Media Architecture Institute

In this video Dr. Gernot Tscherteu talks about the exhibition of the Media Architecture Biennale. He mentions that the exhibition has become a meeting place for designers, architects, and academics working in the area. He also explains that the projects exhibited at the Media Architecture Biennale are also available online, or through an iPad app. You can visit the online exhibition at catalog.mediaarchitecture.org

In this video professor Sanxing Cao talks about Media Architecture in China. In such a big country like China there are big differences between the different cantons. Sanxing Cao talks about three main trends in the development of media in China. Smart media, which is the integration information and communication technologies into common media systems, the second one is called ambient media, which encompasses media facades and outdoor media that can be found in common environments, the last one is natural media, which is much more focused on the interaction of humans and media devices.

The projected media façade of the Klubhaus St Pauli will offer Hamburg’s entertainment district an extraordinary spectacle of artistic light – and video installations. With the construction of this project hamburg will get a pioneering landmark, a new attraction for the citizens and visitors of the city.

The entire facade of the Klubhaus St Pauli is divided into three areas. The middle area is made of metal plates that will be controlled according to the content displayed in the LED screens. Another part will be designed as a low-res screen, i.e. with a large pixel pitch to obtain a contrast to the third area, which will have equipped with a high-definition display. ONLYGLASS, a German company specialized in transparent display solutions, is responsible for the high-resolution part, integrated directly into the glass panels of the lift. The resolution will be about 1100 Pixel/m², roughly 50.000 Pixel for the elevator facade.

The use of glass allows a high degree of transparency, both from the inside as well as from the outside. While the lift’s passengers will have a beautiful view of the St. Pauli’s center, from the outside the city will enjoy the visuals of a high-resolution screen, capable of showing videos and pictures. This dynamic façade will become an outstanding example for media architecture in Germany.

ONLYGLASS will present a prototype of the Media Facade at the Media Architecture Biennale 2014. We are looking forward to see their technology!


Detail of the glass.
Credits:
Video and rendering: Klubhaus St. Pauli GmhH&Co. KG
Detail picture: ONLYGLASS, Phographer: Christian O. Bruch

Societal flows and processes become analyzed and visualized on urban media facades through using data which is generated by digital sensor networks and infrastructures that underlie our daily lives.

Challenging questions: How can we make social, environmental and inter-cultural processes visible and use the screens as black boards and visualization zones? What is the impact on the society, when invisible structures that underlie our daily life get visualized? What is the potential to create public awareness?

Call for proposals for the visible city 2015

Our today’s modern cities are hybrid structures in which technology is invisibly interwoven in the perception layers of our everyday lives. With the curatorial theme of InVISIBLE and VISIBLE Cities we want to develop an awareness on the changes which are hardly visible to the eyes and are underlying our nowadays cities.

We call for artistic scenarios to visualise invisible, embedded ‘smart’ urban infrastructures and analyse their impact on the technological transformation of our society in a broad and public discourse.

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Urbancult is a visual documentation and archiving project that shows the location of street-art works in Indonesia. The goal of urbancult.net is to create a map with the location and pictures of street-art works. Through the map they can keep the public informed about new street-art works, strengthen the community, and show how the murals evolve with the time.

Beginnings

The initial thriving force behind Urbancult was Agung Geger and his passion for taking and collecting pictures of murals in Yogyakarta. The project started quite informally in 2011, after he met with Andreas Siagian and got some advice from him on how to upload his pictures and make them more accessible for fans and other street-art artists. This gave origin to “A tribute to street-art murals of Jogja”, i.e. a compilation of street art photographs on the personal Facebook account of Geger. Through his Facebook album Geger enterd in contact with artists, as well as with the community interested in the street art of Yogyakarta.

Later in 2011, Ucok suggested that the compilation should be published on their own web-site. This would make the compilation accessible to a wider audience, as the Facebook site was restricted to personal contacts. Geger joined forces with Ucok to publish all the street-art pictures piled up in their database. They began creating an online documentation and a map with the location of street-art works in Indonedia.

In January 2013 Budi Prakosa (Iyok) joined the team, bringing his experience as creative web programmer in DeadMediaFM, a community develop podcast and online radio streaming of Indonesia. With the help of Iyok the team extended the urbancult’s interface to display the location of the murals stored in the database. Finally the Urbancult was officially launched in February 2013, with the support of Agus Tri Budiarto and Adhari Donora. Later urbancult.net joined Lifepatch – a citizen initiative for art, science and technology, and it remains until now a lifepatch driven project. You can visit the project at urbancult.net.

Urbancult’s Credits

Screenshots & pictures: Urbancult.net

The tower is located at Taihu Sqaure in the city of Wuxi, China. The media facade comprises 21,000 color pixels, arranged with a pitch of 10 cm. The pixels cover all the six sides of the tower. The tower belongs to the Wuxi planning Municipal Institute.

The technology was provided by AHL and it was finished in August 2014.

Wuxi tower Credits:

Images: Tac Lion
Media Facade: AHL

Kim Halskov was the senior advisor of the Media Architecture Biennale 2012 and is a special advisor at the MAB14.

He thinks that the field has had a great evolution over the years and he sees the spaces for academic reflection on media and architecture as a great complement for the Biennale. “We have, I think, managed in a very good way to bring the traditional Media Architecture Biennale and introduce a few new things. I think the academic track, the doctoral consortium and the papers are really, -really- a plus for this field”.

The MAB14 promises to be even more interesting as Aarhus will be the European capital of culture in 2017. The city is already getting ready for such an event and the visitors of the MAB14 will have a glimpse into that process. “There will be a really intensive process here with urban installations over the next couple of years”.

The registration for the MAB14 is now open. We are looking forward to seeing you at the MAB14!

Arboreal Lightning is a large site-specific interactive lighting installation weaving through the architecture of the main space at the Camden Roundhouse.

The installation was created by atmos and it transforms sound and gesture into an undulating, immersive, luminous environment – specifically designed for the Camden Roundhouse. Its activity is generated by both artist performers and a wider audience, creating a performative stage.

Arboreal Lightning is the central piece of the Reverb Festival of Contemporary Classical Music – a congregation of contemporary composers and musicians, with an emphasis on technological innovation. After the festival, the musician Imogen Heap will modify and use it on her year-long world tour. The installation was commissioned by both the Roundhouse venue and the Reverb curator.

Watch a movie of arboreal lighting…

The Bay Lights is a light sculpture realized by the artist Leo Villareal that was inaugurated the 5th of March, 2013. The project, called the world’s largest LED light sculpture, illuminates the bridge’s 2.9 kilometers western span with 25.000 LEDs attached to the strings of the suspension cables. The complex installation changes the character of the Bay bridge and turns it into visually appealing structure, that can match the attractiveness of the well-known Golden gate.

From the distance the installation appears as bright, blinking light mass, but every pixel of the LED strips can be controlled individually, thanks to a software developed by Leo Villareal. With his laptop he can change the patterns and dynamics of the installation. This mixture of technical and artistic skills fits particularly good in a city full with start-ups, technology wealth and busy programmers.

The Bay Lights was originally conceived by Ben Davis, Chair of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Illuminate the Arts, which aims to support and create outstanding works of public art. Illuminate the Arts’ mission is to produce and promote innovative contemporary art with civic impact, social activation and global reach to stimulate a culture of generosity, community, collaboration and love worldwide.

Watch a video of the light sculpture…

“Media Architecture is a perfect example of what is happening with the digitization of our societies in general”, says Martin Brynskov, General Chair of the Media Architecture Biennale 2012 and 2014.

According to him communication and information technologies were optional, and most of the people still had the possibility to opt-out of using them. With the increasing deployment of technologies in the city -as for example media facades- this option is waning and life in the cities is becoming more and more digital.

Such development still needs to be understood with a mix of competences that take into account the architectural aspects as well as the technological challenges related to it. “Media architecture is this wonderful and scary mix of traditional architecture competences, skills and problems – and something completely different.”