{"id":7571,"date":"2013-08-01T07:45:33","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T06:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mediaarchitecture.org\/?page_id=7571"},"modified":"2014-04-17T08:38:31","modified_gmt":"2014-04-17T08:38:31","slug":"mfs13hk","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mediaarchitecture.org\/mfs13hk\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Facades Summit 2013, Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/a>\r\n\r\n

For the first time this year, the Media Architecture Institute is organising a Media Facade Summit in Asia, in collaboration with The University of Hong Kong and co-located with the HKTDC Hong Kong International Lighting Fair Autumn Edition. The Summit is a 2-day event bringing together experts from industry and academia to discuss the state of the art and future directions in the field of media architecture.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

From \u00c9tienne-Louis Boull\u00e9e’s Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton to the evening glow of the contemporary Asian metropolis, the subject of media and the city is undoubtedly pertinent to both historical and current architectural discourse. The use of artificial light in facades was debated at length in Europe by Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, among others, at the Werkbund and builds upon early 20th century debates about modernity, communication, and graphics in architecture. Subtle differences between built-in lighting and up-lighting buildings captured the kernel of the debate in the US where Raymond Hood and Hugh Ferriss were among the first to initiate a greater investigation into the \u201cArchitecture of the Night.\u201d Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s roof for Lenkurt Electric continued the discussion; Reyner Banham\u2019s influence on the subject appears in The Architecture of Well-Tempered Environment (1969), while Colin Fournier and Peter Cook\u2019s Kunsthaus in Graz provides a more recent example of how a mediated fa\u00e7ade alters the nocturnal reading of an urban space.<\/p>\r\n

The realm of a mediated architecture is a geopolitical subject, with a number of World\u2019s Fairs serving as sites of experimentation, from the use of electricity at McKim Mead and White’s "White City" at the Chicago World\u2019s Fair (1893), extending to NY (1964), Montreal\u2019s Expo 67, and Osaka (1970) where work of the Ray and Charles Eames, Josef Svoboda, and various architecture-art groups such as EAT contributed to the dialogue. \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Currently, numerous approaches towards theorizing the potential of mediated fa\u00e7ades lack insight into how they meaningfully contribute urbanistically. This summit seeks to explore alternatives for media within the realm of architecture, one where the integration of media into the building has been carefully formulated towards an artistic and cultural ideation of the city rather than simply treated as a technological surface applied across the city afterward for advertising and commercial motives. The conference will investigate approaches for transforming contemporary Western and Asian cities by examining how new urban developments might integrate urban digital media; urban informatics; location-based social media; and new sense of collectivism driven by interactive and participative citizens who are enabled and facilitated by large screens and sensor technology. \r\n<\/p>\r\n

Building on discussion from previous events in Europe and Australia, this first Asian summit on media architecture raises the question of how to address these issues for contemporary Chinese cities and new urban developments with an emphasis on the following topics discussing the current state-of-the art and future directions:\r\n