left Usman Haque - Open Burble , right Despina Papadopoulos’ day-for-night
Another upcoming event in London I intend to cover is ‘Softspace - Contemporary Interactive Environments’ this coming saturday at the Tate Modern. Speakers include Usman Haque, Jason Bruges, Daan Roosegaarde, Despina Papadopoulos, Jane Burton and Lucy Bullivant, . Lev Manovich, is a keynote speaker. More details can be found here
"The physically permanent identity of architecture has helped to define society for centuries. Now some practitioners have disengaged from tectonics as we traditionally understand it and are taking their discipline into the realms of ‘softspace’, a more fluid, ephemeral form of digitally-enabled design based on personalised experiences and responses. Softspace deploys new spatial systems including wearable computing, wifi, RFID and custom-designed digital software incorporating light, heat, sound and electromagnetic fields. These not only rely on people’s individual ways of interacting with them, but are enriched by narratives people contribute, creating new metaphors of use. Responsive environmental strategies of this kind have increasingly colonised museums and galleries like Tate, the Science Museum and the V&A While the notion of a fantasy world made possible ‘on demand’ by new technologies is the theme of films like Minority Report and ExistenZ, contemporary softspace projects play a more subtle and open-ended influence on contemporary socio-spatial dynamics and our sensing abilities."
left Daan Roosegaarde - Dune , right Jason Bruges Studio - Wind to Light
September 3rd, 2007
Magic Monkey’s living architecture project for Electrabel’s Power Station in Drogenbos, Belgium
I have mixed feelings on LED facade architecture and in particular the placing of large LED Screens in publc spaces. I’m therefor glad to see that these technologies are getting crtically discussed by a great line up of designers, artists, and architects at a 2 day conference held at Central Saint Martins Innovation Center in London. There’s a few people speaking, I’ve not had the chance to listen to but enjoyed their books which I’m particularily looking forward to hearing including Bart Lootsma, Kari Jormakka and Malcom McCullough. Full list of speakers can be found below. along with the blurb…
Mediaarchitecture 2007 Conference
11th and 12th September 2007
Central Saint Martins Innovation Center, London
National Library, Belarus
The Impact of Large Scale Integrated Displays on Architecture and Urbanism.
Developments in display technology and building materials are leading to new forms of hybrid architecture that break away from existing conceptions of surface, structure, lighting and moving imagery. Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays integrated with the fabric of built structures allow prominent imagery to be integrated with the façade, even in direct sunlight. Although energy requirements are practical only when displays are used in less bright conditions, there remain significant consequences for the townscape and urban environment; cinematic topias as pervasive as Minority Report and Blade Runner have become technically feasible.
The MediaArchitecture2007 conference creates a new discourse among the latest theoretical and practical approaches. By reviewing outstanding projects and presenting the views of key architectural theorists, media activists, planners, advertisers and artists, the conference will provide the first-depth consideration of the intersection of media and architecture - the premise that architecture and media issues will increasingly be considered together, at the conceptual stages of building planning. Image has become an architectural element; media increasingly pervade the built environment introducing an important ontological element.
blip LED Display
Altering the architectural relationship between image and structure has several significant implications – not only for visual encounter with the completed building, but in terms of planning and construction processes. The emergence of intelligent construction materials, which themselves incorporate display and data components, departs markedly from existing façade implementations in which lighting and display products have been applied in building projects where the underlying architecture is already advanced. The media façade becomes a data system to be specified and commissioned with the expectation of lifetime and maintenance commensurate with other structural elements. Content – the data and imagery that it will carry during that lifetime - is very different from both the rectangular clip material now common on LED billboards and from programmed lighting effects.
MediaArchitecture2007 will address these inversions in several respects:
– the impact on architectural theory of practical media façade systems
– departure of imagery from the confines of the clip towards dynamic creative based on building management and external information
– the practical challenges of large scale displays for urban planning; display viewing design in public spaces
– sustainable display and image data systems that can be specified directly by architects and installed by the construction industry and which are maintainable over the lifetime of a media façade
Aspire Tower, Qatar
SPEAKERS & CURATORS INCLUDE:
Bart Lootsma, Ludger Hovestadt, Realities United, Andrew Shoben, Kari Jormakka, Joachim Sauter, David Cunningham, Mark Dorrian, Michael Batz, Hermann Eisenköck, Patricia Austin, Tim Pritlove, Rogier van der Heide, Malcom McCullough, Mark Dorrian, Els Vermang. Peter Cornwell, Kathrin Kur, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Oliver Schürer, Mirjam Struppek, Jim Thrower, Gernot Tscherteu
registration: http://www.mediaarchitecture.org
contact: Conference Manager Gernot Tscherteu gt@realitylab.at
September 3rd, 2007
