curatorial | studio any

Noise Traffic

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Experimental live art event curated by Nicolina Stylianou (sensorium space), and produced in collaboration with Station of Commons.

Event program

Pop-up stands by Rab-Rab Press and Moneda records.

Production team

Nicolina Stylianou (curation, production)
Constantinos Miltiadis (production, post-production)
Emiddio Vasquez (sound engineering)
Gregoire Roussau (live audio streaming)

Digital Commoning Practices

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 12:00:00 +0000

Co-curation and hosting of the lecture part in Phase 2 of the exhibition Digital Commoning Practices, by Station of Commons that took place at the artist-run gallery Oksasenkatu 11, in Helsinki, March 6-28 2021, during lockdown. See exhibition credits and lecture programme

Lecture programme

First Session: Intersecting Commons
11.03.2021 7pm	Selena Savic	activation talk
11.03.2021 8pm	Stavros Stavrides	Rethinking the common: Exploring the potentialities of space commoning
12.03.2021 7pm	Dubravka Sekulić	Unsettling the Universal: Really Useful Commoning
13.03.2021 7pm	Cornelia Sollfrank	Variations of Gender and Technology Trouble

Second Session: Commoning Education/Educating the Commons
18.03.2021 7pm	Sam Hart	activation talk
18.03.2021 8pm	How to infrastructure otherwise	How to infrastructure otherwise
19.03.2021 7pm	Gregoire Rousseau and Nora Sternfeld	Educating the Commons and Commoning Education
20.03.2021 7pm	Marcell Mars	Distributed resources versus distributed tech

Exhibition outline

The exhibition “Digital Commoning Practices” departs from Station of Commons; a practice of re-appropriation of technology as Commons within public space, which stands for radical alternative strategies to the neo-liberal system in terms of digital means of production, communication and distribution. “Digital Commoning Practices” starts with a question: How to think of a collaborative process embedded in technology that can find form into new knowledge and know-hows within, against and beyond capitalist modes of production?

“Digital commoning practices” intends to both elaborate a critical discourse on the economization process, and to reflect on digital tools development to resist, and rebel, against privatization of technological means. Activist and architect Stavros Stavrides insists that commoning practices must welcome a multitude of knowledges, discourses, practices and know-hows for the emergence of commoning spaces. The dynamic at work operates as a collective and transformative effort always in the making. The exhibition invites artists, activists, urbanists, publishers, designers, programmers, feminists and educators to open, share their work in an Open Source way of doing and thinking.

An exhibition as timelime

The exhibition process produces a month long timelime to articulate different temporalities; live audio streams, lectures, discussion and workshops.This format imagines an exhbition as an intersection of eventfull temporalities more than a division of space in the traditional white cube practice. “Digital Commoning Practices” timeline develops over three phases.

The exhibition opens with the celebration of the first anniversary of the Open Source audio stream. Together with Helsinki based N10 collective, Station of Commons will broadcast 5 sound artists whose work has developed in absence of concert situation.

The second phase aggregates a network of activists, theorists and artists involved in physical and technological spaces. This moment intends to intersect their knowledges and practices to examine and think together commoning practices in the current hybrid spaces. This phase interrogates how digital commoning practices can come to terms with old gender stereotype and how can all technology pirates work together.

The third phase entittled “Commoning Education/Educating the Commons” discusses how can digital practices and radical education can learn from each other. Learning together from the practices of the participants we will deploy an edifice to initiate an operative digital commoning practice…

Exhibition credits

With artistic and discursive contributions by
Heta Bilaletdin, Juan Gomez, Pahat Kengät, Sam Hart, Tommi Keränen, Malin Kuht, Constantinos Miltiadis, Marcell Mars, Martino Morandi, Jara Rocha, Gregoire Rousseau, Selena Savic, Dubravka Sekulić, Femke Snelting, Cornelia Sollfrank, Stavros Stavrides,Nora Sternfeld, Samuli Tanner, Värvöttäjä.

Exhibition credits
Exhibition concept, curating, and co-organization by Gregoire Rousseau.
Open Soure audio stream co-curated by Otto Mannistö.
Co-organization and lecture moderation by Constantinos Militiadis.
Server operation and on-line services by Alain Ryckelynk.
Big Blue Button instance by constant.
Visual communication, communication, and Activation parts co-organization by Juan Gomez.

Supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation, Goethe-Institut Finnland, and best brewery in town Valillan Panimo.

Phase 1: Open Source audio stream

06.03.2021 N10 Open Source audio stream:

Pahat Kengät, Värvöttäjä, Tommi Keränen, Samuli Tanner, Samuli Tanner, Heta Bilaletdin.

OFFREAL video installation by Malin Kuht
/Ground floor in gallery space.
Alexander Galloway writes in his book „The Interface Effect”, that „an interface is not a thing, an interface is always an effect. It is always a process or a translation.” This effect includes how humans are affected by an interface and the way they are able to engage with a machine. OFFREAL considers interfaces as conjunctions of possibilities, histories and power relations.
In OFFREAL, two virtual assistants, called Ashley and Allison, are given the ability to diffract their existence as interface(s) and their looks. In addition to the female-coded voice, many avatars are designed according to pop-cultural ideals of beauty, which raises political and representational questions. The categories race and gender remain contested in the discourse on virtual bodies. What does it mean to be human and to become human in this digital age? Human-ess and Machines meet somewhere OFF the REAL in a speculative space.

CREDITS:
Text 2 Speech Avatars by: ODDCAST https://www.ttsdemo.com/
Masking & Script Editor: Helen Stefanie (https://www.helenstefanies.com/)
Script Editor & Sound Design: M_x _child (https://soundcloud.com/mxchild)

Phase 2: Digital Commoning Practices

First Session: Intersecting Commons

11.03.2021 19h UTC+2
Activation with Selena Savic in discussion with Station of Commons Juan Gomez & Gregoire Rousseau.

11.03.2021 20h UTC+2
“Rethinking the common: Exploring the potentialities of space commoning”
by Stavros Stavrides
If commoning is about complex and historically specific processes through which representations, practices and values intersect in circumscribing what is to be shared and how in a specific society, where can we locate the potentialities of space commoning? Based on the view that commoning practices are characterized both by the means they employ and by the subjects that participate in them, this presentation will explore how inhabited space may become a shaping factor of solidarity and collaboration relations between commoners.

12.03.2021 19h UTC+2
“Unsettling the Universal: Really Useful Commoning”
by Dubravka Sekulić
Feminism, reminds us Lola Olufemi “is a political project of what could be.” Commons can be understood along similar lines. Both have to be understood as verbs, concepts that do, unsettle and transform, ways we are in the world. Thinking at the intersection between digital and urban, in my talk I will propose a reading of the public library as an important node in the feminist and commoning consciousness raising operation.

13.03.2021 19h UTC+2
“Variations of Gender and Technology Trouble”
by Cornelia Sollfrank
Technofeminism is based on two basic assumptions: 1) technology is not neutral and 2) technology is a highly gendered field. These presuppositions open up a field of questions, problems and related practices. Based on selected positions in theory and practice, the talk exemplifies some of the tensions and openings from which to rethink ways of encountering the current technopolitical crisis. Commoning here serves as a framework for the process of vision and implementation, of experimentation and evaluation, of responding to the contemporary condition by creating new forms, formats and formations and questioning them again.

Second Session: Commoning Education/Educating the Commons

18.03.2021 19h UTC+2
Activation with Sam Hart on “Peer-to-peer Public Works”

20h UTC+2
“How to infrastructure otherwise”
by Femke Snelting, Jara Rocha & Martino Morandi.
A hands-on conversation on the ongoing techno-political transformations in (remote) learning environments. How to infrastructure otherwise in more just and solidary ways? On de-schooling, interdependent learning and The bundle theory of the student-user. With Martino Morandi, Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting.

19.03.2021 19h UTC+2
“Educating the Commons and Commoning Education”
by Gregoire Rousseau and Nora Sternfeld in dialogue.
All over the world, education – which could be understood as a universal right and public good – is facing processes of economization and privatization. Technology – which could be understood as a common means of production, collaboratively developed – is taken away from the public and put into corporate hands. This conversation investigates the question of shared and common knowledge from the perspectives of an educator and an engineer, respectively.

20.03.2021 19h UTC+2
“Distributed resources versus distributed tech”
by Marcell Mars
Marcell Mars is a research associate at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures. Mars is one of the founders of Multimedia Institute/MAMA in Zagreb. His research Ruling Class Studies, started at the Jan van Eyck Academy (2011), examines state-of-the-art digital innovation, adaptation, and intelligence created by corporations such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay. He is a doctoral student at Digital Cultures Research Lab at Leuphana University, writing a thesis on Foreshadowed Libraries. Together with Tomislav Medak he founded Memory of the World/Public Library, for which he develops and maintains software infrastructure.
https://gist.github.com/marcellmars/10392e6e784e8734efa307623833597b

Phase 3: Workshops

VPN Aesthetics
VPN SSH
Gregoire Rousseau
An hands-on time with Virtual Private Network as infrastructure for direct and secure communication between connected devices. We introduce Zerotier VPN technology, how to set up it as administrator and client on most used OS including Raspbian/Raspberry Pi.

We will install various software using VPN such as remote desktop client(VNC), and as practical example how to upload new files to Arduino remotely.

Tactical Amateur Librarianship, or pole vaulting through the corpus of knowledge
Workshop for introduction to the ways of organizing, archiving, collecting and reading sources. After an introduction about the evolution of scholarship it will proceed to demonstrate open source apparatus that can be used to facilitate research, formal or otherwise. These are

Calibre : for general book organization and reading /Calibre-ebook.com
Zotero : reference manager and citation software /Zotero.org
Hypothes.is : tool for collaborative online reading and annotation /Hypothes.is

Biographies

Heta Bilaletdin
Utilizing samplers, vocals, field sounds, a computer, random items and dusty four-track tapes, Heta Bilaletdin creates music concrete, sludgy beats, sugary melodies, peculiar dub and disjointed disco. Expect the unexpected and humane feelings squeezed out of electronic instruments.

Juan Gomez
Juan is a media artist and interaction designer living and working in Geneva, Switzerland. He graduated with honours from the Haute école d’art et de design – Genève (HEAD – Geneva) and is working in the intersection between art and design. He organizes workshops on critical technology, curates panels on contemporary publishing practices and conceives interactive installations with programing tools he develops.
His current interest are: The materialisation of social technologies in temporal urban spaces and their potential for generating valuable discussions in urban decisions; On empowering methods for the civil society to engage with their technological tools and on inclusive ways for teaching coding in playful ways. He is currently a PhD candidate in Design with a the practice based thesis Re-decentralize design: Tools for a new spatial design practice tutored by Anthony Masure (HEAD) & Jeffrey Huang (EPFL).

Malin Kuht
Malin Kuht is a media-critical artist and educator. She studies Fina Arts, Pedagogy and Political Science in Kassel. She is interested in contemporary music, media theory and technofeminist practices as well as exploring how gender is inscribed into our technologies and more explicitly used within interfaces. Her current research focuses on the future of the historisation of the first cyberfeminst international. Since 2016 she supports the activist alliance Unraveling the NSU Complex.

Marcell Mars
Marcell Mars is a research associate at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures. Mars is one of the founders of Multimedia Institute/MAMA in Zagreb. His research Ruling Class Studies, started at the Jan van Eyck Academy (2011), examines state-of-the-art digital innovation, adaptation, and intelligence created by corporations such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay. He is a doctoral student at Digital Cultures Research Lab at Leuphana University, writing a thesis on Foreshadowed Libraries. Together with Tomislav Medak he founded Memory of the World/Public Library, for which he develops and maintains software infrastructure.
https://gist.github.com/marcellmars/10392e6e784e8734efa307623833597b

Constantinos Miltiadis
Constantinos is transdisciplinary architect and researcher currently research fellow between the Departments of Design & Architecture of Aalto University. Most of the past year he spent sitting in his 25m2 room in Helsinki.

Martino Morandi wrote this bio text on a QWERTY keyboard on a Lenovo laptop on a seat of a Trenord train moving on the italian RFI rails, running on electricity from state hydro-electric power plants on the Alps. He researches the tangle of and our entanglements with these elements and is interested in the politics of our interactions with technology at different scales, from power plants to bio texts.

Pahat Kengät
Pahat Kengät is an electronic musician and composer from Finland. With their music Pahat Kengät seeks to recreate a variety of emotional states and experiences as electronic soundscapes, utilising a selection of electronic and acoustic instruments, and voice. The music itself ranges from soft drones to hectic noise, with focus always remaining on static and repetitive minimalism.t

Tommi Keränen
Tommi Keränen is a noise maker from Helsinki. Active since the mid 1990s, he performs and records as a solo artist, and is a member of Testicle Hazard, Large Unit, Köttskogen, Gentle Evil and The Truckfuckers. He uses mainly primitive electronics and non-standard digital synthesis to create slabs of vivid swirling noise. His discography consists of over two dozen entries ranging from cryptic tapes to some critically acclaimed releases like the Bats in the Attic CD (among The Wire’s Rewind picks in 2010).

Jara Rocha works through the situated and complex forms of distribution of the technological with a trans*feminist sensibility. With a curious confidence in transtextual logistics and a clear tendency to profanate modes, they tend to be found in tasks of remediation, action-research and in(ter)dependent curatorship. Main areas of study have to do with the semiotic materialities of political urgencies.

Gregoire Rousseau
Artist and educator based in Helsinki, co-founder of Station of Commons.
Grégoire Rousseau is artist and educator based between Helsinki and Paris. He is graduated both as Electrical Engineer and Master of Fine Arts. His artistic work questions the role of the machine, the algorithm within the digitally controlled society, and the complexity of the neoliberal interests in relation to public knowledge, to commons within technological space. Beside artist practice, Rousseau has been teaching in Finnish Academy of Fine Arts for ten years where he developed and implemented the first space dedicated to technology in 2013. In 2001, he founded electronic music record label Tuulanauhat; in 2014, he co-founded Rabrab Press with Sezgin Boynik, Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Arts. In 2018, he authored the publication “Learning from electric energy in the arts, Knowledge happens together”; in 2020 he initiated Station of Commons a platform of commoning practices within technological space. http://rousseau.fi

Alain Ryckelynck
Alain’s main interests has been science and technology since an early age. Early discovery of computing and then Internet led to a passion in combining technologies and channels to build interactivity, for humans and living creatures or machines. IT professional, CTO, entrepreneur in various related fields such as system administrator, web developer, hosting and streaming provider with AJ-Group.net and having most fun experimenting with electronics and interconnected devices. As part of Station of Commons, Alain is in charge to administrate and manage servers and other online services. Currently living with his family in Espoo, Finland.

Selena Savic
Selena Savić is an architect and researcher, interested in architectonic qualities of (wireless) communication, the plethora of ways technical infrastructures organize space, the use of machine learning for humanistic inquiries into discourses, digital literacy and digital citizenship. Postdoctoral researcher at Critical Media Lab, IXDM, Basel; previously Postdoc fellow at ATTP TU Vienna. She holds a dual PhD from the Federal Technical Institute in Lausanne, Switzerland (EPFL) and the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal (IST), grantee of the FCT, Portugal and SNSF, Switzerland.

Dubravka Sekulić
writes about the production of space and is interested in the unsettling common sense of architecture and universal epistemic frames. She is a Senior Tutor at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, London (UK) and holds a PhD in history and theory of architecture from the ETH Zürich. She wrote Glotzt Nicht so Romantisch! On Extralegal Space in Belgrade (jan van eyck, 2012), Constructing Non-alignment: The Case of Energoprojekt (msub, 2016), and co-edited, together with Žiga Testen and Gal Kirn, Surfing the Black (jan van eyck, 2012). She was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht. Together with Elise Hunchuck and Jonathan Solomon she initiated New Schools for Space. Most recently she collaborated with artist and filmmaker Ana Hušman on a film Don’t Trace, Draw! (2020).

Femke Snelting develops projects at the intersection of design, feminisms, and free software. In various constellations, she explores how digital tools and practices might co-construct each other. Femke is member of Constant, association for art and media based in Brussels and collaborates as Possible Bodies, The Underground Division and The Institute for Technology in The Public Interest.

Cornelia Sollfrank
Cornelia Sollfrank (PhD) is an artist, researcher and university lecturer, living in Berlin (Germany). Recurring subjects in her artistic and academic work in and about digital cultures are artistic infrastructures, new forms of (political) self-organization, authorship and intellectual property, techno-feminist practice and theory. As a pioneer of Internet art, Cornelia Sollfrank built up a reputation with two central projects: the net.art generator – a web-based art-producing ‘machine,’ and Female Extension – her famous hack of the first competition for Internet art. Her experiments with the basic principles of aesthetic modernism implied conflicts with its institutional and legal framework and led to her academic research. In her PhD “Performing the Paradoxes of Intellectual Property,” Cornelia investigated the increasingly conflicting relationship between art and copyright. This led to her current research project ‘Creating Commons,’ based at the University of the Arts in Zürich. Her most recent artistic work, the performance À la recherche de l’information perdue, is about gender stereotypes in the digital underground with the example of Wikileaks. The artistic research group #purplenoise, founded in 2018, investigates the potential of social media for political manipulation.
Recent publications include “The beautiful Warriors. Technofeminist Practice in the 21st Century” (minorcompositions.org), “Aesthetics of the Commons” (diaphanes.net) and “Fix My Code” (with Winnie Soon) (eeclectic.de) – all open access. Homepage: artwarez.org

Nora Sternfeld
Nora Sternfeld is an art educator and curator. Since January 2018 she is documenta professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (School of Art and Design Kassel). From 2012 to 2018 she was professor for Curating and Mediating Art at the Aalto University in Helsinki. Furthermore she is co-director of the /ecm – Master Program in Exhibition Theory and Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna; part of the core team of schnittpunkt. ausstellungstheorie & praxis; a co-founder and part of trafo.K, Office for Art, Education and Critical Knowledge Production (Vienna); and since 2011, a member of freethought, a platform for research, education, and production (London). In this capacity she was also one of the artistic directors of the Bergen Assembly 2016. She publishes texts on contemporary art, exhibitions, politics of history, educational theory, and anti-racism.
Curator and Educator, Professor of Art Education HFBK Hamburg

Stavros Stavrides
Dr. Stavros Stavrides, architect, is Professor at the School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens, Greece, where he teaches graduate courses on housing design (social housing design included), as well as a postgraduate course on the meaning of metropolitan experience.
Extensive research fieldwork in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico focused on housing-as-commons and urban struggles for self-management.
Research topics include urban commons, urban struggles, experience of metropolitan space, housing, spatial theory, architectural design and planning.
His recent publications include Common Spaces of Urban Emancipation (Manchester 2019), Common Space. The City as Commons, (London 2016, Istanbul 2016, Athens 2019), Towards the City of Thresholds (Trento, 2010, Madrid 2016, Istanbul 2016, N. York 2019), Suspended Spaces of Alterity (Athens, 2010) and From the City-as-Screen to the City-as-Stage (Athens, 2002 National Book Award) as well as numerous articles on spatial theory and the urban commoning culture. He has lectured in European and North and South American Universities on urban struggles and p

WADS ↑ ← → ↓

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 12:56:56 +0300

Co-curation of virtual exhibition at Ars Electronica Festival 2020 In Kepler’s Gardens (September 9-13, 2020). The exhibition involved 21 artists and consisted of 11 virtual environments developed in Mozilla Hubs.

Exhibition text

WADS (↑ ← → ↓) speaks of plurality and plentifulness, of conjoining principles, disciplines and possibilities. As a virtual space compiled of local artists, it sets out to explore the potential of digital hubs as grounds of artistic and technological co-creation. It imagines a garden of commoning where artists pollinate the digital by employing a technique derived from gardening: namely, grafting.

In this spirit and following its own mission, RISE invites local artists to pollinate the digital by employing a technique derived from gardening: namely, grafting. WADS, a digital garden of commoning formed by 21 local artists, sets out to explore the potential of digital hubs as grounds of artistic and technological co-creation. The digital exhibition is created and experienced in the online environment of Mozilla Hubs and will be accessible through the Ars Electronica Digital Platform.

Project presentation

WADS was exhibited at the Thinker Maker Space in Nicosia, on October 15-16, 2020.

Exhibition credits

Participating Artists

Raissa Angeli, Maria Andreou, Marina Ashioti, Pandelis Diamantides, Anastasia Dolitsay, Peter Eramian, Ibrahim Latif Ince, Stelios Ilchouk, Marina Kassianidou, Irini Khenkin, Angeliki Koutsodimitropoulou, Marinos Koutsomichalis, Marietta Mavrokordatou, Panagiotis Mina, Faysal Mroueh, Lina Protopapa, Doros Polydorou, Despina Rangou, Kleanthis Rousos, Elena Savvidou, Nico Stephou

Graphic design

Nico Stephou

Curatorial team

Demetris Shammas, Constantinos Miltiadis, Emiddio Vasquez, Myrto Aristidou

With the support of RISE CY (now CYENS) and the Austrian Embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus.

CAAD Futures 2021: Design Imperatives - The future is Now

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 13:12:53 +0300

Co-chair and co-organizer for the 2021 iteration of the CAAD Futures international biannual conference, hosted remotely by the University of Southern California (USC). Contributed to authoring the open call, reviewing contributions, curating and hosting the keynote panel sessions, and co-editing the proceedings volume of the conference published in 2022 by Springer.

Conference co-chairs:

David Gerber (main chair; USC)
Biayna Bogosian (USC; Florida International University)
Evan Pantasis (IBI Group; USC)
Alicia Nahmad (University of Calgary)
Constantinos Miltiadis (Aalto University)

IAM Open Lecture 30: Of Mirrors and Plays: Heterotopia as a design tool

Fri, 21 Jun 2019 18:00:00 +0000

False Mirror Office gathers five architects sharing the Polytechnic School of Genoa as common background. While collaborating with leading European firms, its members share the interest for selected themes of major relevance, spanning from disciplinary topics to unrelated matters. Believing that new only originates as a reaction to the existing, false mirror office re-discovers the past as the present, re-signifies high as mass culture, re-values forms and functions. As a matter of fact, False Mirror Office mis-represents Architecture.

In 2015 Andrea Anselmo, Gloria Castellini, Filippo Fanciotti, Giovanni Glorialanza and Guya Di Bella gathered for Europan 13 competition (Trondheim, Norway). That project – the false mirror, awarded with first prize and currently ongoing – gave birth and named the collective. From that date on, the firm has been focusing on projects of different size and program, accompanying the design process with a constant work of research; spanning from the re-interpretation of traditional typologies, investigating hybrid combinations of functions, searching for new narratives and representational tools. Their works have been published on several architectural periodicals, e-zines and platforms – among the others Divisare, Afasia, Arkitektur.no, Beta-architecture, Archdaily, Dezeen, Viceversa Mag, Platform, Sky ARTE, The Architect’s Newspaper, Carnets, OUTSIDE, Designboom, Architektura i Biznes and The Architectural review. From 2016 the group has been involved in a series of collaborations with other firms based in Genova; the group – featuring false mirror office, Gosplan, Linearama, PIA and uno8A – has taken part in international competitions and has been involved in relevant exhibitions, from AESCHYLI (Genova, 2016) to la cameretta, as part of the Unfolding Pavillon at the 2017 Architectural Biennale in Venice. In 2017 Divisare Books dedicated to the group the first box set for the series New Architects, focused on emergent Italian firms, thus including False Mirror Office’s first monograph: foretaste.

Besides their practice, False Mirror Office is highly committed to academic research, with a few of its members associated with universities such as EPFL and the Polytechnic School of Genoa. In addition, False Mirror Office has given multiple lectures, as well as taken part in international workshops and exhibitions.

Boris Hamzeian is a PhD assistant of the Laboratory of Theory and History of Architecture LTH3 at the École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne -EPFL (CH). Since January 2017 he has been developing a PhD thesis titled “A ‘live centre for information’: the Pompidou Centre. Idea, design, fabrication, installations” under the direction of Roberto Gargiani. Born in Genoa in 1989. Obtained a M. Arch. Diploma with honours at the Polytechnic School of Genoa, IT (2014) with a specialisation on architectural and urban design. In 2012 he worked as an intern at Renzo Piano Building Workshop-RPBW Genoa. In 2013 he worked as a researcher at the International Institute of Architecture I2A in Lugano (CH). Between 2014 and 2015 he also worked as a graduate assistant and guest lecturer at the Polytechnic School of Genoa (IT). In 2015 he has been awarded with the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships for Foreign Scholars at the EPFL (CH). Between 2015 and 2016 he worked as assistant at the Laboratory of Arts for Sciences (LAPIS) at the École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne -EPFL (CH). In 2017 he was awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation with a Doc.Mobility grant to carry out a one year exchange program at the ENSA Paris-Malaquais in Paris.

Filippo Fanciotti is Scientific assistant at the Laboratory of Arts for Sciences (LAPIS) at the École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne -EPFL (CH) under the direction of Nicola Braghieri. Since 2016 he’s tutoring and holding classes about architectural representation for the courses of “Figuration et représentation de l’architecture” (FIRE II and FIRE III) and the bachelor course of “Vision et Utopie”. Born in Genoa in 1988. Obtained a M. Arch. Diploma with honours at the Polytechnic School of Genoa, IT (2014) with a specialisation on restoration. In 2013 he worked as an intern at MVRDV Rotterdam. Between 2014 and 2016 he worked as a graduate assistant and guest lecturer at the Polytechnic School of Genoa (IT). Between 2015 and 2017 he worked as collaborator at una2 architetti associati in Genoa.

Beside their academic activities, Boris and Filippo, are co-founders of the architectural firm False Mirror Office (2015-present).

The work of False Mirror Office can be found at falsemirroroffice.com as well as instagram.com/falsemirroroffice

IAM Open Lecture 29: Fiction[-]Time: The Design of Time

Mon, 20 May 2019 18:00:00 +0000

Giacomo Pala is an architect and researcher based in Innsbruck, Austria, where he works at the department of architecture theory as an assistant researcher – collaborating in research activities and in teaching the “ArchiFIcture” studios. He conducts his PhD at the same university under the guidance of Peter Trummer. More specifically, his research is focused on the relationship between historical time – intended as a form of fiction and architectural design in the attempt of developing a more complex relationship between the two, by looking at specific cases including Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s work. Basically, his interest lies in the possibility of testing the mutual limits between design, history and theory.

https://www.giacomopala.com/

IAM Open Lecture 28: Scavengers and Other Creatures

Fri, 17 May 2019 18:00:00 +0000

Ricardo de Ostos creates speculative fictions that envision architectural projects in shifting environmental and cultural contexts. He lives, works and teaches in London at both, the Architectural Association and The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is the co-director of NaJa & deOstos studio and co-author of ‘The Hanging Cemetery of Baghdad’ (Springer Wien/New York, 2006) ‘Ambiguous Spaces’ (Princeton Press, 2007) and ‘Scavengers and Other Creatures in Promised Lands’ (AA, 2017).

◯ (2019)

Sat, 04 May 2019 11:30:12 +0300

◯ was an experimental event series and collective based in Graz, active from 2019 to 2022. Founded in early 2019 by a group of eight individuals associated with the computer music program at the Institute of Electronic Music, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, the collective aimed to curate and produce experimental post-genre events that blended contemporary bass and dance music with experimental electronics, live arts, and discourse.

◯ was launched on May 5, 2019, at Forum Stadtpark. Following that and throughout 2019, the collective was highly active, organizing its own events while also participating in a variety of festivals and events. However, as the pandemic took hold in 2020 and several members relocated from Graz, sustaining the series became increasingly challenging. Eventually, ◯ held its closing event at Forum Stadtpark on November 25, 2022.

Credits

Founding members

Lain Iwakura / Bill B. Wintermute
Constantinos Miltiadis
Korin Rizzo
Nico Mohammadi / DJ Durbin
Peter Stiegler / Echnatron
John-Robin Bold
Florian Fend / Klaus Masuda
Gianluca Iadema

As the only non-performing-arist of the group my main contribution involved production and co-curation as well as visual design.

Invited guests

Jung An Tagen (AT)
Bienoise (IT)
Sun People (AT)
Ibrahim Alfa Jnr (UK)
Emiddio Vasquez / Joralsky (CY/US)
Isabella Forciniti (IT/AT)
Teonas Borsetto (IT/AT)

Collaborators & contributors

Simon Hafner: sound engineer at Forum Stadtpark events
Natalie Fend: Dance performance for #2
Katharina Wraubek: Set design for #2
Grey note (collective): co-producer of #2
Ypatios Gregoriadis: Documentation

Collaborating events, venues, festivals

Forum Stadtpark
Elevate Festival
SUb (live, DJ sets, discourse)
Triple Hüttler (event series)
Rostfest 2019
OAG Kulturverein (‘beach party’ 2019)

Selected events

◯ inaugural event at Forum Stadtpark 04.05.2019

FB event

18:00 WORKSHOP

Basics of no-input-mixing by Bill B. Wintermute ◯/ Force inc./ mille plateaux/ Acéphale
no prior knowledge necessary | free | place for 20 people

22:00 CONCERT

Echnatron ◯
Jung An Tagen (Editions Mego)
John-Robin Bold ◯

24:00 CLUB

Gianluca Iadema -live A/V- ◯ / mille plateaux/ Force inc.
Bienoise -live- Floating Forest / mille plateaux/ Force inc.
DJ Durbin ◯ / Row Records
Klaus Masuda ◯

Lecture, performance, concert, club at SUb 31.05.2019

FB event

Lecture & performance

Emiddio Vasquez “Materialist synthesis”

Live concert

Teonas Borsetto, live electronics (dynamic feedback system).
Isabella Forciniti, live electronics (modular feedback improv)
Joined live improvisation

DJ sets

John-Robin Bold
Bill B. Wintermute
Joralsky
DJ Durbin
Klaus Masuda

Grey Note x ◯ at Forum Stadtpark 07.06.2019

FB Event

Event produced by GreyNote & ◯ .

Design & animation: studio any (animation) and alllone (sound design)

GreyNote guests

ILe Flottante [UK]
Der Vinylizer [DE],
Deafblind (live visuals)

Event introduction by ◯

Dance performance by Natalie Fend
Ezili-i Sabbah (live); set design by Katharina Wraubek

Music program

ILe Flottante Live Beat Set [UK]
Der Vinylizer aka Marcus Maack II WobWob! / BTTB - Back To The Basics - ByteFM [DE]
alllone II GreyNote, Noise Collage https://soundcloud.com/alllone
OME Dubs II GreyNote https://soundcloud.com/ome_dubs
Dotworks II GreyNote, Basstrace https://soundcloud.com/dotworks
Bill B. Wintermute (live) II ◯ / Force inc. / Acéphale / Mille Plateaux
DJ Durbin II ◯ / Row Records
https://soundcloud.com/djdurbin
Ezili-i Sabbah II ◯ / Force inc. / Acéphale / Mille Plateaux

◯ closing event at Forum Stadtpark 25.11.2022

Organized by Lain Iwakura
FB event

Program

Peter Stiegler (Live-Set) https://soundcloud.com/peterstiegler
John-Robin Bold (Live-Set) http://johnrobinbold.com/
DJ Durbin https://soundcloud.com/djdurbin
Lain Iwakura (Live-Set) https://derayling.copyriot.com/
Sun People https://soundcloud.com/simon-off
Ibrahim Alfa Jnr (Live- & DJ-Set) https://soundcloud.com/ibi-alfa

IAM Open Lecture 27: See and Tell. Image and Imaginary Strategies: Artist talk & film screening

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 18:00:00 +0000

[no video]

Eduardo Brito works on photography, film and writing. He holds a Master’s degree in Artistic, Museological and Curatorial Studies from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto with a dissertation entitled “Claro Obscuro – Representations of the Museum in Fiction Film”. Eduardo is an assistant professor at this faculty and a researcher at I2ADS. Between writing, photography and film, Eduardo’s work explores the connections between truth, fiction and memory, as well the relation of text to image. Example of these are his books “East Ending” (2017) and “The Orcadians” (2014), and the photography series “5 p.m. Hotel de la Gloria” (with Rui Hermenegildo, 2015), “Un Samedi Sur Terre” (2017) and “Stories with no Return” (2018). Eduardo also directed the short films “Penumbria” (2016) and “Slope” (2018), co-wrote with Rodrigo Areias the feature film “Blue Breath” (2018) and wrote the short films “The Scoundrel” (Paulo Abreu, 2012), “The Glory of Filmmaking in Portugal” (Manuel Mozos, 2015), “Catherine or 1786” (Francisca Manuel, 2017) and “The Everlasting Man” (Luís Costa, 2017).

IAM Open Lecture 26: Simulations of Built Heritage as Urban Commons

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Georgios Artopoulos is Assistant Professor at the Cyprus Institute. He works on performative spaces, virtual environments and urban modeling for the study of public space and built heritage. Previously he was employed by the University of Cambridge and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Georgios has contributed in 12 International Research Programs and received the Best International Short Film award in Mestre Film Festival, Venice. His work was presented in the International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Czech National Gallery, the International Exhibition Computational Turn in Architecture, MAV, Marseille, the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017, the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, the 11th and 12th Biennale of Young Creators of Europe, the 63rd Venice Film Festival, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, the London Design Festival, London, and in many International Film Festivals and art exhibitions.

IAM Open Lecture 25: The Sixth Wave of Computing, or why Augmented Reality is not just for Architects

Mon, 04 Jun 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Wolfgang Walcher graduated from TU Graz (applied mathematics and PhD in computer science). He spent most his career in the US, working on and leading commercial and government remote sensing projects. Working with the founders of Google Earth, Sketchup he approached Microsoft about 3D mapping. He spent the next 10 years at Microsoft, holding principal-level positions, in areas like Bing maps, the production of 3D cities and the HoloLens project. After returning to Austria, he founded “Robotic Eyes”, a software house for engineering-grade Augmented Reality (AR) solutions. The company received funding from the European Space Agency incubator program (ESA-BIC) and has entered strategic partnerships with Autodesk, Microsoft and Google. Robotic Eyes provides the AR-platform REX, as well as consulting services and custom solution development to global enterprises. The combined revenue of these customers is over 200 Billion US dollars per year.

IAM Open Lecture & VR Experience 24: Synthetic corporeality in Contemporary Digital Art Practice: Artist Talk

Thu, 17 May 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Martina Menegon is a multimedia artist and lecturer of Virtual Reality and Interactive Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. She also regularly collaborates with Klaus Obermaier teaching multimedia tools for interactive arts and creating interactive performances and installations. Martina Menegon lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Martina’s work is at https://martinamenegon.xyz/

IAM Open Lecture 23: Maker Cultures: Dominant discourse and the possibility of heterogeneous practices

Mon, 14 May 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Ellen K Foster holds her PhD in Science and Technology studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where she was a researcher for an NSF-funded study regarding STEM education and an NEH-funded study on humanistic inquiry through 3D printing technologies. Currently, she is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Studies (IAS-STS). Her dissertation dealt with the rhetoric and then physical instantiations of inclusion, accessibility, and empowerment within various maker cultures. Her current work examines the politics of education technologies and skill-sharing techniques among DIY enthusiasts via a feminist theoretical lens. She has been an invited speaker at the London School of Economics, Emory University in the United States, and the University of Technology in Eindhoven.

IAM Open Lecture 22: On Real and Virtual Space

Tue, 08 May 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Anita Leirfall is associate professor of philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, University of Bergen, Norway. Leirfall’s main research is on Immanuel Kant’s theoretical philosophy with an emphasis on his conception of space. Leirfall teaches courses in philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of law. She is also one of the founders of the research project “The Philosophy of Computer Games”.

IAM Open Lecture 21: Cybernetics Architecture Information

Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Liss C. Werner is principal of ‘Tactile Architecture – office für systemarchitektur’ and Assistant Professor for Computational Architecture and Sustainable Urban Design at TU Berlin, with a focus on cybernetics and architecture. Her research engages with the applications in cyber-physical systems as well as digital theory. Between 2003 and 2016 Werner acted as a design studio master at Nottingham and Dessau, and Guest Professor at Carnegie Mellon and Taylor’s University Malaysia. She has lectured internationally at Cooper Union, Texas Tech, MIT, Kassel University, Bauhaus University Weimar, Innsbruck University and University of Alicante (EGA), and exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2012 and will do so in 2018. She co-chaired conferences on design strategies in an age of human-machine-collaboration and is chair of forthcoming eCAADe 2020 to be held at TU Berlin. Werner is the editor of ‘[En]Coding Architecture’ (2014) and ‘Cybernetics: state of the art’ (2017) as well as author of ‘Origins of Design Cybernetics’ and ‘Feedback Cybernetics Netgraft’. Werner has studied at the University of Westminster, RMIT and The Bartlett. In 2017, and she was awarded to be a ‘Young Digital Changer’ while her company received the German Enterprise Award for ‘Best for Modern Urban Architecture & Design 2017’. Liss C. Werner has recently founded the Cybernetics-Lab

IAM Open Lecture 20: Being There in Virtual Worlds: Embodiment as Foundation of Spatial Conception in Virtual Environments

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 18:00:00 +0000

Frank Fetzer is a PhD candidate in the last year at the University of Vienna. He holds a master’s degree in film studies from the same institution. His work focuses mainly on phenomenological and post-phenomenological theories. Key elements of his research are embodiment, human-technology relations, cyborgs, the ontology of virtual worlds and of course the video game as such. In his dissertation project, he tries to disentangle the manifold relations between player and video game as technological artefact and extension of player and world.

IAM Open Lecture 19: From Architecture to architectures

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 18:00:00 +0000

[no video]

Mariana Bisti studied Building Restoration (TEIPAT 2005) and Architectural Engineering (BA/MSc, NTUA 2012) in Greece. In 2014, having spent several years in the design industry, she moved to London to pursue a MFA in Fine Art Media at the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL 2016). Her art practice ranges across different media, including video, photography, public interventions, performances and installation. It can be described as an exploration of the contours of meaning and identities, through the processing of their equivocal formations and contingent representations. In her works, traces, marks, manifestations of temporal presence are recorded and manipulated in an attempt to investigate the ubiquitous absence of certainty in our contemporary world. Implications of political and social issues are juxtaposed with solid forms and concrete spatial references, informing each other of the current human condition and its contextual ambiguities.

Mariana Bisti’s work can be found at https://www.marianabisti.com/

IAM Open Lecture 18: Architectonics : Film presentation & discussion

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 18:00:00 +0000

[no video]

Anouk De Clercq studied piano in Ghent and film at the Sint Lukas Brussels University College of Art and Design. Her works explore the audiovisual potential of computer language to create possible worlds, many of which have a strongly architectonic character. She has received several awards, including the Illy Prize at Art Brussels in 2005 and a Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention in 2014. Her work has been shown in Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, MAXXI, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Ars Electronica, among others. Anouk De Clercq is affiliated to the School of Arts University College Ghent as an artistic researcher. She’s a founding member of Auguste Orts and is represented by Gallery Sofie Van de Velde.

Anouk De Clercq’s work can found at portabak.be

Towards the Expanded Field

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 18:26:39 +0300

Towards the Expanded Field: experimental and interdisciplinary approaches to immaterial spatiotemporal environments was a three day symposium including lectures, spatial audio performances and a VR exhibition that took place between 7 and 9 of March 2018 at the Haus der Architektur Graz.

Description

Virtual reality and spatial audio technologies bring about a new paradigm in the fields of architecture and music. While defying classification, works developed in these media extend our spatial and auditory sensibilities beyond what is perceivable in the physical world. Can we regard them however as architecture and music, or are they foreign to their origins?
Architect Constantinos Miltiadis and composer and sound artist Gerriet K. Sharma will present their investigations and exhibit works on virtual navigable environments and sculptural spatial audio. The event intends to initiate a discussion on the nature of such explorations, in parallel to the nature and future of music and architecture in the expanded field.

Program

Date	Program
March 7
6 pm	Opening presentations Constantinos Miltiadis – The Architectural Continuum: science, technology, art, choropoietic media and spatial aesthetic Gerriet K. Sharma – Spatial Practices in Contemporary Loudspeaker Music Stephan Günzel – On Spatiality
8:30 pm	VR exhibition opening Valentin Moser – Chronicles Lukas Gosch – Awakening Philipp Sattler – Library of the Absurd
March 8
10 am	Reading group Rosalind Krauss “Sculpture in the Expanded Field.” October 8 (1979)
6 pm	Spatial audio performances Antonia Manhartsberger – Mo.ve [modus vertiginis] Paul Wolff – 1500
7 pm	VR exhibition Valentin Moser – Chronicles Lukas Gosch – Awakening Philipp Sattler – Library of the Absurd
March 9
6:30pm	Closing round table discussion Constantinos Miltiadis, Gerriet K. Sharma, Antonia Manhartsberger, Valentin Moser, Philipp Sattler
7:30 pm	Spatial audio performance Gerriet K. Sharma: “gleAM” sound sculpture for BESSY II VSR and IKO

Credits

Concept & realization

Constantinos Miltiadis, in collaboration with Gerriet K. Sharma.

Presentations

Constantinos Miltiadis
architect and computational designer, currently an assistant professor at the Institute of Architecture and Media of TU Graz. His research and teachings are focused on the architectural qualities and aesthetic potential of virtual navigable environments.
studioany.com/
Gerriet K. Sharma
composer and sound artist, currently an artistic researcher in the OSIL project at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics of KU Graz and Edgard Varèse guest-professor at TU Berlin. His work is focused on sculptural composition in complex loudspeaker environments and space as a cultural key concept in the now.
www.gksh.net/
Stephan Günzel
media philosopher with expertise in the philosophy of space, Programme Director for New Media Design at UE Berlin (née BTK Berlin).
stephan-guenzel.de/

Spatial audio performances

Antonia Manhartsberger
Paul Wolff

VR exhibition

VSMS 2017 projects by

Philipp Sattler
Valentin Moster
Sabrina Kullmaier
Lukas Gosch

Documentation

Pictures by Felix Zitter (HDA)
Video recording by Antonia Manhartsberger

Acknowledgments

Conducted with the kind support of Haus der Architektur Graz, The Institute of Architecture and Media TU Graz, and the Deanery of the Faculty of Architecture of TU Graz. The IKO speaker was provided courtesy of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics, Kunst Uni Graz.

Photo documentation

IAM Open Lecture 17: Behind the visual: Digitalization of Indian Stone Architecture

Wed, 13 Dec 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Gerald Kozicz currently holds a position as project leader in the Nagara FWF project at IAM. He has previously been in leading positions in three Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Projects on Buddhist architecture in the Indo-Tibetan context. He is a graduate of TU Graz with more than 20 years of experience in various aspects of Asian architecture and culture.

Ludwig Grimm is a project assistant in the same research group, being responsible for the digitalization processes. Besides studying architecture with a focus on contemporary tools, he is working as a freelancer in the field of digital object visualization and also physical modeling.

IAM Open Lecture 16: Adaptive structures and material performance

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Efilena Baseta is an architect engineer who studied in the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), with a Master degree in Advanced Architecture from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC). Her interest lies in exploring material behaviors, physically and digitally, in order to create adaptive structures. Since 2014 Efilena is a partner of Noumena, an experimental architectural practice based in Barcelona. Moreover Efilena is part of “Reshape – Digital Craft Community” which focuses on Wearable Technology. During 2015-2016 she collaborated with IAAC as the coordinator of the Visiting Programs and tutor of the Global Summer School. She is currently a Marie Curie PhD candidate in the University of Applied Arts Vienna on the topic of „Dynamic Active Bending Structures.“

IAM Open Lecture 15: The Designed and Self-organized. Coupling distinct paradigms of deposition-based construction

Wed, 22 Nov 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Asya Ilgun is an architect, computational designer and researcher. Her main territory of “design research” is framed as smart ways of using the additive manufacturing (in particular deposition based) technologies to make new types of structures that breed the questioning of architectural boundaries, supporting the dual occupancy of humans and bees. Asya was trained as an architect, acquiring her Masters in Architecture within the programme CITAstudio: “Computation in Architecture,” at KADK in June 2016. Currently, she is doing her pre-doctoral research at the interdisciplinary environment of the Artificial Life Lab of the Karl Franzens Uinversity of Graz.

IAM Open Lecture 14: VOID, BRANDS, CHARACTERS and how to Deal with a LOTs

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Miro Roman is an architect, a researcher, an artist, a designer, and none from the stated. His main focus is at the overlap of information technologies and architectural articulations. Miro holds a Master of Advanced Studies degree in Computer Aided Architectural Design from ETH Zurich, and a Master in Architecture degree from the University of Zagreb. Since 2004 he is collaborating with Luka Vlahović on project romanvlahovic. From 2013 to 2015 he was a part of the Future Cities Laboratory, interdisciplinary research programme of the Singapore ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC). Currently he is a PHD researcher at the Chair of CAAD at ETH Zürich.

Miro’s work can be found at: www.miro.romanvlahovic.com www.romanvlahovic.com www.caad.arch.ethz.ch/blog

IAM Open Lecture 13: Simulation as a driver for form-found architecture

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Angelos Chronis is a Marie Curie Fellow of the Innochain network at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona. He teaches at IaaC and the Bartlett School of Architecture. Previously he has been working as an Associate for the Applied Research + Development group at Foster + Partners. His main research interest lies in the integration of simulation, optimization and performance drive in the design and fabrication process and he is actively involved in scientific committees as an author, reviewer and organizer as well as participating in lectures, workshops and architecture crits internationally.

IAM Open Lecture 12: From VFX to experimental animation and generative design

Tue, 12 Sep 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Georgios Cherouvim is a computer animator and visual effect artist based in New York. He obtained his BA from the National Center for Computer Animation in the UK in 2005. Since his graduation he has been working for post production studios in London, Vancouver and NY as an Effects Technical Director on high profile feature films, commercials and VR experiences, including Harry Potter 5, X-Men 3 and Man Of Steel. Outside VFX in his own practice Georgios keeps experimenting with the same tools looking for new applications and new ground for visual exploration. He has participated in several group exhibitions, while holding his first solo exhibition in Athens in 2014. Over the years, his short animated films have been screened in dozens of festivals around the world, including Siggraph, Ars Electronica, OneDotZero and ArtFutura. Georgios‘ work can be found at http://ch3.gr/ and https://vimeo.com/georgios

IAM Open Lecture 11: Projection & Production: Scenes of Architecture in Movies and Game

Tue, 06 Jun 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Nicole Stöcklmayr is a postdoctoral research fellow and lecturer in history & theory of architecture, media studies, and design at MECS Institute for Advanced Study on Media Cultures of Computer Simulation at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. Before joining MECS, she was research fellow at IKKM Internationales Kolleg für Kulturtechnikforschung und Medienphilosophie and lecturer at Bauhaus-University Weimar. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Applied Arts Vienna where she also graduated with a Masters in Architecture. Her research focuses on the media and mediums of architecture and design with a particular emphasis on digital visualizations, computation, simulation, and robotics in architecture. She is currently completing a book manuscript on “Visual Constructions: Architectural Images in Digitial Media Cultures.“ More information at stoecklmayr.com

IAM Open Lecture 10: Independence Day : Resurgence. Designing the Alien Invasion

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 18:00:00 +0000

[no video]

The architect and entertainment designer Johannes Mücke is one of the two founding partners of the Viennese design studio WIDESHOT established in 2010. Together with his partner Oliver Bertram and his team, Johannes works for various Hollywood blockbusters especially Roland Emmerich productions. What started with a raw animated cartoon for the apocalypse prophet Charly Frost in the movie „2012“ reached its most recent climax with the blockbuster „Independence Day: Resurgence“. For „Independence Day: Resurgence“ Johannes with WIDESHOT took on the leading role for the design of all the spaceships, the illustrations for greenlight-presenations at Fox, the construction of the sets at the Studios of Albuquerque and the production of the title sequence in Los Angeles. In his lecture Johannes will give a close insight into his work and will present his approach on unconventional and innovative design for film, by his Vienna based design company.

IAM Open Lecture & Performance 9: CPPG Composition, Performance and Perception of Gamified Audiovisual Works

Wed, 24 May 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Marko Ciciliani is a composer, performer, researcher and audiovisual artist based in Austria. The focus of his work lies in the composition of performative electronic music, mostly in audiovisual contexts. His music has been performed in more than 35 countries across Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Ciciliani is full Professor for Computer Music Composition at the Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. His primary fields of research are audiovisuality and performance practice of electronic music. Ciciliani has been invited as coach to the multidisciplinary course LabO in Antwerp in 2013 and 2015, and – as artistic director – in 2017. In 2014 and 2016 he has taught at the “Summer Courses for Contemporary Music Darmstadt”. He released 5 full length CDs and a trans-media project in the form of a book. He also appeared on more than a dozen compilation CDs.

IAM Open Lecture 8: Ruined cities, video games, and digital space: virtual-material feedback

Wed, 24 May 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Emma Fraser is a final year PhD candidate at the University of Manchester, researching video games, virtual architecture, and urban decay. Emma’s work is focused on 3D and digital space in terms of meaning production, urban play, and design. In particular, Emma considers the depiction and navigation of ruined cities in games in relation to urban experience and the writings of Walter Benjamin, Caillois, Lefebvre, and others, and her research has been published in games studies, urban studies, geography, sociology, and art media. Emma’s work broadly considers regeneration, urban exploration, and modern ruins, and has focused on fieldwork and embodied experience in Detroit, Chernobyl, Berlin, Paris, New York, Sydney, Christchurch (NZ), and elsewhere. Emma has been invited to work collaboratively with Practising Place and The Arca Project, and is a member of the Playful Mapping Collective. Emma is currently a research assistant on The Craft of Play at Manchester Metropolitan University, and a key investigator on the Urban Planning through Playful Participation (UPPP) PoC, in progress at the University of Warwick.

IAM Open Lecture 7: Robotic rod bending

Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Maria Smigelska is an architect, designer and independent researcher. Before graduating from ETH CAAD, Zurich, she earned her master degree in architecture from Poznan University of Technology and have worked in various offices in Poznan and Warsaw. Since then balancing between research and the applied world and having strong interest in complex geometry, computational design and robotic fabrication, she tries to implement digital tools in projects of different scales.

IAM Open Lecture 6: Machine Learning from Las Vegas

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Pierre Cutellic is currently PhD Fellow at the CAAD chair of ETH ITA Zürich since October 2016. His research proposal focuses on the integration of peculiar neuro- and other bio-signals together with machine learning in decision-making and learning automation of design processes. Pierre graduated in Architecture at E.N.S.A. Paris-Malaquais in 2007. He joined Gehry Technologies in Europe in 2008 as a Project Consultant and worked until 2012 on Europe and UAE projects, as the Qatar National Museum (Doha) or the Luma Foundation (Arles), while being involved with renowned design firms and general contractors such as Gehry Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Oger International, Bouygues Construction and Hyundai Construction. Between 2010 and 2015, Pierre became adjunct-assistant professor for digital knowledge and practices, integrative design and production, human computation and algorithmics at the Digital Knowledge Dept. of Paris-Malaquais. In 2013, Pierre co-founded his first innovative company in neuroscience and computational design. His past professional experience and collaborations have been frequently published (SmartGeometry 2010, Ecaade 2013, Icgg 2014, Acadia 2014). Before joining ETH, and since 2014 he was a lecturer in innovations and computation for the building industry at CNPA Laboratory of EPF Lausanne.

IAM Open Lecture 5: Cognitive Urban Design Computing

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 18:00:00 +0000

Reinhard König is Senior Scientist at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Junior-Professor at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, and Co-PI in the Big Data Informed Urban Design group at the Future Cities Lab (FCL) at the Singapore ETH Centre. He has a background in digital architecture and urban planning.

IAM Open Lecture 4: Robot-Aided Architecture

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:00:00 +0000

Abel Groenewolt is a research associate at the Institute for Computational Design at Universität Stuttgart. He earned his degree in architecture from Eindhoven University of Technology in 2006, and after having worked in various offices in Helsinki, he pursued a postgraduate degree in Architecture and Information at ETH Zürich in 2014. Before joining ICD, he worked at Design to Production and at the chair of Architecture and Building Systems at ETH Zürich. His interests revolve around the relationships between geometry, computation and construction, with a particular focus on the implications that the linking of the digital with the buildable has on design methods. His current research focus is on the development of structurally informed, robotically produced timber building systems.

IAM Open Lecture 3: Affair on a Fantastic Planet

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:00:00 +0000

IAM Open Lectures #3
Mihye An „Affair on a Fantastic Planet“
18:00 Thursday 10 Nov 2016
IAM Media Lab, Kronesgasse 5/3

Mihye An is a postdoctoral researcher at CAAD (Computer Aided Architectural Design), Department of Architecture in ETH Zurich. Her interests are in developing inhabitable theories that offer a rich perspectivity on our world from the fundamental technological aspect – “inhabitable” not only for humans, but potentially for any thing. Mihye has backgrounds in design, media arts, culture technology, and architecture.

Tabletalks on Architecture (2016-2017)

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 15:33:29 +0300

Tabletalks on Architecture was a lecture series produced by a group of university assistants at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Graz between 2016 and 2017. The initiative was conceived as as means to foster current research and as a casual event outside of formal university structures where academics, students, and practicing architects can converge, engage, exchange, and discuss matters related to architecture and architectural research.

Founding members of the initiative include Constantinos Miltiadis, Diederik de Koning, Marcello Fantuz, Sophia Walk, and Christoph Braser.
Graphic design by Lilly Hafner.

Tabletalks on Architecture ran between 2016 and 2017 with four sessions listed below. All events took place at Cafe Kork and were free and open to the public.

Tabletalks archive

TToA 1: Diederik de Koning – Agricultural Architecture & Land Management

TToA 1 event poster
Tuesday, 06.12.2016, 18:00
Kork, Lessingstraße 25, 8010 Graz

This tabletalk will focus on the role of architect-educators in the design of agricultural buildings and land settlement for the post-war European countryside. The research aims at building up the required body of knowledge for establishing an international discourse on agricultural design as part of the architectural discipline.

Diederik de Koning graduated cum laude in architecture from Delft University of Technology, and also holds a master’s degree in Environmental and Infrastructure Planning from the University of Groningen. Since the spring of 2013 he has taught a variety of courses at The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design in Delft. He now works for the Institute of Architecture and Landscape at Graz University of Technology. He is currently working on his PhD research at the Borders & Territories research group at TU Delft, which deals with agricultural buildings in the post-war European countryside. Results of the research have been presented at conferences in Warsaw and Venice in 2016. In parallel, he runs an independent architecture practice together with Laura van Santen under the name la-di-da (http://www.la-di-da.nl/) which was recently included as one of the 33 invited young Dutch and Flemish offices to present their work as part of the 2016 “MAATWERK/MASSARBEIT” exhibition at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt.

TToA 2 – Petra Eckhard: The Anti-canon of Architectural Modernism

TToA 2 event poster
Tuesday, 10.01.2017, 18:00
Kork, Lessingstraße 25, 8010 Graz

In her talk Petra Eckhard will explore architectural structures located in the Western hemisphere which emerged during the second half of the 20th century as an anti-canon of modernist architecture. As manifestations of personal desires and individual creativity, the works analysed have been realised without the burden of economic, functional, temporal or aesthetic restrictions–aspects which usually accompany architectural practice. In their important function as foils, the anti-canonic works discussed unfold a special relationship to modernist forms, which paradoxically does both counteract and mirror the “greatness” and hubris associated with the modernist canon.

Petra Eckhard is a literary and cultural studies scholar at the Institute of Architectural Theory, Art History and Cultural Studies at Graz University of Technology. She studied English and American Studies in New York, Bern and Graz, where she also received her doctorate in 2010. Her fields of interdisciplinary research involve practices of architectural writing, postmodernist works of literature and architecture as well as their cultural implications. She is the author of “Chronotopes of the Uncanny” (2011) and co-editor of Graz Architecture Magazine (GAM). Currently, she is working on her second book which explores the anti-canon of modernist architecture.

TToA 3: Mars, Miltiadis, Sekulić – Metadata Punks

TToA 3 event poster
Tuesday, 21.03.2017, 18:00
Kork, Lessingstraße 25, 8010 Graz

See Metadata Punks.

TToA 4: Christoph Walter Pirker – Visual Ontologies of the Indefinite

TToA 4 event poster
Tuesday, 13.06.2017, 18:00
Kork, Lessingstraße 25, 8010 Graz

In the epoch of the Anthropocene, human and non-human agencies are entangled in an extensive fabric, which determines the condition of our world. Such fabric is not balanced in a static equilibrium, but conceived as a flowing and intensive coexistence of currents and conditions, which define the expressions of our environment. The Anthropocene not only gains its geological importance by having inscribed the human’s impact in the geological strata of the planet, but similarly by formulating the conception of geological strata as artificial and virtual layers containing a productive, yet unknown potential.

The dynamic of the anthropocenic fabric brings about a new approach to ontogenesis, which no longer occurs by means of substantialist or hylomorphic principles, but through the process of becoming in the intra-action between the natural and the cultural, the conscious and the unconscious, the visible and the invisible. Matter is conceived as a living entity, which intra-acts with the human in complex networks, thereby abolishing traditional hierarchies and dichotomies imposed by the hegemonic system. To investigate such complexity by focusing on the construction of space is the aim of this research, while concurrently rendering visible the overall construction of the anthropocenic fabric.

Paul Virilio dates the origin of a global overformation with the development of the war landscape. It shows the anthropocenic fabric in its global dimensions, constructing an artificial climate and an ecology wherein the real and the virtual move and continuously flow together. Thereby, the construction of the bunker is seen as the mirror image of such war landscape, no longer being object or artefact, but an integral part or knot within the artificial fabric. Its geological investigation allows to consider the rhythm of the Anthropocene in its totality and to establish its rhythmic material as a tool for future inquiry and research. In referring to the notion of duration, “Visual ontologies of the indefinite” outlines an intra-acting method, which stands in a geological present and understands the geological relict as an atmospheric particle of our immediate environment. Developing practices of embodiment and intuition, the field of warfare is thus not conceived as a mere historic seclusion, but as vibrating object of investigation for our planetary entanglement, encompassing politics, ideology, space, media, visuality, and art to a cohesive body of action.

Christoph Walter Pirker (1989) is Assistant professor at the Institute for Architecture and Landscape at the Graz University of Technology. Furthermore, he is trained as an architect, musician, and visual artist. His transdisciplinary interest is based on studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, the TU Graz and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark. Highly engaged in practices of performative research, he is currently working on his PhD project (supervised by Milica Tomić) entitled “Visual ontologies of the indefinite –Investigating spatial relationships of the human, the non-human, and the unknown”. The doctoral thesis is a continuation of the 2015 master thesis, which was awarded the Graz Architecture Diploma Award in October 2016. His work is at studiobirkenblau.com

IAM Open Lecture 2: Sound to Space

Tue, 10 May 2016 18:00:00 +0000

In the scope of the Virtual Spaces Master Studio, and the Interdisciplinary Media: Space to Sound, we are pleased to announce the IAM Open Lecture #2 by Prof. Werner Jauk, titled „Sound to (auditory) space“.

Werner Jauk Psychologist working on experimental aesthetics, the hedonic control of explorative behaviour Musicologist working on music being a process of mediatization of expressive behaviour and its communicative function in everyday-life Media-artist working an experimental settings to perceive the process of extension of perception by media, which creates virtualities.

Dr. Werner Jauk, musician and artist, is the Professor of Musicology at the Karl Franz University of Graz. He has studied psychology, pedagogy and philosophy and through the years has worked in the fields of new technologies, cybernetics, digital music, experimental aesthetics and pop-culture. Prof. Jauk has served for consecutive years as a Jury member for the Ars Electronica Prix in computer music and worked at IRCAM in Paris.

IAM Open Lecture 1: Sound to Space

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 18:00:00 +0000

Jan Henrik Hansen hat an der ETH Zürich Architektur studiert und war danach Assistent am Lehrstuhl für Digitale Fabrikation von Gramazio & Kohler an der ETH. Seit 2002 führt er ein Architekturbüro, daneben hat er sich mit seinen musikalischen Skulpturen einen Namen gemacht.

IOhannes zmölnig ist studierter Toningenieur (MoS) und seit 2003 Forscher und Lehrender am Institut für Elektronische Musik (IEM) der Kunstuniversität Graz. Er ist Entwickler und Maintainer verschiedener Opensource-Projek- te im Bereich Media-Arts (pure-data, Gem.) und arbeitet an seinem Doktorat über „Live-Coding in computermusic“.

Open Lecture Series (2015-2019)

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 19:00:04 +0300

The IAM Open Lecture Series was founded in late 2015 at the Institute of Architecture and Media (IAM), TU Graz. The project slowly formalised as a mapping of the research ecology concerning computation and related discourse in the wider field of architecture and media. The series hosts talks by younger academic researchers and practitioners aiming to present and promote experimental, interdisciplinary and ongoing research. All sessions are hosted at the New Media Lab of IAM, Kronesgasse 5/III, Graz.

Open lectures archive

For the documentation of sessions 1-30 see the IAM Open Lectures Archive on this website. For the complete catalog of the series see IAM Open lectures at iam.tugraz.at.

Video documentation of the IAM Open Lectures is archived at: TU Graz Tube and on Vimeo.

Credits

The IAM Open Lecture series was founded in late 2015 by Constantinos Miltiadis who curated and produced the first 30 sessions of the series until mid 2019–except lectures #1 and #15 organized by Urs Hirschberg, and #10 organized by Florian Fend.
Since late 2019, the Open Lectures Series is carried out by current members of IAM.

Filming & Production

Department of Educational Technology, TU Graz

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Ypatios Grigoriades (TU Graz Educational Technology Unit) for supporting the lecture series throughout the years; to Antonia Manhatsberger and Alexis Kalaitzopoulos who filmed and edited most of the lecture sessions; and to IAM student assistants Nora Hoti, Julian Jauk, Ludwig Grimm, and Martin Schrotz for their help in producing lecture sessions.