Project
Statement of the Chairs
The student awards and accompanying exhibition have been a very rewarding experience. We are impressed by the quality and number of submissions and it was a great pleasure learning about each project and engaging in discussions over the influence of technologies in urban development and architecture.
We conceptualised the student exhibition as an experimental and speculative space to question and explore applications of technologies in the context of cities and reflect on the futures implied in each proposal. We are pleased with the results and we want to congratulate all the students who participated: You have truly shown a high level of technical and conceptual quality!
We would also like to thank all members of the MAB community who helped us spread the call. as well as the members of the jury for their enthusiastic response and contribution in selecting the best projects.
Emo 2020, China, Shanghai by Xiying Bao
Emo is a response to the emergent social crisis of COVID-19 that has holistically transformed human life. The installation attempts to represent human emotion and it promises to facilitate social connections while simultaneously differing us from others and the outside world. The abstract particle landscape was intended to give participants a coordinated aesthetic to support a feeling of united personality. On a few events, some participants were observed from afar, carefully staying outside the tracked space. They then stepped toward the projection with curiosity. After the experience, they appeared to linger from afar and observe others’ emotional landscape again. This roundabout journey brought them a new perspective of understanding of, not only their own selves, but more importantly, the selves of others. This integrated aesthetic broke the boundaries of personal subjective recognition and served as a bridge for participants’ understanding. Especially in the pandemic period, participants were spiritually connected through mutual experience and empathy construction in the particle landscape.
“For me, mediums are not only the extension of the human, they also mediate our indirect relationship with the technology, appearing as a new aesthetic experience and identity embodiment. Media architecture is not only about how interactive technologies are applied to the environment, but also how wearable materials and artifacts are designed to help us better sense, perceive and interact with the world. In my project, the emotion becomes the media that mediate our relationship with the architecture and enhance the connection. The aim is to demonstrate both the importance of this embodied aspect of the social experience, as well as the capacity of media architecture that activates bodies and alters social norms to facilitate connection.”
Guido: An escapist experience by Cin Yie Chang, Iris Damen, Hugo van Dijk, Angela Hanna, Jos van der Velden, Marina Wiemers and Philip Wüst
Guido is an interactive installation that provides a mesmerising, yet functional experience in any transitional space. Given the current context of the COVID-19 pandemic, we imagine a future where social distancing remains an everyday practice in our society. Combined with perpetual stress introduced by work and studies, people lack restorative moments to themselves. With this in mind, the installation is designed to simultaneously guide its visitors at a safe distance, while providing a short moment of escapism and relaxation. Composed of a large-scale, yet intricate, hanging canopy which reacts to the presence of visitors, Guido transforms any mundane day-to-day transitional space into an engaging, unique experience. […]
“Architecture shapes the world we share with others, yet we often stay in our own worlds and walk past each other without thinking. Media architecture enables us to acknowledge each other. Integrating media technologies guarantees for a unique interaction that sparks our interest and stimulates us to appreciate (or hate) the experience together. It inspires us to think something of it and to share that opinion with fellow observers. Even observing how others interact with it can bring us a sense of pride that connects the audience.”
-Cin Yie Chang
“For me, media architecture defines the shift from static environments to dynamic and responsive ones. I think a lot of public spaces offer so many opportunities to either let the visitor explore a defined range of actions, or to project their own interpretations on to them. But simultaneously it feels like all those interactions are always rigid in the way that the change is within the visitor, rather than the space. This domain is exactly what we’re exploring with our project, Guido: It’s neither the installation, nor the visitor, who has full control over the resulting experience, but instead it’s an interplay of the two. Upon entering Guido, you immediately feel noticed and surrounded by the installation, as if you’re part of it, and I think that’s what many public spaces are missing, a sense of community.”
-Marina Wiemers
A mind needs its body 2021, Sweden, Stockholm by Anastasia Angeli, Elin Ghersinich and Siobhan Lawson
By creating an online identity & presence for a physical space, students are able to access their shared memories and remain connected while working remotely.
To maintain a connection between members of a student group whose education has moved exclusively to a digital space. This proposal channels the virtual energy back to the campus using digital tools. The intervention aims to evoke shared memories and act as a common companion for those studying in isolation, shifting the current future implied scenarios of Control, Capsularisation and Commodification into: community, connection and co-creation. In preparation for remote learning, the student group collectively install light scenes in the outdoor courtyard of their physical educational hub, the school of architecture building at KTH, Stockholm. A live video feed of the site is used to create an online identity for the physical space, so it can participate, with the students, as a key element in their lectures & presentations via platforms such as zoom. A responsive feedback loop emerges between the digital and physical educational environments, strengthening after sunset through the use of light.
“Virtual communities have become a partial substitute for local communities. By connecting a virtual community to a physical space the connection to others is made to feel more real and personal. A way of grounding the digital experience, of creating boundaries to help comprehend the vast expanse of digital content and connections. Sense of community makes us feel valued, which is important for staying strong as individuals, but also for holding society together. Humans minds may develop to comprehend a sense of ‘space’ for the digital world, allowing us to adapt better for the evolving future and community with its challenges and opportunities.”
Interview
KOOZ How would you describe the submissions received for the MAB Students Awards?
Olina Terzi & Juan Carlos Carvajal Bermúdez | We are very pleased with the quality of the submissions. The concepts covered a wide range of topics and issues related to digital technologies and their impact on architecture and cities. Some of the topics we saw are wearables and sensor-based devices, alternative digital platforms, augmented reality applications, light installations, film commentaries as well as urban utopias/dystopias , among others.
We think that the students exhibited a high level of conceptual and technical quality in their work.
KOOZ Did you notice any recurring themes / approaches throughout?
Olina Terzi & Juan Carlos Carvajal Bermúdez Many projects addressed the current pandemic suggesting methods and tools to reinstate through the use of digital media social connections and interactions still restricted today. Other projects explored the effects of social isolation and excessive screen time in the daily life of people. Finally other projects explored the emotional impact of the pandemic.
Another recurrent topic are interactions with drones or robots. Some projects explored how our eye gaze can be used to control and steer drones through space or create new forms of collaboration.
We also noticed that emergent technologies such as point clouds are being quickly adopted to propose new forms of understanding spaces and their evolution over time. Other projects using point clouds created a spatial re-mix of different rooms or visualized the spaces stored as point clouds using virtual reality.
KOOZ How and to what extent does the body of work submitted challenge the boundaries of media architecture and its potential?
Olina Terzi & Juan Carlos Carvajal Bermúdez | The projects explored a wide variety of new methods of engagement and interaction. An interesting proposal suggested an spatial and temporal mapping of spaces, showing how a particular room changes over the course of a day. Other interesting projects proposed alternative digital platforms that encourage the interaction with more-than-human actors in the city or also ways in which urban revitalization can be articulated with the local economy. Such submissions show how digital platforms can be shaped for the common good.
KOOZ How important is it to engage with the young creative?
Olina Terzi & Juan Carlos Carvajal Bermúdez The student awards are a showcase of the incredible talent of the young creative. We invite you to visit the online catalogue and enjoy a curated selection of the projects submitted.
Bio
The Media Architecture Biennale is the world’s premier event on media architecture, urban interaction design, and urban informatics. This year, due to the ongoing global pandemic the Media Architecture Biennale 20 (MAB20) had to be adapted and re-imagined. Therefore, the MAB20 Program will take place online:
- Workshops | June 24th – 29th | via Zoom
- Online Conference | June 30th – July 2nd | via virtual conference platform
Registrations are now open. For more information visit: www.mab20.org
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Olina Terzi | Digital Transformation Designer, Digital Society School, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
Juan Carlos Carvajal Bermúdez | Media Architecture Institute, juan@mediaarchitecture.org
