Andy Lomas | Matteo Zamagni | Vorsitz: Marjan Colletti

Ohne Zweifel – Krisen hat es immer schon gegeben, aber im Moment scheint die Krise wieder Hochkonjunktur zu haben. Als räumlicher und zeitlicher Wendepunkt in einer Phase des Überganges bedeutet Krise immer auch Veränderung. Versteht man sie folglich als produktiven Zustand entsteht durch das erlangte Krisenbewusstsein eine Handlungsmotivation, welche die Grundlage zur Umgestaltung konkreter Konstellationen bilden kann.

Die Vortragsreihe A Sense of Crisis appelliert an den kritischen Zeitgeist der Architektur und hinterfragt ihr Verhältnis zur Krise. Grundsätzlich verfügen Architekturprojekte auf Basis ihrer komplexen inhaltlichen, räumlichen und zeitlichen Beschaffenheit ein großes Spektrum an kritischem Potenzial.

Dennoch stellt sich die Frage: Können räumliche Konzepte und Strategien der Architektur als maßgebliches Feld gesellschaftlicher Verhandlungen und Veränderungen agieren? Oder hat die Kritikfähigkeit der Architektur an Vision verloren?

Um diese Veränderungen positiv zu lenken, scheint die Fähigkeit zur Spekulation im Sinne eines kreativen offenen Denkprozesses entscheidend. Denkmodelle wie Blochs konkrete Utopie beispielsweise gehören von Natur aus zum Bereich der Theorie und Spekulation. »Aber, statt wie die eigentliche Theorie die Kenntnis dessen zu suchen, was ist, ist sie eine Übung oder ein Spiel mit den möglichen Erweiterungen der Realität. Der Intellekt wird in der utopischen Denkweise zum Vermögen der konkreten Denkübung, hängt ab von einem primären Wissen um die Wirklichkeit und trägt seinerseits zu einem besseren Verständnis bei. Die erkenntnistheoretischen Möglichkeiten des utopischen Spiels bringen dann die konkrete Utopie in eine indirekte, aber sehr wirksame Beziehung zur Wirklichkeit.« Raymond Ruyer

Die Vortragreihe versucht durch acht Positionen aus unterschiedlichen Fachbereichen wie Architektur, Landschaftsarchitektur, Kulturwissenschaft und Kunst innerhalb der Plattformschwerpunkte Geography Landscapes and Cities anhand eines erweiterten Diskurses das Krisenbewusstsein der Architektur und dessen Potenzial auszuloten.

Supported by: Halotech Lichtfabrik | Pema | Ing. A. Sauritschnig Alu-Stahl-Glas GesmbH

http://www.pema.at

http://www.sauritschnig.at

27. März 2017 | Christophe Girot | Bas Princen | Vorsitz: Kathrin Aste | 19.00 h | IKA 211a

Lecture Christophe Girot | Landscape Topology

How does one enter a site, topically? Through a topological method that is specific to landscape architecture. With advanced capabilities of a point cloud models, topology can simulate more fully physical aspects of a site. Whether this method leads to a better design depends on the designer’s creative capacity to grasp a landscape's essence. As a method, then, topology is neither infallible nor does it guarantee better designs, but with a renewed effort to employ physical landscape models as departure point, it can cast an entirely different light on our approach to design. It is precisely this faculty – to navigate through a terrain precisely via a geographically informed, 3D digital space – that makes the difference in the approach of a design. Beyond the explicit, physical properties of a site, topology brings up the cultural limitations with which the designer is faced: language and concepts of nature that he or she may have to promote.

Through repeated testing, it is possible to see a project evolve virtually before its eventual realization. Looking at a landscape as a full, physical body provides an entirely different reading of reality than a conventional two-dimensional layered map, and, as a result, also promotes a different operating mode. Topological methods place the landscape designer at the heart of a virtual site that can help distinguish various elements of a place with a differentiated viewpoint. The virtual space of a point cloud model enables entirely new relationships and meanings to emerge between the very same landscape elements, namely because they now appear in a completely different order than in a 2D plan. In this way, the point cloud model introduces the notion of perceptual relativity in landscape design, which is quite different from conventional codes of planning and perspectival imaging.

Christophe Girot wurde 1957 in Paris geboren und ist Professor am Institut für Landschaftsarchitektur am Departement Architektur der ETH Zürich. Seine Lehr- und Forschungstätigkeit umfasst die Entwicklung neuer topologischer Methoden im Landschaftsentwurf, den Einsatz Neuer Medien in der Landschaftsanalyse- und Wahrnehmung, sowie die Erforschung der Geschichte und Theorie des Landschaftsentwurfs. Der Schwerpunkt seiner praktischen Tätigkeit liegt in der Auseinandersetzung mit der zeitgenössischen Landschaft.

Lecture Bas Princen

»I will focus on the aspect of 'a document (that describes a piece of the world), the construction of an image, the image in a space, and the image as object and if it is then still a document that describes the world’ in short, the transformation of reality into an object.» Bas Princen

Bas Princen is an artist and photographer living and working in Rotterdam and recently in Zurich. He was educated as industrial designer at the Design Academy Eindhoven and later studied architecture at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. Since then, through the use of photography, his work focuses on urban landscape in transformation, researching the various forms, outcomes and imaginaries of changing urban space.
Recent exhibitions include: Breuer Revised at the Met in NY, 2017, Earth Pillar , solo Gallery, Paris, 2016, Constructing Worlds in the Barbican Art Gallery, London 2014; Room of Peace in the Arsenale exhibition Monditalia , at the 14th Venice Biennale; Reservoir , deSingel Antwerp 2011; Five Cities , Depo, Istanbul 2010; Refuge , Storefront for art and architecture NY 2010; Invisible frontier , AUT, Innsbruck 2008; Nature as Artifice , Kroller Muller Museum, Otterloo and Aperture Foundation, New York 2009; Spectacular City , Nai, Rotterdam, 2006; The Venice Biennale of Architecture 2004, 2006, 2010 and 2012
In May 2004 he published his first book Artificial Arcadia with 010 Publishers; further monographs include Rotterdam with Witte de With Publishers 2007; Galleria Naturale for Linea di Confine, Rubierra 2008, Five Cities Portfolio with SUN Publishers 2009 and Reservoir with Hatje Cantz 2011, and The Construction of an Image 2016 with Bedford Press.
In 2004 he won the Charlotte Kohler Prize for promising young artists and architects in the Netherlands and at the 2010 Venice Biennale of Architecture he was awarded the silver lion for his collaborative work with Office Kersten Geers David van Severen.

15. Mai 2017 | Angelika Fitz | Andreas Spiegl | Vorsitz: Marco Russo | 19.00 h | Aktsaal

Lecture Angelika Fitz | Was kann Architektur?

Seit 2008 ist »die Krise« zunehmend zum bestimmenden Modus geworden – nicht nur in der Reflexion, auch im Erleben von Gegenwart. Paradoxerweise gewinnen Teile der Architektur gerade in diesem Moment wieder an Selbstbewusstsein was ihre Möglichkeit zur Mitgestaltung von Gesellschaft betrifft. Aber ähnlich wie die großen sozialen Bewegungen und die traditionellen Parteien Vergangenheit sind, kommt auch die Architektur weitgehend ohne Ismen aus. Sie fragt nicht mehr was Architektur sein soll, sondern was Architektur kann? Was bedeutet das für die Arbeit eines Architekturmuseums?

Angelika Fitz ist Kulturtheoretikerin und Kuratorin in den Feldern Architektur, Kunst und Urbanismus. Viele ihrer kuratorischen Projekte etablieren mehrjährigen Plattformen für Wissenstransfer und Koproduktion. 2003 und 2005 hat sie den Österreichischen Beitrag zur Architekturbiennale in Sao Paulo kuratiert. Aktuelle Projekte u.a. We-Traders . Tausche Krise gegen Stadt und Actopolis . Die Kunst zu handeln. Seit Januar 2017 ist sie neue Direktorin des Architekturzentrum Wien.

Lecture Andreas Spiegl | Krise und Kritik: Zwei Gründe für eine Selbstbeauftragung (mit und ohne Baugrund)

»Krise« und »Kritik« – zwei Begriffe, die etymologisch auf das gleiche altgriechische Wort »krinein« (trennen, urteilen, etc.) zurückgehen: Das Feststellen einer »kritischen Situation« verknüpft noch die gemeinsame Herkunft von Kritik und Krise. Spricht Krise von einer Situation, die sich wandelt und vom Statuts Quo trennt, so erzählt Kritik-Üben vom Versuch, sich von der vorherrschenden Sicht der Dinge zu lösen, um aus einer anderen Perspektive ein Beurteilen zu ermöglichen. Beide können den Grund dafür liefern, etwas zu verändern. In diesem Sinne skizziert der Vortrag eine Architekturbegriff, der in der Krise und Kritik einen Grund dafür erkennt, mit und ohne »Baugrund« Veränderungs- und Lösungsmöglichkeiten zu entwerfen –: eine Architektur des Handelns, das nicht auf Aufträge wartet.

Andreas Spiegl (*1964) studierte Kunstgeschichte an der Universität Wien, Österreich. Er unterrichtet als Senior Scientist am Institut für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, an der er von 2003 bis 2011 auch die Funktion des Vizerektors für Lehre und Forschung innehatte und seit 2015 die Leitung des Instituts für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften übernommen hat. Sein Arbeitsschwerpunkt liegt an der Schnittstelle von Medientheorien, Subjekttheorien und Raumtheorien. Er publizierte zahlreiche Texte zur zeitgenössischen Kunst und Kunsttheorie.

22. Mai 2017 | Francois Roche | Cristina D.Moreno + Efrén G.Grinda | Vorsitz: Oliver Domeisen | 19.00 h | Atelierhaus Prospekthof

Lecture François Roche | “s/he would rather do FICTION MAKer” Flash back 1993-2050

Experimental architecture has shifted toward a new corpus of instrumentations, made out of tools, computation mechanization, but also and simultaneously out of fictions and lines of subjectivity, synchronous with our symptoms of fears and great escapes in the “here and now”.
The purpose of this 1993-2050 flashback lecture is to explore, in the pursuit of the show “s/he would rather do FICTION MAKer” from 2016, attitudes that manifest a correlation, a co-dependency with the forms they underpin through their conflicts and reciprocities.

It is to discover a post-digital, post-human, post-activist, post-democratic, post-feminist  world, …  a queer, androgynous, carnal, disturbing, disenchanted, pornographic, transient, transactional world, ... where scenarios, mechanisms, misunderstandings, psychological and physiological fragments are what make up walls and ceilings, cellars and attics, … schizoid and paranoid, between the lines of operative and critical fictions …

François Roche founded the polymorphous architecture organization ‘New-Territories’ in 1993. Since then it has embraced different labels, names, strategies and purposes. ‘New-Territories’ is fronted by the androgynous avatar, trans-gender avatar, _S/he_, who authorized François Roche to write, talk and teach on his/her behalf, as a PS / personal secretary, an Ariadne’s wire of this ectoplasmic system and paranoiac mind.

New-Territories seek to articulate the real and/or fictional geographic situations and narrative structures that can transform them, with technology, robotic and human natures, physiological and psychological.

François Roche ´s work was exhibited among other places at Pompidou Center, SF Moma, Tate Modern, Barbican London, CCA Montreal and was selected 8 times at Venice Biennial, Chicago Biennial (2015), Istanbul Biennial (2016).

Among the teaching positions held by him-her P.S. F Roche, New-Territories has been guest professor, over the last decade, in London, Vienna, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Paris, in New-York from 2006 to 2013 at Columbia University, and this last four years at RMIT, Melbourne.
‘’S/he’’ got in 2017 her-his first position in Vienna at ‘The Academy of Fine Arts’.

Lecture Cristina D.Moreno + Efrén G.Grinda | MACARONIC

The lecture will verse about new language constructs in architecture and a visit to AMID.cero9 recent projects developed within the framework of our unprecedented global context, where every type of cultural material triggers a wild multiplicity of connections with other materials, things and situations, from people to machines to insignificant, abstract entities. So that the lecture will argue that the overall congruence, origin, connotations and meanings of these connections are no longer relevant to the way these materials are connected and what counts now is the universal instant access to this infinite ocean of information.

amid.cero9 cultivates a post-digital, afterpop approach to the contemporary notion of space that enlists sociology, technology, media, politics and representation in projects ranging from architecture (Cherry Blossom Pavilion in Jerte Valley, Spain, shown at the 12th Biennale di Venezia, Giner de los Ríos Foundation in Madrid, Diagonal80 Industrial Pavillion in Madrid) to design (ESA Pavillion), ecosystemic studies (The Magic Mountain in Ames, We as a plague in Rome, TRP in Venice) and hybrid urban projects (Aijalaranta in Jyväskylä, or Hhouse in Balearic Islands).

Cristina Díaz Moreno & Efren Gª G rinda are both architects and founders of amid.cero9. They are Diploma Unit Masters at the A.A. School, London (2009-), Directors of an Option Studio at the GSD, Harvard University (2015-), and Visiting Professors and Unit Directors at SAC Städelschule Architectural Class, Frankfurt (2016-). Previously they taught at the Institut für Kunst und Architektur Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna. While teaching together in Madrid from 1998 till 2013 (in parallel at ETSAM and ESAYA UEM) they have been visiting professors and lecturers throughout Europe, Asia and the US. Their projects have been widely disseminated and they have won more than 40 prizes in national and international competitions. Their projects and writings of the last fifteen years were documented in 2014 in a publication entitled “Third Natures, a Micropedia” and an exhibition at the AA, London. Recent projects include Golden Balloon for MOT Tokyo, Palm Pavillion for Sharjah, United Emirates and Giner de los Ríos Foundation, the famous Institucion Libre de Enseñanza, Madrid. Recently a monographic issue about their works have been published in El Croquis nº184.

12. Juni 2017 | Andy Lomas | Matteo Zamagni | Vorsitz: Marjan Colletti | 19.00 h | IKA 211a

Lecture Andy Lomas | Morphogenetic Creations

Inspired by the work of Alan Turing, Ernst Haeckel and D'Arcy Thompson, Morphogenetic Creations is an ongoing series of art works that explore how intricate complex structure and motion can be created emergently using computer generated models of morphogenesis.

The aim is for deep emergence, with rules for growth specified at the level of interactions between individual cells. Digital simulation techniques are used to algorithmically encode the rules, and processes are run over many thousands of time steps. Typical final structures consist of up to a hundred million individual parts, yielding levels of detail that would be difficult or impossible to obtain using more conventional techniques.

The results are both alien and familiar. Using a combination of evolutionary methods and machine learning, the space of possibilities is explored to discover areas of rich emergent behaviour. Creating forms using unnatural selection: survival of the intriguing instead of the fittest.

Andy Lomas is a digital artist, mathematician, and Emmy award winning supervisor of computer generated effects. His art work explores how complex sculptural forms can be created emergently by simulating growth processes. Inspired by the work of Alan Turing, D'Arcy Thompson and Ernst Haeckel, it exists at the boundary between art and science.

He has had work exhibited in over 50 joint and solo exhibitions, including at the Royal Society, SIGGRAPH, Japan Media Arts Festival, Ars Electronica Festival, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Watermans and the ZKM. His work is in the collections at the V&A and the D'Arcy Thompson Art Fund Collection, and was selected by Saatchi Online to contribute to a special exhibition in the Zoo Art Fair at the Royal Academy of Arts.

In 2014 his work Cellular Forms won The Lumen Prize Gold Award, as well as the Best Artwork Award from the A-Eye exhibition at AISB-50, and an Honorary Mention from the jury at the Ars Electronica Festival.

He is a Visiting Lecturer at UCL, The Bartlett School of Architecture and a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths University of London. His production credits include Walking With Dinosaurs , Matrix: Revolutions, Matrix: Reloaded, Over the Hedge, The Tale of Despereaux, Avatar , and he received Emmys for his work on The Odyssey (1997) and Alice in Wonderland (1999).

Lecture Matteo Zamagni | Collective reformations

Chaos has become a common synonym of the world. In places where the internet is available, informations are spreading across keeping people informed about current situation, but most often are accompained with a huge portion of misinformation. At a stage where there is no sharp distinction between what's real and what's not, a need for change is felt from every part of the world, especially in the arts where such pressure is expressed with very straightforward statements. It is considered that as many as 80% of the people will be sucked in cities in a few years, intensifying the amount of pressure on citizen's shoulders.

New solutions are currently in the making and more have yet to come. One of which consist of creating sustainable localized communities around the world acting as small microcosms. Communitarian experiences however are not new, during the 19th century, many of them were born but the majority of them collapsed in less than few months; This underlines the importance to have strong infrastructure upon which to build such experiments.

Matteo Zamagni is a new media artist based in London. He expresses his ideas through multi-media platforms: Video Direction, real-time and off-line graphics and interactive installations; The root of his projects comes from ongoing research into the connections between spirituality and sciences. He explores the boundaries between the physical and the invisible dimensions, the macro and micro scale of matter, the conscious and unconscious mind. He has been working for various new media artists and studios such as Quayola, Field.io and Hito Steyerl.