon Groisser, the Architecture Machine Group (Arch Mac) at MIT, which later in 1985 transformed to MIT Media Lab. Negroponte’s vision was an architecture machine that would turn the design process into a dialogue, altering the traditional human-machine dynamics. His approach was significantly influenced by recent discussion on artificial intelligence, cybernetics, conversation theory, technologies for learning, sketch recognition and representation. Arch Mac laboratory combined architecture, engineering and computing to develop architectural applications and artificially intelligent interfaces that question the design process and the role of its actors.
The Architecture Machine’s computer and interface installation (source:radical-pedagogies.com)
Urban 5 was the first research project of the lab developed in 1973, as an improved version of Urban 2. Interestingly, in his book “Architecture Machine” Negroponte explains, evaluate and criticize Urban5, contemplating on the successes and insufficiencies of the program that aimed to serve as a “toy” for experimentation rather than a tool to handle real design problems. It was “a system that could monitor design procedures” and not design tool by itself. As explained in the book, Urban’s 5 original goal was to “study the desirability and feasibility of conversing with a machine about environmental design project… using the computer as an objective mirror of the user’s own design criteria and form decisions; reflecting formed from a larger information base than the user’s personal experience”.
Urban 5 communicated with the architect-user first by giving him instructions, then by learning from him and eventually by dialoguing with him. Two languages were employed for that communication: graphic language and English language. The graphic language was using the abstract representation of cubes (nouns). The English language was text appearing on the screen (verbs). The cubes could be added incrementally and had qualities, such as sunlight, visual and acoustical privacy, which could be explicitly assigned by the user or implicitly by the machine. When the user was first introduced to the software, the software was providing instructions. Then the user could could explicitly assign criteria or generate forms graphically in different contexts. What Negroponte called context was defined by mode, which referred to different display modes that allow the designer different kinds of operations. For example, in the TOPO mode the architect can manipulate topography in plan, while in the DRAW mode he/she can manipulate the viewing mode and the physical elements. In the final stage of this human-machine relationship there was a dialogue between designer and the computer :when there was an inconsistency between the assigned criteria and the generated form, the computer informed the architect and he/she could choose the next step: ignore, postpone, and alter the criterion or the form.
Source: The Architecture Machine, Negroponte
Negreponte’s criticism give an insight of Arch Mac’s explorations, goals and self-reflection on the research project. To Negroponte, Urban 5 insufficiency was summarized in four main points. First, it was based on assumptions of the design process that can be denuded: architecture is additive(accumulation of cubes), labels are symbols and design is non-deterministic. Also, it offered specific and predetermined design services. Although different combinations could produce numerous results, they were still finite. The designer has always to decide what should be the next step in the cross-reference between the contexts/modes, without any suggestion or feedback from the computer. Last point of his criticism was that Urban 5 interacts with only one designer and the interaction is strictly mediated through “a meager selection of communication artifacts”, meaning the keyboard and the screen. The medium and the language itself.
Although Urban 5 is a simple program with limited options, the points that are addressed are basically the constraints of current CAD programs. This is, up to an extent, expected, given the medium and the language frames the interaction between man and the machine.“The world view of culture is limited by the structure of the language which that culture uses.”(Whorf, 1956) The world view of a machine is similarly marked by linguistic structure”(1). Nevertheless, it seems that Negroponte’s and Arch Mac explorations were ahead of their time, offered an insight in human-machine design interactions, suggesting “true dialogue”. “Urban 5 suggests an evolutionary system, an intelligent system — but, in itself , is none of them”(2).
References:
(1),(2): Quotes of Negroponte from “The Architecture Machine” book -see below
-Negroponte Nicholas, The Architecture Machine: Towards a more human environment, MIT Press, 1970
- Wright Steenson Molly, Architectures of Information:Christofer Alexander, Cedric Price and Nicholas Negroponte & MIT’s Architecture Machine Group, Phd Thesis, Princeton, April 2014
https://openarchitectures.com/2011/10/27/an-interview-with-nicholas-negroponte/
Friday, July 13. 2018
Note: following the exhibition Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989 until last April at MOMA, images of the show appeared on the museum's website, with many references to projects. After Archeology of the Digital at CCA in Montreal between 2013-17, this is another good contribution to the history of the field and to the intricate relations between art, design, architecture and computing.
How cultural fields contributed to the shaping of this "mass stacked media" that is now built upon the combinations of computing machines, networks, interfaces, services, data, data centers, people, crowds, etc. is certainly largely underestimated.
Literature start to emerge, but it will take time to uncover what remained "out of the radars" for a very long period. They acted in fact as some sort of "avant-garde", not well estimated or identified enough, even by specialized institutions and at a time when the name "avant-garde" almost became a "s-word"... or was considered "dead".
Unfortunately, no publication seems to have been published in relation to the exhibition, on the contrary to the one at CCA, which is accompanied by two well documented books.
Via MOMA
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Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989
November 13, 2017–April 8, 2018 | The Museum of Modern Art
Drawn primarily from MoMA's collection, Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989 brings artworks produced using computers and computational thinking together with notable examples of computer and component design. The exhibition reveals how artists, architects, and designers operating at the vanguard of art and technology deployed computing as a means to reconsider artistic production. The artists featured in Thinking Machines exploited the potential of emerging technologies by inventing systems wholesale or by partnering with institutions and corporations that provided access to cutting-edge machines. They channeled the promise of computing into kinetic sculpture, plotter drawing, computer animation, and video installation. Photographers and architects likewise recognized these technologies' capacity to reconfigure human communities and the built environment.
Thinking Machines includes works by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller, Waldemar Cordeiro, Charles Csuri, Richard Hamilton, Alison Knowles, Beryl Korot, Vera Molnár, Cedric Price, and Stan VanDerBeek, alongside computers designed by Tamiko Thiel and others at Thinking Machines Corporation, IBM, Olivetti, and Apple Computer. The exhibition combines artworks, design objects, and architectural proposals to trace how computers transformed aesthetics and hierarchies, revealing how these thinking machines reshaped art making, working life, and social connections.
Organized by Sean Anderson, Associate Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, and Giampaolo Bianconi, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.
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More images HERE.
Friday, March 09. 2018
Note: a proto-smart-architecture project by Cedric Price dating back from the 70ies, which sounds much more intersting than almost all contemporary smart architecture/cities proposals.
These lattest being in most cases glued into highly functional approaches driven by the "paths of less resistance-frictions", supported if not financed by data-hungry corporations. That's not a desirable future to my point of view.
"(...). If not changed, the building would have become “bored” and proposed alternative arrangements for evaluation (...)"
Via Interactive Architecture Lab (at the Bartlett)
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Cedric Price’s proposal for the Gilman Corporation was a series of relocatable structures on a permanent grid of foundation pads on a site in Florida.
Cedric Price asked John and Julia Frazer to work as computer consultants for this project. They produced a computer program to organize the layout of the site in response to changing requirements, and in addition suggested that a single-chip microprocessor should be embedded in every component of the building, to make it the controlling processor.
This would result in an “intelligent” building which controlled its own organisation in response to use. If not changed, the building would have become “bored” and proposed alternative arrangements for evaluation, learning how to improve its own evaluation, learning how to improve its own organisation on the basis of this experience.
The Brief
Generator (1976-79) sought to create conditions for shifting, changing personal interactions in a reconfigurable and responsive architectural project.
It followed this open-ended brief:
"A building which will not contradict, but enhance, the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere; has to be accessible to the public as well as to private guests; has to create a feeling of seclusion conducive to creative impulses, yet…accommodate audiences; has to respect the wildness of the environment while accommodating a grand piano; has to respect the continuity of the history of the place while being innovative."
The proposal consisted of an orthogonal grid of foundation bases, tracks and linear drains, in which a mobile crane could place a kit of parts comprised of cubical module enclosures and infill components (i.e. timber frames to be filled with modular components raging from movable cladding wall panels to furniture, services and fittings), screening posts, decks and circulation components (i.e. walkways on the ground level and suspended at roof level) in multiple arrangements.
When Cedric Price approached John and Julia Frazer he wrote:
"The whole intention of the project is to create an architecture sufficiently responsive to the making of a change of mind constructively pleasurable."
Generator Project
They proposed four programs that would use input from sensors attached to Generator’s components: the first three provided a “perpetual architect” drawing program that held the data and rules for Generator’s design; an inventory program that offered feedback on utilisation; an interface for “interactive interrogation” that let users model and prototype Generator’s layout before committing the design.
The powerful and curious boredom program served to provoke Generator’s users. “In the event of the site not being re-organized or changed for some time the computer starts generating unsolicited plans and improvements,” the Frazers wrote. These plans would then be handed off to Factor, the mobile crane operator, who would move the cubes and other elements of Generator. “In a sense the building can be described as being literally ‘intelligent’,” wrote John Frazer—Generator “should have a mind of its own.” It would not only challenge its users, facilitators, architect and programmer—it would challenge itself.
The Frazers’ research and techniques
The first proposal, associated with a level of ‘interactive’ relationship between ‘architect/machine’, would assist in drawing and with the production of additional information, somewhat implicit in the other parallel developments/ proposals.
The second proposal, related to the level of ‘interactive/semiautomatic’ relationship of ‘client–user/machine’, was ‘a perpetual architect for carrying out instructions from the Polorizer’ and for providing, for instance, operative drawings to the crane operator/driver; and the third proposal consisted of a ‘[. . .] scheduling and inventory package for the Factor [. . .] it could act as a perpetual functional critic or commentator.’
The fourth proposal, relating to the third level of relationship, enabled the permanent actions of the users, while the fifth proposal consisted of a ‘morphogenetic program which takes suggested activities and arranges the elements on the site to meet the requirements in accordance with a set of rules.’
Finally, the last proposal was [. . .] an extension [. . .] to generate unsolicited plans, improvements and modifications in response to users’ comments, records of activities, or even by building in a boredom concept so that the site starts to make proposals about rearrangements of itself if no changes are made. The program could be heuristic and improve its own strategies for site organisation on the basis of experience and feedback of user response.
Self Builder Kit and the Cal Build Kit, Working Models
In a certain way, the idea of a computational aid in the Generator project also acknowledged and intended to promote some degree of unpredictability. Generator, even if unbuilt, had acquired a notable position as the first intelligent building project. Cedric Price and the Frazers´ collaboration constituted an outstanding exchange between architecture and computational systems. The Generator experience explored the impact of the new techno-cultural order of the Information Society in terms of participatory design and responsive building. At an early date, it took responsiveness further; and postulates like those behind the Generator, where the influence of new computational technologies reaches the level of experience and an aesthetics of interactivity, seems interesting and productive.
Resources
- John Frazer, An Evolutionary Architecture, Architectural Association Publications, London 1995. http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/publications/ea/exhibition.html
- Frazer to C. Price, (Letter mentioning ‘Second thoughts but using the same classification system as before’), 11 January 1979. Generator document folio DR1995:0280:65 5/5, Cedric Price Archives (Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture).
Saturday, February 17. 2018
Note: a few pictures from fabric | ch retrospective at #EphemeralKunsthalleLausanne (disused factory Mayer & Soutter, nearby Lausanne in Renens).
The exhibition is being set up in the context of the production of a monographic book and is still open today (Saturday 17.02, 5.00-8.00 pm)!
By fabric | ch
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All images Ch. Guignard.
Monday, February 05. 2018
Note: 2017 was very busy (the reason why I wasn't able to post much on | rblg...), and the start of 2018 happens to be the same. Fortunately and unfortunatly!
I hope things will calm down a bit next Spring, but in the meantime, we're setting up an exhibition with fabric | ch. A selection of works retracing 20 years of activities, which purpose will be also to serve in the perspective of a photo shooting for a forthcoming book.
The event will take place in a disuse factory (yet a historical monument from the 2nd industrial era), near Lausanne.
If you are around, do not hesitate to knock at the door!
By fabric | ch
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Environmental Devices · Projets & expérimentations (1997-2017)
Image: Daniela & Tonatiuh.
During a few days, in the context of the preparation of a book, a selection of works retracing 20 years of activities of fabric | ch will be on display in a disused factory close to Lausanne.
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Information: http://www.fabric.ch/xx/
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Opening on February 9, 5.00-11.00pm
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Visiting hours:
Saturday - Sunday 10-11.02, 4.00-8.00pm
Wednesday 14.02, 5.00-8.00pm
Friday-Saturday 16-17.02, 5.00-8.00pm.
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Or by appointment: 021.3511021
Guided tours at 6.00pm
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Pendant quelques jours et dans le contexte de la création d'un livre monographique, accrochage d'une sélection de travaux retraçant 20 ans d'activités de fabric | ch.
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Informations: http://www.fabric.ch/xx
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Vernissage le 9 février, 17h-23h
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Heures de visite:
Samedi - dimanche 10-11.02, 16h-20h
Mercredi 14.02, 17h-20h
Vendredi-samedi 16-17.02, 17h-20h00
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Ou sur rendez-vous: 021.3511021
Visites commentées à 18h.
&
Event on Facebook.
Note: I had the great pleasure to be in discussion with Prof. Fabio Gramazio (ETHZ) during the Research in Art & Design Day that took place at ECAL last October. The session was moderated by Vera Sacchetti.
I know Fabio since we were both assistants, him in Zürich (ETHZ), and me in Lausanne (EPFL). We did collaborate on projects at that time for CAAD-ETHZ (directed by Prof. Gerhard Schmitt at that time), and I know also all the art work Fabio did in the context of the fanous Swiss collective etoy. We didn't had time to talk about it unfortunately, even so it was planned...
The recording of our discussion about academic research in architecture and design, its specificities in the case of Fabio, and their relation to practice in architecture and design, is now accessible on the Vimeo account of the School.
Via ECAL
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ECAL Research Day 2017: Fabio Gramazio – co-founder, Gramazio + Kohler Architects, Zurich from ECAL on Vimeo.
Research Through Art and Design: Materials and Forms
Fabio Gramazio – co-founder, Gramazio + Kohler Architects, Zurich
in conversation with Patrick Keller – professor, ECAL
10+10 Research in Art & Design at ECAL
On the occasion of the 10 years since the moving of ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne to its current premises in Renens and marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of EPFL+ECAL Lab, ECAL hosted a symposium on Research in Art and Design, featuring artists, designers and scholars in these fields from all over the world, in conversation with ECAL faculty members.
ecal.ch
Friday, December 15. 2017
Note: with a bit of delay (delay can be an interesting attitude nowadays), but the show is still open... and the content still very interesting!
Via Archpaper
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New MoMA show plots the impact of computers on architecture and design. Pictured here: “Menu 23" layout of Cedric Price's Generator Project. (Courtesy California College of the Arts archive)
The beginnings of digital drafting and computational design will be on display at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) starting November 13th, as the museum presents Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989. Spanning 30 years of works by artists, photographers, and architects, Thinking Machines captures the postwar period of reconciliation between traditional techniques and the advent of the computer age.
Organized by Sean Anderson, associate curator in the museum’s Department of Architecture and Design, and Giampaolo Bianconi, a curatorial assistant in the Department of Media and Performance Art, the exhibition examines how computer-aided design became permanently entangled with art, industrial design, and space planning.
Drawings, sketches, and models from Cedric Price’s 1978-80 Generator Project, the never-built “first intelligent building project” will also be shown. The response to a prompt put out by the Gilman Paper Corporation for its White Oak, Florida, site to house theater and dance performances alongside travelling artists, Price’s Generator proposal sought to stimulate innovation by constantly shifting arrangements.
Ceding control of the floor plan to a master computer program and crane system, a series of 13-by-13-foot rooms would have been continuously rearranged according to the users’ needs. Only constrained by a general set of Price’s design guidelines, Generator’s program would even have been capable of rearranging rooms on its own if it felt the layout hadn’t been changed frequently enough. Raising important questions about the interaction between a space and its occupants, Generator House laid the groundwork for computational architecture and smart building systems.
R. Buckminster Fuller’s 1970 work for Radical Hardware magazine will also appear. (Courtesy PBS)
Thinking Machines: Art and Design in the Computer Age, 1959–1989 will be running from November 13th to April 8th, 2018. MoMA members can preview the show from November 10th through the 12th.
Thursday, October 26. 2017
Note: following my previous post about Google further entering the public and "common" space sphere with its company Sidewalks, with the goal to merchandize it necessarily, comes this interesting MIT book about the changing nature of public space: Public Space? Lost & Found.
I like to believe that we tried on our side to address this question of public space - mediated and somehow "franchised" by technology - through many of our past works at fabric | ch. We even tried with our limited means to articulate or bring scaled answers to these questions...
I'm thinking here about works like Paranoid Shelter, I-Weather as Deep Space Public Lighting, Public Platform of Future Past, Heterochrony, Arctic Opening, and some others. Even with tools like Datadroppers or spaces/environments delivred in the form of data, like Deterritorialized Living.
But the book further develop the question and the field of view, with several essays and proposals by artists and architects.
Via Abitare
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Does public space still exist?
Gediminas Urbonas, Ann Lui and Lucas Freeman are the editors of a book that presents a wide range of intellectual reflections and artistic experimentations centred around the concept of public space. The title of the volume, Public Space? Lost and Found, immediately places the reader in a doubtful state: nothing should be taken for granted or as certain, given that we are asking ourselves if, in fact, public space still exists.
This question was originally the basis for a symposium and an exhibition hosted by MIT in 2014, as part of the work of ACT, the acronym for the Art, Culture and Technology programme. Contained within the incredibly well-oiled scientific and technological machine that is MIT, ACT is a strange creature, a hybrid where sometimes extremely different practices cross paths, producing exciting results: exhibitions; critical analyses, which often examine the foundations and the tendencies of the university itself, underpinned by an interest in the political role of research; actual inventions, developed in collaboration with other labs and university courses, that attract students who have a desire to exchange ideas with people from different paths and want the chance to take part in initiatives that operate free from educational preconceptions.
The book is one of the many avenues of communication pursued by ACT, currently directed by Gediminas Urbonas (a Lithuanian visual artist who has taught there since 2009) who succeeded the curator Ute Meta Bauer. The collection explores how the idea of public space is at the heart of what interests artists and designers and how, consequently, the conception, the creation and the use of collective spaces are a response to current-day transformations. These include the spread of digital technologies, climate change, the enforcement of austerity policies due to the reduction in available resources, and the emergence of political arguments that favour separation between people. The concluding conversation Reflexivity and Resistance in Communicative Capitalism between Urbonas and Jodi Dean, an American political scientist, summarises many of the book’s ideas: public space becomes the tool for resisting the growing privatisation of our lives.
The book, which features stupendous graphics by Node (a design studio based in Berlin and Oslo), is divided into four sections: paradoxes, ecologies, jurisdictions and signals.
The contents alternate essays (like Angela Vettese’s analysis of the role of national pavilions at the Biennale di Venezia or Beatriz Colomina’s reflections about the impact of social media on issues of privacy) with the presentation of architectural projects and artistic interventions designed by architects like Andrés Jaque, Teddy Cruz and Marjetica Potr or by historic MIT professors like the multimedia artist Antoni Muntadas. The republication of Art and Ecological Consciousness, a 1972 book by György Kepes, the multi-disciplinary genius who was the director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, proves that the institution has long been interested in these topics.
This collection of contributions supported by captivating iconography signals a basic optimism: the documented actions and projects and the consciousness that motivates the thinking of many creators proves there is a collective mobilisation, often starting from the bottom, that seeks out and creates the conditions for communal life. Even if it is never explicitly written, the answer to the question in the title is a resounding yes.
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Public Space? Lost and Found
Gediminas Urbonas, Ann Lui and Lucas Freeman
SA + P Press, MIT School of Architecture and Planning
Cambridge MA, 2017
300 pages, $40
mit.edu
Overview
“Public space” is a potent and contentious topic among artists, architects, and cultural producers. Public Space? Lost and Found considers the role of aesthetic practices within the construction, identification, and critique of shared territories, and how artists or architects—the “antennae of the race”—can heighten our awareness of rapidly changing formulations of public space in the age of digital media, vast ecological crises, and civic uprisings.
Public Space? Lost and Found combines significant recent projects in art and architecture with writings by historians and theorists. Contributors investigate strategies for responding to underrepresented communities and areas of conflict through the work of Marjetica Potrč in Johannesburg and Teddy Cruz on the Mexico-U.S. border, among others. They explore our collective stakes in ecological catastrophe through artistic research such as atelier d’architecture autogérée’s hubs for community action and recycling in Colombes, France, and Brian Holmes’s theoretical investigation of new forms of aesthetic perception in the age of the Anthropocene. Inspired by artist and MIT professor Antoni Muntadas’ early coining of the term “media landscape,” contributors also look ahead, casting a critical eye on the fraught impact of digital media and the internet on public space.
This book is the first in a new series of volumes produced by the MIT School of Architecture and Planning’s Program in Art, Culture and Technology.
Contributors
atelier d'architecture autogérée, Dennis Adams, Bik Van Der Pol, Adrian Blackwell, Ina Blom, Christoph Brunner with Gerald Raunig, Néstor García Canclini, Colby Chamberlain, Beatriz Colomina, Teddy Cruz with Fonna Forman, Jodi Dean, Juan Herreros, Brian Holmes, Andrés Jaque, Caroline Jones, Coryn Kempster with Julia Jamrozik, György Kepes, Rikke Luther, Matthew Mazzotta, Metahaven, Timothy Morton, Antoni Muntadas, Otto Piene, Marjetica Potrč, Nader Tehrani, Troy Therrien, Gedminas and Nomeda Urbonas, Angela Vettese, Mariel Villeré, Mark Wigley, Krzysztof Wodiczko
With section openings from
Ana María León, T. J. Demos, Doris Sommer, and Catherine D'Ignazio
Friday, October 20. 2017
Note: More than a year ago, I posted about this move by Alphabet-Google toward becoming city designers... I tried to point out the problems related to a company which business is to collect data becoming the main investor in public space and common goods (the city is still part of the commons, isn't it?) But of course, this is, again, about big business ("to make the world a better place" ... indeed) and slick ideas.
But it is highly problematic that a company start investing in public space "for free". We all know what this mean now, don't we? It is not needed and not desired.
So where are the "starchitects" now? What do they say? Not much... Where are all the "regular" architects as well? Almost invisible, tricked in the wrong stakes, with -- I'm sorry...-- very few of them being only able to identify the problem.
This is not about building a great building for a big brand or taking a conceptual position, not even about "die Gestalt" anymore. It is about everyday life for 66% of Earth population by 2050 (UN study). It is, in this precise case, about information technologies and mainly information stategies and businesses that materialize into structures of life.
Shouldn't this be a major concern?
Via MIT Technology Review
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By Jamie Condliffe
fabric | rblg legend: this hand drawn image contains all the marketing clichés (green, blue, clean air, bikes, local market, public transportation, autonomous car in a happy village atmosphere... Can't be further from what it will be).
An 800-acre strip of Toronto's waterfront may show us how cities of the future could be built. Alphabet’s urban innovation team, Sidewalk Labs, has announced a plan to inject urban design and new technologies into the city's quayside to boost "sustainability, affordability, mobility, and economic opportunity."
Huh?
Picture streets filled with robo-taxis, autonomous trash collection, modular buildings, and clean power generation. The only snag may be the humans: as we’ve said in the past, people can do dumb things with smart cities. Perhaps Toronto will be different.
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