Interactive Architecture Lecture @ Kunsthaus Graz

As part of the Europrix exhibition held in the Kunsthaus,Graz, I did a short presentation about my views on Interactive Architecture and its relationships to other fields in the arts and sciences both practically and conceptually and also where my Performative Ecologies project fits into my research. See below and I apologies for saying ummm a lot, I never realised I did until I watched this.

Part1

Part 2

5 comments December 20th, 2007

Life Spectulatrix – Augmented Architectures

Video

Here’s one of Augmented Architecture‘s prototypes that I saw at the ACADIA07 earlier this year. “Life Spectulatrix” is an evolutionary physical skin based on digital environmental feedback retrieved through the webspace. Architect Nancy Diniz describes how it becomes a “universally situated living piece” through its own evolutionary behaviour in relation to global environmental information as well as local interaction.

“Augemented Architectures” is : Nancy Diniz, a licensed architect and a PhD candidate at the Bartlett and a tutor at the Department of Architecture at ISCTE in Lisbon and Cesar Branco, a computer science engineer working for VSNL as a Solutions Architect based in London, UK.

1 comment December 18th, 2007

Mader Stublic Wiermann

reprojected

I first encountered the work of Mader Stublic Wiermann when Alexander Stublic did a talk at the MediaArchitecture Conference earlier this year. He presented four projects by the group in different technical environments focusing on correlations of space by extending and transforming architectural structures. I won’t cover the entire scope of their work here but their website has more detailed descriptions of what they’ve been up to in recent years. Below was one project in particular that I like as it starts to transform the rigid structure of an architecture into a dynamic fluid skin.

twists and turns

The exterior of the Uniqa Tower in Vienna has been equipped with a LED-grid, a wide-meshed net of picture elements capable of receiving video-data, which are fitted into the building’s facade. At first, the electronic data corresponds to the architectural structure of the tower, but during the course of its choreography, repeatedly detaches itself from the concrete shape of the building, establishing new spaces which dynamically interweave.

2 comments December 17th, 2007

David Rokeby – Cloud

One project that caught my eye from Regine’s posts covering the VIDA awards was David Rokeby’s Cloud Installation currently suspended in the Great Hall at the Ontario Science Centre. One hundred identical sculptural elements, arranged in ten by ten grid, are rotated at slightly differing speeds by computer-controlled motors. The elements slowly shift in and out of synchronization. When the motors are just out of sync, huge waves ripple across the space. When completely in sync, the work appears almost solid then suddenly almost invisible. When far out of sync, the sculptural elements float in apparent chaos. Cloud creates constantly shifting fields and patterns in the space of the Great Hall, playing with the tension between chaos and order, between scientific theory and human experience, and between objectivity and subjectivity.

Cloud is large arrangement of identical simple elements. The smallest elements of the work are a pair of thin acrylic planes crossing each other perpendicularly on their short side. One is clear, the other is a light blue grey. Six sets of these planes are arranged in identical orientation along an acrylic shaft. A stepper motor slowly rotates each shaft. 100 of these motor shaft sets are set up in a 10 x 10 configuration to create an open form. The 100 units are identical, replaceable and interchangeable. They are attached to a 10 x 10 grid of aluminum. All motors are connected to a computer which maintains the desired relationship of rotations speeds and positions.

There are three distinct states of organization of this structure. When all rotations are identical, the structure resembles a solid, both subjectively and formally. As the rotations shift away from this solid state, the structure melts into a liquid-like flow, with waves clearly traversing the structure. Beyond a certain point, the relationships between the rotations becomes unclear and the structure resembles the random incoherence of a gas. The transitions between identifiable states reflect the transitions of melting, freezing, evaporating, condensing and sublimating.

Add comment December 12th, 2007