Media Architecture Institute

After Sydney in 2016 and Beijing in 2018, the Media Architecture Biennale will return to Europe in 2020. We are very excited to announce that MAB20 will be hosted by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in collaboration with Utrecht University 23 to 27 November 2020. 

Originally, media architecture was most concerned with the integration of displays and interactive installations into architectural structures, such as media facades and urban screens. Over the years, the discipline has grown much broader, as new technologies such as digital platforms and smart city technologies have increasingly made their way into the experience, management and design of cities.

None of these technologies brought into the city are neutral enablers, mere decorative structures or just simple market places connecting demand and supply in fields as diverse as energy and transport to commerce and leisure. They are built upon numerous spoken and unspoken assumptions about urban life, each with their own implications for both social relations as well as their effect on the natural ecosystem.It is time therefore for the discipline of media architecture to address the implied futures of new technologies.

MAB20 calls for media architectures that move beyond the mere spectacular; as well as beyond the design of individualized services comforting human customers. MAB20 calls for media architectures and urban interaction that dare to take on a more-than-human approach: aiming at the well-being of the natural ecosystem as a whole; For urban media art and design that bring implicit and explicit bias within technology and culture to light, and provide the means for ongoing discussion, debate, and societal change; For digital platforms that strengthen citizen’s digital rights in democratic societies.

To find out more, visit the Media Architecture Bienalle 2020 website. For updates, follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. 

Calls for participation will be announced soon. 

The online submission system is available. We look forward to your submissions.

We are pleased to announce the fourth call of the Media Architecture Biennale awards for outstanding projects at the intersection of architecture, media and interaction design. This call targets projects that are already built or realised in the following categories:
* Animated architecture
* Money architecture
* Infrastructure and Participatory Architecture
* Spatial media art
* Future trends & prototypes

Please have a look at the MAB16 catalog for a detailed definition of “Media Architecture”and numerous “Media Architecture” examples. http://catalog.mediaarchitecture.org

Start submission: 1st of August 2018 Submission deadline: 10th of Sept 2018

for more information please visit: https://mab18.org/call-for-outstanding-media-architecture/

Submit your project in the following link: online submission system

We are looking forward to your submissions and hopefully seeing you (again) in Beijing.

It is with great pleasure to announce that the 2018 Media Architecture Biennale (MAB18) will be held in Beijing, China. MAB18 will be hosted by the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and the Beijing Visual Arts Innovation Institute (BVAII) in collaboration with the Media Architecture Institute.

MAB18 will again run over four days, from 13-16 November 2018, and include workshops, symposia, industry keynotes, academic talks and an exhibition.

The theme of MAB18 will be “Media Architecture – Digital Infrastructure at the Scale of the Hybrid City”. Media architecture is involved in placemaking and smart city initiatives through infrastructure large and small. While connected information displays and mobile phones might inform tenants about energy efficiency, coordinated large-scale facades and screens can influence the identities of entire cities. How can the various scales that media architecture operates in be connected to support social structures within the territory of a city? The goal of MAB18 is to bring together top researchers, academics, designers, and city builders to investigate the many connected uses and scales of media architecture in their local and global contexts.

The MAB18 website and call for participation will be launched shortly.

Photo: Water Cube, Olympic Park, Beijing by Flickr user inkelv1122

Q&A with Di Mainstone, Ali Momeni, and Graham Wakefield, moderated by John Greyson. (photo: David Gelb)

On behalf of the MAS 2016 Team and Advisory Board, we would like to thank all our attendees for coming. We were inspired by the presentations, workshops and invigorating discussion, and hope everyone emerged from the symposium thinking about media architecture from new perspectives.

Thank you to our incredible presenters and workshop leaders for sharing their work with us and our partners for their support. Special thanks to the MAS co-ordinator, Sennah Yee, our team for their tireless work, and our wonderful volunteers for all their help. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Sincerely, Dave Colangelo (Director, MAI North America) and Michael Longford (Director, Sensorium, York University) Co-Chairs, Media Architecture Summit 2016

   

International artists and designers, architects, scholars, and representatives from the cultural sector and industry will meet in advance of Nuit Blanche in Toronto this week to discuss how public art and creative use of digital media can re-animate urban space.

The Media Architecture Summit 2016, organized by Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technologies in York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design and the Media Architecture Institute, will be held in downtown Toronto from Thursday to Saturday, the first time the summit has been held in North America.

“Media Architecture is where architecture, urbanism and digital media come together to shape our collective identity,” says Michael Longford, co-chair of Media Architecture Summit 2016 and Director of Sensorium, a digital media research centre at York University. “This type of public art includes everything from animating building facades through the use of digital technology to interactive installations that invite members of the public to perform, and it has the power to energize citizens and transform spaces.”

Featured talks include a Thursday evening panel on Nuit Blanche 2016 projects followed by a keynote address by internationally-acclaimed media artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, winner of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2015). The Summit also features presentations by Philip Beesley (Experimental Sculptor/Architect, Canada), Amahl Hazelton (Moment Factory, Canada), Scott McQuire (Media Scholar, Australia), and Dietrich Neumann (Urban Studies Scholar, USA).

An international group of artists, designers, architects, academics, urban planners, and industry representatives will make presentations and take part in panels and workshops. There will also be presentations by artists presenting large-scale public installations at the Nuit Blanche Toronto 2016 event.

What: Media Architecture Summit organized by York U’s Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technologies

When: Thursday, Sept. 29 to Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016

Where: Primary venue, TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West, Toronto.

Program: www.mas2016.net

The Media Architecture Awards are given to outstanding projects at the intersection of architecture, media and interaction design. Three projects are nominated in each of the five categories – Animated Architecture; Money Architecture; Participatory Architecture and Urban Interaction; Spatial Media Art and Future Trends and Prototypes. The winners in each category will be announced during the Media Architecture Biennale award ceremony in Sydney on the evening of June 3rd, 2016.

The nominees are:

ANIMATED ARCHITECTURE
LED Frieze
Train Station Falkenberg
The Wings

MONEY ARCHITECTURE
Klubhaus St. Pauli
LAX — Tom Bradley International Terminal
Morgan Stanley — Times Square Headquarters

PARTICIPATORY ARCHITECTURE & URBAN INTERACTION
In the Air, Tonight
The Sentiment Cocoon
Le Circuit De Bachelard

SPATIAL MEDIA ART
Star
Waterlicht
Field of Light

FUTURE TRENDS AND PROTOTYPES
City Lights Orchestra
Drone 100
Fluidic

For more details visit the Media Architecture Biennale awards page. Tickets to the awards show are on sale via Ticketek.

We are pleased to confirm the remarkably talented and highly respected Carlo Ratti, as keynote speaker and panelist for the 2016 Media Architecture Biennale (MAB16) closing ceremony on June 4th.

“Carlo Ratti is a pioneer in media architecture and smart city developments, with an illustrious, celebrated career. His inventions, idea’s and designs are ahead of our time. It is a privilege to have Prof Ratti participating in our official closing ceremony for the MAB16.” said Dr M. Hank Haeusler, General Chair of The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 (UNSW Australia).
Prof Ratti is an architect, an engineer, a designer, an inventor and educator. He is at the forefront of connecting technology and the built environment. His Digital Water Pavilion at the 2008 World Expo was hailed by Time Magazine as “One of the Best Inventions of the Year.” He has been included in Esquire Magazine’s “Best and Brightest list,” in Blueprint Magazine’s “25 People who will Change the World of Design” and in Forbes Magazine’s “People you need to know” in 2011.

His work is internationally revered, exhibited at events and venues including: Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, GAFTA in San Francisco and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has also co-authored over 250 publications.

Prof Ratti currently Chair at the Senseable City Lab which he founded, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is also the head of Carlo Ratti Associati. He is currently serving as Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Future Cities, and has been selected as Special Adviser to the President and Commissioners of the European Commission, to advise on urban innovation.

Carlo Ratti will take the main stage at The Concourse, Theatre on June 4 from 5pm to 6pm and officiate the MAB16 closing ceremony with a keynote speech, followed by a panel discussion on smart cities.

Tickets are now available for his keynote via Ticketek.

The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 is presented as part of the Vivid Ideas program at Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas.

MEDIA ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2016
BE PART OF THE DIGITAL PLACEMAKING EXPERIENCE

Come June 2016, the prestigious Media Architecture Biennale 2016 will project Sydney into the digital media spotlight. From June 1st, the world’s leading experts in architectural digital technology will arrive in the harbour city to host a series of conferences, seminars and symposia designed to discuss, assess and debate the impact of digital technology in the future design and development of smarter and more liveable cities.

Design and urban planning experts from around the globe will transform The Concourse, on Sydney’s North Shore into technology driven idea’s hub, for the 5th international Media Architecture Biennale 2016, presented as a part of the Vivid Ideas program. From June 1st to June 4th, architectural and design professionals, academics, state and federal government representatives and specialised experts in digital placemaking will host a series of workshops, symposia and events designed to explore the existing and future impact of digital technologies on urban planning within global cities.

“The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 brings together specialists who are passionate about reinventing urban communities and utilising public spaces to communicate. The official buzzword and theme for this year’s event is digital placemaking; the use of digital technology within a dedicated public urban space, designed specifically for the purpose of communicating with the public,” said Dr M. Hank Haeusler, General Chair of The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 (UNSW Australia).

Federation Square, in central Melbourne is currently Australia’s best example of digital placemaking; in 2014 it was named the 6th Best Public Square in the world by Landscape Architects Network. Mr Matt Jones, General Manager of Program & Events at the iconic Australian outdoor gathering space, will be on hand at this year’s event to share knowledge from his own first-hand experience with digital placemaking.

Among the illustrious line-up of over 50 international guests attending The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 is Carlo Ratti. Prof. Ratti is currently Chair at the Senseable City Lab and Ratti Associati. He is at the forefront of connecting technology and the built environment and was included in Blueprint Magazine’s “25 People who will Change the World of Design” list.

Highly regarded in the field of digital placemaking, Ethan Kent, Senior Vice President at Projects for Public Spaces (PPS) in New York City is also supporting The Media Architecture Biennale 2016. Mr Kent has worked on over 200 public space projects including, Times Square in New York.

Locally, MAB16 welcomes Mr Bruce Duyshart, Director of Meld Strategies, who recently developed a Smart City Masterplan for Parramatta (NSW) in collaboration with the City of Parramatta.

The calendar of Media Architecture Biennale 2016 activities commences on June 1st and concludes June 4th, among the events are: symposia, workshops, seminars, an MAB Awards exhibition and a Gala Awards Dinner held on Sydney Harbour. The Media Architecture Awards Exhibition will feature over 100 media architecture projects on display at Artspace, The Concourse from May 27th. The exhibition is a showcase of projects that explore the possibilities of and outcomes of interactions between the built environment with technology and communities. It is free and open to the public.

Industry professionals travelling to Sydney for the MAB16 might take the opportunity to combine the visit with the DIS 2016 (Designing Interactive Systems) conference, which takes place in Brisbane, Queensland from 4-8 June.

The Media Architecture Biennale 2016 is presented as part of the Vivid Ideas program at Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas.

Both industry enthusiasts and the public alike are welcome to all events, with ticket sales available through Ticketek.

MEDIA ARCHITECTURE BIENNALE 2016 (mab16.org)
JUNE 1ST – 4TH
THE CONCOURSE (theconcourse.com.au) AND OTHER LOCATIONS ACROSS SYDNEY
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

In the lead-up to the Media Architecture Biennale 2016, held in Sydney in June 2016, Urban Screen Productions (UTV) are producing an all-day symposium investigating how technologies are redefining community engagement and the creation of public space.

The Digital Publics symposium explores new approaches to public space focusing on the layers of connection and cultural experience that are introduced by media technologies, also referred to as digital placemaking or open-source placemaking.

Presented by Fed Square and Pause Fest and produced by UTV, Digital Publics brings timely voices together from the creative practices, institutions and research projects that work in an evolving field of public engagement, urban screens and placemaking in the digital age.

In a forum held at one of the world’s most iconic public spaces, Fed Square, each of the speakers will share insights on how digital innovations are bringing communities together and shaping new spatial encounters.

Curated by Esther Anatolitis.

Speakers include:

Andrew Apostola and Simon Goodrich, Portable
Seb Chan, ACMI
M. Hank Haeusler, UNSW
Matt Jones, Fed Square
Jade Lillie, Footscray Community Arts Centre
Jason Maling, Field Theory
Julian Rickert, One Step At A Time Like This
Lynda Roberts, City of Melbourne
Katrina Sedgwick, ACMI
Martin Tomitsch, The University of Sydney
Willoh S Weiland, Aphids
Marcus Westbury, Contemporary Arts Precincts and Renew Australia
Angharad Wynne-Jones, Arts House and Tipping Point

Program:

9.00am – 11am | Panel 1
Site: Ethics, technologies, program: how can the institution create public space?

11.30am – 1pm | Panel 2
Distribution: Space, movement, connection: how can spatial experiments connect disparate publics?

2pm – 3pm | 5 x 5 x 5
Public space as performance: five artists offer five insights over five minutes each.

3.30pm – 5pm | Panel 3
Digital Publics: What kinds of interventions create public space? What kinds of interventions are created by public space?

5pm – 6pm | Closing Panel
An open conversation with perspectives drawn from all sessions and presented by their chairs.

Tickets now on sale via Eventbrite.

BLITZFÄNGER is an interactive installation that allows up to 9 people to create and control lightning on a large-scale LED screen. As a homage to the power of nature and our attempt to control it, the audience is invited to grab one of the 3 meter poles from the floor and position them vertically like lightning rods. As soon as they do a system detects their position and lightnings appear on the LED screen allowing them to control them with their movement.

This project was created as part of the ‘Human Futures’ program of artistic exchange between Europe and Canada and under the ‘living spaces’ curatorial theme. BLITZFÄNGER took place at the entrance of a new residential complex outside of Vienna in between the train and the buildings and was designed to disrupt the routine of the inhabitants that just go in and out of the complex allowing them to get to know, or at least see the people they live around.

Created by Iregular
Concept, graphic and sound design: Daniel Iregui
Technical Direction: François Loubert-Hudon
Technical Assistance: Juan Carvajal
Produced by: Media Architecture Institute
Powered by: X-Agora
Curated by: Gernot Tscherteu

funded by the European Union