Architectural Association School of Architecture

Public Piracy: Augmentation for Civic Misuse

Back Members’ Room 21/1/2012 - 11/2/2012

Private view Friday 20 January, 18:30

Set within the context of Dip 1’s unit agenda – developing prototypes for the information revolution – this two-week exhibition offers a first glimpse into the operations of the unit and its explorations into the lost public space of the City of London, an area that epitomises the tension between the scarcity of the real and the abundance of the virtual. 

The exhibition showcases a series of treacherous, surprising, critical and transformative devices all prompted by our technologically augmented perception of today’s reality. Among these, the show articulates positions towards our post 2.0 web culture, and proposes tactics and strategies for reclaiming civic space through the amalgamation and augmentation of mere physicality via our digital avatars. As a consequence, a kind of architecture is introduced in the in-between of data highways, sensorial accumulations, social web applications, CCTV, data archives, Skype and web platforms on the one hand, and within the actuality of public spaces, cultural institutions, ecclesiastical spaces, banks and civic structures on the other.

 

Critical Territories

AA Gallery 14/1/2012 - 11/2/2012

Private View Friday 13 January
 

Critical Territories presents the work of two practices, Groundlab and Plasma Studio, which share a transdisciplinary approach and operate at multiple scales, from product and building design to landscape and masterplanning. The installation – a site-specific grid arrangement of light boxes covered with technical drawings – has been conceived to immerse visitors in the systemic approach of the practices and their preoccupation with grids, ground and context. A plethora of conceptual and presentation models floating loosely within this grid communicate recurring aims, ideas and spatial and phenomenological effects. Among the projects on show will be the Xian International Horticultural Expo and the Longgang Masterplan.

Groundlab is an emerging international practice in Landscape Urbanism led by five partners: Eva Castro, Holger Kehne, Alfredo Ramirez, Eduardo Rico and Sarah Majid. Plasma Studio is a leading architecture and design practice founded in 1999 by Eva Castro and Holger Kehne.

H.O.R.T.U.S Hydro. Organisms. Responsive. To. Urban. Stimuli

Front Members’ Room 14/1/2012 - 11/2/2012

Private View Friday 13 January

HORTUS (Hydro Organisms Responsive To Urban Stimuli) is a new exhibition from ecoLogicStudio that engages with the notions of urban renewable energy and agriculture through a new gardening prototype. Over a four-week growing period, flows of energy (light radiation), matter (biomass, carbon dioxide) and information (images, tweets, stats) will be triggered to induce multiple mechanisms of self-regulation and evolve novel forms of self-organisation. HORTUS proposes an experimental hands-on engagement with these notions, illustrating their potential applicability to the masterplanning of large regional landscapes and the retrofitting of industrial and rural architectural types, as exemplified in the project ‘Regional Algae Farm’ developed by ecoLogicStudio for the Swedish region of Osterlen.

AA students, staff and visitors are invited to engage daily with HORTUS to invent new protocols of urban biogardening. A virtual organism such as this offers the opportunity to capture and build up information and cultivation practices, enriching the material experience of the visitor turned urban ‘cyber-gardener’.

HORTUS Roundtable Discussion and Harvest Night
Tuesday 24 January, AA Lecture Hall/Front Members' Room

Schedule:

17:00 Introduction in the Lecture Hall

17:15 HORTUS and the cyberGardens series

AA.exhibitions_HOR Marco Poletto (director ecoLogicStudio – AA INTER10 Unit Master)

The ‘Simrishamn Regional Algae Farm’ Claudia Pasquero [director ecoLogicStudio – AA INTER10 Unit Master]

18:00 HORTUS roundtable, Lecture Hall
Moderator Lucy Bullivant, with Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto and Andrea Bugli [ecoLogicStudio] and invited guests

19:30 The Harvest
Front Members' Room and AA Bar
Curated by AA INTER10 students
Practice1: bio-OIL extraction
Practice2: cooking super-snacks
Practice3: weaving bio-fabrics

ARTitectural Production

AA Bar 14/1/2012 - 11/2/2012

Image: Anne Hardy, Incidence, C-type print

Talk: Wednesday 8 February, 18:00

The title ARTitecture evokes the close connections between fine art and architecture from the medieval period till today. In this exhibition three artists – Jorinde Voigt, Anne Hardy and Hynek Martinec – will offer their perspectives on the links between the disciplines, opening up a broader discussion that asks: Where are the contact points between architecture and art today? How do they compete or profit from their close relationship? The exhibition will be accompanied by a roundtable discussion at the AA on Wednesday 8 February. Both the exhibition and the roundtable event are sponsored and supported by the Czech Centre London and Kleine Wundertüte.

First, Jorinde Voigt will talk about how she develops graphic algorithms out of static data, translating music or the flight path of eagles, for example, into a visual display combining points, lines, coordinate systems, numbers, symbols, words, shading and colour. The line is the determinant of Voigt’s artwork. Anne Hardy continues this process by designing a fictional reality through one-to-one models, which are then photographed – a technique that both creates an effect of alienation and gives the work a documentary substance. She takes the viewer of her photographs on a journey through a surreal world where every room or interior contains its own little cosmos. Finally, Hynek Martinec creates an atmospheric scene around a given design in the form of photo-realistic painting. The artists’ presentations, which focus on their working process, will lead into an open discussion.

Supported by Czech Centre, Kleine Wundertüte

Anne Hardy is a British artist known for her large-scale photographs depicting carefully constructed interior spaces. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at the V&A in London and the Venice and Helsinki Biennales, among many other places.
www.anne-hardy.co.uk

Hynek Martinec is a Czech artist known for his photorealistic portraits. His interest lies in the notion of time and its representation with the traditional medium of painting. His work can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, London and the National Gallery, Prague. He won the BP Young Artist Award in two consecutive years, 2007 and 2008.
www.hynekmartinec.com

Jorinde Voigt is a German artist who studied sociology, literature and music before training in fine art in Berlin. She is interested in displaying intangible data, such as sound or air, through drawn notations and scores. She was recently shortlisted for the ‘Future Generation Art Prize’ at Kiev and exhibited at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague and the 54th International Venice Biennale art festival.
www.jorindevoigt.com

Discussion Moderator:
Lavinia Neff is a German writer and art critic who is currently completing her PHD on ‘the renaissance of the workshop in contemporary art’ at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. She was the winner of the 2008 Junior Art Critics Award in Vienna, Austria and has been an art consultant for the St Moritz Art Masters in Switzerland for the past four years.

 

Organised and curated by Friedrich Gräfling, who is currently completing his Diploma at the AA after working as a sceneographer during his two years out. He has collaborated with leading artists, designers, writers and musicians, building the right spatial setting for their interventions.

Anne Hardy, Incidence, 133 x 165.5 cm

Hynek Martinec, at the same time, Stockwell I&II, each 70 x 70cm

Jorinde Voigt, Symphinuc Area Variations, 80 x 180cm