AA Summer School 2018

B I T S

BYTES

FRAGMENTS

S C R A P S

S H A R D S & M O M E N T S S U M M E R

S C H O O L

2018 ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION

BITS BYTES FRAGMENTS SCRAPS SHARDS & MOMENTS

Architectural Association School of Architecture Summer School 2018 Director Natasha Sandmeier Programme Co-ordinator Dorotea Petrucci Assistant Co-ordinators Etienne Gilly & Assaf Kimmel

UNIT 1 OMNITOPIA Flavie Audi, Samantha Lee & Farvash Razavi UNIT 2 AN HOUR IN LONDON Eleanor Dodman & Tobias Jewson UNIT 3 BROKEN CLAYGONS Patricia Mato-Mora & Nasios Varnavas UNIT 4 ANTROPOTYPES Sabrina Morale & Lorenzo Perri UNIT 5 SUMMER SCHOOL AS A STAGE Caspar Frenken, Benjamin Groothuijse & Korbinian Kainz UNIT 6 BUBBLEBUST! Ana Nicolaescu & Sebastian Tiew

Bits, bytes, Fragments, Scraps, Shards & Moments I guess I'm just hopelessly fascinated by the realities that you can assemble out of connected fragments.

Junot Diaz It’s like this puzzle. You spend ages putting things together – things that weren’t meant to fit together, disjointed things, things no one would ever think you could put together…It’s like you’re building your own little world.

Tom Rowlands (Chemical Brothers)

We consume bits of our friends’ lives as we scroll through social media pics on our mobile phones. We hear snippets of conversations on the bus on the way into town, or in a restaurant, imagining the lives of the people surrounding us. Ancient vases are reassembled from fragments found beneath the ground, while archaeologists and historians recreate the narratives of the people and culture that created it. A film stitches together a single and coherent narrative from hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of multi-second shots.

Our days and worlds are built around accumulated experiences, interactions, and the paraphernalia of daily life. The only constant that stitches them all together is you and the measure of time. This also means that the simple insertion of new or different elements can radically shift the narrative. It enables all of us to be the director of our experience and the architect of our domain.

This summer we will look at London as though through a kaleidoscope. Summer School 2018 will act as a Director, a Surgeon, a Detective, a Master Builder and a Storyteller. The director will assemble a single continuity from isolated shots. The surgeon will cut, reassemble, stitch and sew a new architectural body together. The detective will examine real and fictional evidence and build hypotheses. The master builder will assemble existing and invented materials while the storyteller assembles narratives from both real and fantastical inspiration. Our design units will work through digital and physical models, filmmaking, drawing, animation and installations as we discover what it means to think, make and design through an endless rearrangement of fragments.

FORMAT Issue 8 July 4 ⎯ July 13 2018 FORMAT is the AA’s Summer ‘live magazine’ looking at the shapes that discourse takes. The eighth issue focuses on Self Format. Is the ‘individual’ being reinvented and redefined in our age of data capitalism? How much intimacy can be surrendered to surveillance? Is the opposite of the individual still the crowd, or, something else? And, would you mind being cloned? Invited guests share their Self Formats from the worlds of art, design, literature, theory, media and more. ⎯ Organised by Shumon Basar WEDNESDAY 4 JULY SHUMON BASAR and SOPHIA AL MARIA present Self Formats shaped by automation and impacts on the physical body

FRIDAY 6 JULY DOUGLAS COUPLAND and HANS ULRICH OBRIST present Self Formats fuelled by of the age of accelerated everything

WEDNESDAY 11 JULY JACK SELF and ADAM THIRLWELL present Self Formats which surrender privacy for exposure and rewrite the first- person

FRIDAY 13 JULY BRENDAN McGETRICK and OLIVIA SUDJIC present Self Formats addicted to intimacy and designed by California

ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN THE AA GALLERY AT 630PM ENTRANCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

format.aaschool.ac.uk for more details

BITS BYTES FRAGMENTS SCRAPS SHARDS & MOMENTS SUMMER SCHEDULE 2018

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WEEK 1 2 July Mon

GROUP 1,2 GROUP 3,4 GROUP 5,6 GROUP 1 GROUP 2 GROUP 3 GROUP 4 GROUP 5 GROUP 6 3 July Tue 4 July Wed 5 July Thu 6 July Fri 7 July Sat 8 July Sun

9:15 10:30 11:00 13:00 14:30 14:45 15:00 15:30 15:30 16:00 16:00 16:30 16:30 17:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00

Registration, Coffee + Croissants Introduction Unit Presentations and Selections Lunch Computer Lab Introductions Computer Lab Introductions Computer Lab Introductions Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Team Announcements + Drinks Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio (Free Day!)

36 Bedford Sq AA Canteen AA Canteen AA Dining Room 39 Bedford Sq 1st Flr 39 Bedford Sq 1st Flr 39 Bedford Sq 1st Flr Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq AA Terrace 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq AA Gallery 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq AA Gallery 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq

10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 17:00 10:30 - 12:30 13:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:30 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00

Design Studio INTERIM REVIEW ALL UNITS *AA STUDENTS PRESENT WORK Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio

3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 16 Morwell St 2nd Flor AA Gallery 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq AA Gallery 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq AA Gallery 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq

10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 17:00 17:30 - late

Design Studio Design Studio Design Studio Design Studio FINAL REVIEW! Summer School PARTY!

3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 3rd Floor 36 Bedford Sq 1st Yr Studio & Lecture Hall AA Terrace

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WEEK 2 9 July Mon 10 July Tue 11 July Wed

12 July Thu 13 July Fri 14 July Sat 15 July Sun !

WEEK 3 16 July Mon 17 July Tue 18 July Wed 19 July Thu 20 July Fri

** WORKSHOP INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 3,4,5 July ** DIGITAL PROTOTYPING LAB INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 3,4,5 July ** Individual unit schedules and special events will be announced by unit tutors




AA OPENING HOURS Studio Hours Monday – Sunday 10:00 – 22:00 Digital Prototyping Lab Monday – Friday 10:00 – 18:00 Computer Lab Monday - Friday 10:00 – 22:00 AA Workshop & Modelshop Monday 10:00 – 18:00 Tuesday – Thursday 10:00 – 21:00 Friday - 10:00 – 18:00 Saturday 10:00 – 17:00 Bookshop Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 18:30 Library Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 18:00 Printing Centre Monday – Friday 10:00 – 18:00 Bar Monday – Friday 9:15 – 19:00 Canteen Monday - Friday 12:15 – 14:30

UNIT 1

Flavie Audi, Samantha Lee & Farvash Razavi

AA Summer School Samantha Lee, Flavie Audi, Farvash Razavi 2-20 July 2018

OMNITOPIA: Towards a New Species of Space We sleep through our lives in a dreamless sleep. But where is our life? Where is our body? Where is our space?

- George Perec

In George Perec’s Species of Spaces he questions the nature of space by performing the act of zooming out from the intimacy of the bedroom to the greater cosmos. In our constantly connected world, the blurred division between one room’s functionality to the next is expanded into our virtual lives. Our newsfeeds gather the personal and the planetary in a bifocal gaze which characterises the simultaneity of being present in multiple realities. This constant oscillation demands an omnipresence that potentially leads to endless stream of desires which are never totally gratified or fulfilled. How do we negotiate our identity and selves among this bombardment of fragmented replicas of reality?

We will readdress Perec’s question in the context of today - where is our life? Where is our body?

Where is our space?

In Kirsty Bell’s The Artist’s House, she examines the domestic environment of artists through the Katharina Grosse, Untitled, 2004 outwards zoom of Perec’s “infra-ordinary” as a way to pick apart the significance of the home in artistic practice. We will look at the artist house as a prism to understand how the interiority of space can become not just as a dwelling but an expansion of creative production, and a way to re-establish intimacy with the everyday in today’s bombardment of information and mass spectacle.

Over the course of 3 weeks, students will move from the intimacy of personal space to a collective dreamscape of total interiority, a repository of desires, a theatre of the world, and vessel of experience. We’ll work towards a new species of space, a so called ‘Omnitopia’ - a landscape of assembled fragments made up from the everyday clutter and virtual detritus of our lives.

Sarah Sze, Centrifuge, 2017

Schedule: Week 1 - INTIMACY Students begin with an ‘object of desire’ which will act as a starting point to be dissected into qualitative fragments and associations. The choice of this object resides in the student’s own conflicted fascination, affection or attraction.

The result will take the form of a ‘screenshot’ - an image, collage or model that gathers these fragments together to create a personal system of thought. The objective of this exercise is to establish a tool-kit for building towards an ‘Omnitopia’. Through dissecting the object we discover its complex network of relationships between overlapping modes of interiority physical, virtual, and emotional.

Week 2 - ASSEMBLAGE We’ll take these ‘screenshots’ and transform them from 2D to 3D, assembling and re-organising them into systems and interconnected narratives.

Students will start building a collective physical framework to organise their fragments which is site-specific. Images will merge with materials and take on sculptural form. Everyday objects - lamps, plants, cutlery, food - will explode into space and intersect with imaginary ones. As a landscape starts to take form, we will explore ways to regain intimacy with the mass proliferation of images and information overload.

Camille Henrot, Grosse Fatigue, 2013

Sarah Sze, Centrifuge, 2017

Week 3 - COSMOS In the final week students will collectively introduce light, projection and sound to generate atmospherical qualities and an immersive experience. Moving through the installation, a landscape of fragments will appear and disappear, unfolding and interconnecting, resembling a cosmos of everyday clutter and virtual detritus.

By weaving together a virtual, psychological and spatial interiority, an ‘Omnitopia’ will be proposed as a new species of space.

Sarah Sze, Triple Point (Pendulum), 2013

Schedule: WEEK 1 Monday 2

Tuesday 3

Wednesday 4

Friday 6

Saturday 7

AM

Intro + Unit Presentations

Unit Tutors Presentation and Group Intro

Workshop/ Studio Work/ Lasercutting + 3d Screenshots image making

Thursday 5

Brief: Collective Assemblage

Workshop/ 3d scanning

PM

Unit Selections + workshop inductions

Studio Work / Screenshots

Studio Work/ Screenshots

Informal Crit

Studio Work / Assemblage

Joan Jonas @Tate Modern, Sarah Sze @Victoria Miro

EVE

Welcome Drinks

Studio Work Screenshots

*FORMAT

Guest Talk / Digital Emotions

*FORMAT

Bold Tendencies @Peckham carpark, Drinks @Frank's Rooftop Bar

Sunday 8

The Future Starts Here @V&A

WEEK 2 Monday 9

Tuesday 10

Wednesday 11

Thursday 12

Friday 13

Saturday 14

AM

Group Work / Assemblage

INTERIM JURY

Portfolio presentations by former AA students

Workshop / CNC

Workshop / Experience Design

Group work Cosmos

PM

Group Work / Assemblage

INTERIM JURY

Brief: Cosmos

Group work + TutorialsCosmos

Group work + Tutorials Cosmos

Group work Cosmos

EVE

Group Work / Assemblage + Jury prep

Drinks

*FORMAT

Film Night

*FORMAT

Art Night London

Saturday 21

Sunday 15

WEEK 3 Monday 16

Tuesday 17

Wednesday 18

Thursday 19

Friday 20

AM

Workshop / Atmospheres

Group work Cosmos

Group work Cosmos

Rehearsal / Jury prep

FINAL JURY

PM

Group work + Tutorials Cosmos

Group work + Tutorials Cosmos

Group work Cosmos

Rehearsal / Jury prep

FINAL JURY

EVE

Group work Cosmos

Group work Cosmos

Group work Cosmos

Rehearsal / Jury prep

END PARTY

Sunday 22

References:

Joshua Citarella, Render and Difference, 2013

Flavie Audi & Samantha Lee, SUB-, 2018

Kimsooja, To Breathe, 2016

Hito Steryl, Factory of The Sun, 2015

Do Ho Suh, Passage/s, 2017

Letha Wilson, 2014

Urs Fischer, 2018

Pierre Huyghe, Untitled (Light Box), 2002

Urs Fischer, 2018

Alicja Kwade, In Circles, 2012

Reading:

Joan Jonas, They Come to Us without a Word, 2015

George Perec, Species of Space Kirsty Bell, The Artist House Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget Hito Steyerl, The Wrenched Screen Giuliana Bruno, Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media Sarah Sze, After Image Esther Leslie, Liquid Crystals: The Science and Art of a Fluid Form Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality

Tutor Bios: Samantha Lee (Korean Canadian, b.1988) is a London based artist. She graduated from the Architectural Association in 2012, after which she cofounded visual arts studio Universal Assembly Unit which has been commissioned to create interactive and multi-sensory installations in performance, exhibition, and outdoor festival venues across the UK and Europe.

These include the Roundhouse, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, Sonar+D Barcelona, London Design Festival, AND Festival and FOTODOK Utrecht.

She is currently completing an MA at the Royal College of Art in Sculpture (2017-19). Her practice is influenced by the omnipresence of technology and how it impacts the human imagination. By using new imaging methods and modes of object making, she explores the creation and perpetuation of mythologies through digital media. She is interested in the ways our understanding of the physical world is continually changing, through the translation and transformation of objects and landscapes across geological, industrial and post-industrial processes. www.samanthalee.xyz www.universalassemblyunit.com Farvash Razavi (Swedish Persian, b.1982) is a Stockholm based artist. She graduated with a MFA in experience design and holds a BA in interior architecture from Konstfack, University College of Arts Crafts and Design in 2010. In 2006, she began her research as a material scientist at RiCE institute of technology where she developed methods to work interdisciplinary between science and design.

She holds several patents and recieved an honors for her cross-disciplinary work. In 2010 she started as Creative Director at Rolling Optics, a hologram startup where she built up a design research department and made future concepts for more then 500 brands such as, Chanel, Dior, Taittinger, Hennessy, Pernod Richard etc.

She also holds a degree in chemistry from Royal Collage of Technology where she also taught Material Science at the Architectural department for two years.

In 2015 she began doing high security research and future concept for bank notes world wide. www.instagram.com/farvash

Flavie Audi (French Lebanese, b.1986) Flavie Audi (French, Lebanese) (b.1986) graduated from the Architectural Association in 2011 and completed an MA at the Royal College of Arts in 2014, where she specialized in glass. Her practice has expanded into various media and collaborative projects with fashion, jewellery and furniture designers. Her works has been widely exhibited in Europe and US (Venus Over Manhattan, Soneva Fushi, David Gill, Stedelijk Museum Breda, Galerie Tanit, Karma International, Elisabetta Cipriani…).

Audi’s practice finds its point of departure within the manipulation of glass. Glass plays a crucial part in contemplating a utopian future world where humans create cosmic fragments and new types of landscape formations where gemmology aligns with geology in this synthetic new nature. Through its omnipresence in nearly all contemporary forms of digital devices, glass becomes a signifier of the tension between the realms.

She investigates the meeting point of natural and artificial worlds, the real and virtual. The works capture a fleeting, living energy and suggest a certain ambiguity, hovering between digital screen and celestial body. In a dematerialised world where all is virtual and generic, her work seeks to define a new type of aesthetic and physical materiality and invites the mind to expand in the cosmological infinite. www.flavieaudi.com Flavie Audi and Samantha Lee have been collaborating on video works, Landscape of Mass Replication (2016) and SUB- (2018) exploring the notion of cultured geologies and the physical materiality of the screen.

UNIT 2

Eleanor Dodman & Tobias Jewson

An Hour in London A Grand Narrative of Fragments

July 2018

Unit 2

Page 1

An Hour in London A Grand Narrative of Fragments Every day a multiplicity of stories are told, from idle gossip to crafted novels. Information technology has allowed these stories to grow larger in number and reach further than ever before. Yet at the same time, as a society, we are becoming more nervous about the dissolution of a shared discourse. Fake news, information bubbles and echo chambers are all examples of a multitude of narratives that coexist, yet never interact.

What does this have to do with architecture? Critical to any architectural project is the site. Architects have long sought different ways to analyse and understand the site, from Nolli’s map of the public spaces of Rome to Venturi and Scott Brown’s drive down the Las Vegas strip. Unit 2 will attempt to understand site, not through first hand experience, but through assembling the fragmented narratives of others into a new whole — a grand narrative.

Medium

Site

Architecture is a medium of communication; from the classical orders, the height of a Gothic cathedral, to the transparency of a contemporary government building. One of the most direct and evocative manifestations is the stained glass window. Used throughout history to represent everything from saints to adverts.

Unit 2 will work across two different scales. The first is one of the AA’s Georgian sash windows which we will commandeer as the location and the context for our 1:1 intervention.

The second is Trafalgar Square, which will be the focus of our analysis and the source of our fragmented narratives.

Trafalgar square marks London’s central point as defined since 1663. Sited at the location of the original Charing Cross, erected by Edward I in honour of his dead Queen Eleanor. It is where Google drops the pin for London and from where distances to the capital are measured.

It is where protests end and celebrations begin. The location of Norway’s gifted Christmas tree and a popular tourist attraction. It signifies London all over the world, the subject of an myriad of fragments.

Working at 1:1 Unit 2 will assemble fragments, both literal and figurative, to create our own stained glass window.

AA Summer School

Unit 2

Page 2

July 2018

Unit 2

Page 3

Fragment to Grand Narrative We will over the course of the three weeks collage, overlay and re-frame fragmented narratives. We will digitally alter and skew images, stories, recordings and videos through a series of workshops. We will paint, laser cut, slump and print our fragments on glass. The window, as our final assembly, will tell a grand narrative of a fragmented now.

Step 1 - Search the Search Unit 2 will search the internet and trawl social media to collect as many narratives as possible about Trafalgar Square, focused on a single hour in time. We will collect, collate, forage, hack and aggregate. The collective narratives will form the basis of our site exploration and our first set of fragments.

Step 2 - Fragment 1 - Filter the search Going through the bounty of found narratives we will seek to weed out those most interesting or maybe those most banal to represent within our window, looking to portray Trafalgar Square in all its glory.

Step 3 - Visualise the Search We will start to visually represent our fragments. Through a series of workshops we will curate, splice and collage the fragments into a drawing or template - the beginnings of our stained glass window.

Not bound to the flat plane we will begin to manipulate our fragments using 3D modelling and other digital techniques to transform images, videos and sound recordings into 3D objects.

Step 4 - Grand Narrative 1 Once our individual narratives have been chosen, we will as a unit assemble the first mock up of our stained glass sash window.

Interim Jury Step 5 - Fragment 2 We will begin to make our narrative fragments out of glass fragments.

Workshops will be held to discuss different methods of working with glass such as: assemblage,laser-cutting (perspex), layering and manipulation, painting, laser etching and transfers.

We will explore the theme of transparency,how it can be used to create different forms of hierarchy not possible with a printed media. This will add another dimension beyond that of a typical architectural drawing.

Step 6 - Grand Narrative 2 The final step will be to assemble the 1:1 window.

Final Jury

AA Summer School

Unit 2

Page 4

July 2018

Unit 2

Page 5

Schedule Week 1 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

10-1

Introductions & unit presentations

Stained glass window site visit

Re-search the search

All day representation workshop with invited guest

All day 3d modelling workshop for 3d glass elements

Materiality of the digital workshop

2-6

Unit selections & first unit meeting

Selecting a window (the site)

Search the search ‘an hour in London’

6-late

Sunday

Unit dinner at Angel In The Fields

Drinks at the Champion Pub

Week 2 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

10-1

The grand narrative 1

Intermediate jury

Post jury discussion

Glass workshop visit

Image analysis workshop with invited guest

Studio time

2-6

Studio time (jury prep)

Intermediate jury

Working with glass workshop

Studio time

Studio time

Studio time

Tutorials with invited guests

Drinks at Old Bell Tavern

Post jury drinks

6-late

Sunday

Week 3 Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

10-1

V&A glass exhibition visit

Studio time

Constructing the window workshop

Studio time

Final jury

2-6

Studio time

Studio time

Studio time

Studio time (jury prep)

Final jury

Saturday

Sunday

Party

6-late

AA Summer School

Unit 2

Page 6

François Espinasse - Bibendun,1911

Iconoclasm at Cantebury cathedral

Gilbert and George

Gerhard Richter - Cologne Cathedral, 2007

Selective erasure of religius figures, 1643

Red Morning Trouble, 1977 and Dream, 1984

Eleanor Dodman

Tobias Jewson

Graduated from the Architectural Association in 2014. Whilst at the AA she was student editor of AArchitecture the schools tri-annual newsletter. She was awarded the AA prize for significant contributions to the school and the Nicolas Pozner Prize for single best drawing of the year.

Graduated from the Architectural Association in 2013. His Part 1 project was awarded a commendation at the RIBA President’s Medals Awards.

He has worked at Foreign Office Architects in London, OMA in Rotterdam and is currently working at 31/44 Architects.

After having gained experience at Wilkinson Eyre Architects, working across a range of scales and sectors, she left in 2018 to set up her own practice. Most recently her work has been exhibited at the London festival of Architecture and the Royal Scottish Academy Summer Exhibition.

July 2018

Unit 2

Page 7

UNIT 3

Patricia Mato-Mora & Nasios Varnavas

_ a 3d printed rhino_

{A POTTERY WHEEL}

BROKEN CLAYGONS

...unit 03

G

iga obelisk

AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2018 NASIOS VARNAVAS PATRICIA MATO-MORA

{BROKEN CLAYGONS_ A POTTERY WHEEL <ms-dos> RHINOCEROS + A GIGA OBELISK}

._.

nasios varnavas patricia mato-mora

%

CONCEPT If clay is the amorphous substance extracted from the ground, imagined and transformed by thought, narrative and human hands; what is the analogy one can draw in today’s digital terra firma which is excessively mined for 0’s and 1’s.

If the earth has been the ground for building and storing civilisations’ stories and fragments, then can digital databanks be thought to be the equivalent of an

archaeological

field

–

constructing

and

storing

information,

protocols,

fragments and polygons.

What would a digital Persepolis look like if it was to be ‘unearthed’ 200 years from today?

With the emergence of software, the boundaries between analogue and virtual are evermore blurred. As terminology used for physical operations is adapted and incorporated into the digital world, one can remember the Isomorphic Algorithms from Tron’s Legacy as these wonderful hybrid or ghost humans, partly made of flesh and bones, partly made of 0’s and 1’s, are born.

An operating system / data bank is no longer a place to store and manage protocols but a ground on which novel narratives can emerge, shaped and synthesised.

METHOD We will operate between Clay and Polygon, our cultural currency will be the Claygon.

We will spin the wheel, smash the clay, massage it, our hands will

be dirty, we will soften, sculpt re-sculpt poetics and formal possibilities.

We will scan, analyse and revolve curve profiles, flow along surface, Boolean Union and Split, orbit and pan, zoom in and out, explore the virtual. We will Kitbash clay and polygon, blurring the process of production.

We will let it

dry, water it down and we will build it up again, we erase nothing. We will bake it in Grasshopper, we will bake it in the kiln.

OUTPUT Claygon vessels and drawings: formal analysis for each, producing a forensic drawing of curves and radii revealing the process of making of each artifact – a thick mega drawing (1) A1.

Our exhibition space will involve a grey space 2x2 m, with a pottery wheel, the process fragments laid on the ground, a computer, a 3d printed rhino and the Giga-Obelisk in the middle. We resurrect the Giga-Obelisk made of the claygon vessels, using our hands and Rhino. It will be an accumulation of each student’s vessel/ data assembled together. Our Obelisk/ Totem will be the celebration of the accumulated fragments or vessels forming a narrative where multiple authors are to be credited just as ancient monuments had not one genius architect but where conceived and made under greater collectives. Our Obelisk will bring the virtual space into the physical environment with cooked narratives, not just numbers. Our colours will be Red, Green and Grey. We envision an Architecture mathematically immeasurable and poetically meticulous.

“He laid hold of the diverse fragments of his

accidental fate and forged them into a whole – a fictional whole, it must be said.”

-

Ernest Becker

Come

spin

it,

massage

it,

bake it, smash it with us!

“Accidents or destroying something can lead to something good. Very controlled things, not being open…these boundaries they screw you…You sometimes have to make a huge mess and make big mistakes to find that thing, that you’re looking for.”

- David Lynch

Monday 2

Tuesday 3

Wednesday 4

Thursday

Friday

5

6

Registration

Rhino / Clay intro â&#x20AC;&#x201C; commands, terminology Intoduce methodology (Record history)

Visit to V&A Ceramics collection â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Pick object

3D development (workshop & dpl)

Layout of Mega-drawings in wall in studio

Presentations

Face Exercise

Expand Narrative Post it Note Commands

Choose Set View / Composition in Rhino Viewport

Spin it!

Inductions

3D model (Computer Lab)

Spin it!

Massage it!

Mega-Drawing (Rhino to Illustrator Workflow)

3D Modelling (Workshop & dpl)

Team Selection

3D Print / LaserCut (DPL)

Objectcloning & Corrupting its DNA

Drniks

Cast, Distort, Extrude (Workshop)

Evening: FORMAT

9

10

11

Saturday

Sunday

7

8

Bake it!

Deadline for all ceramics.

Test Print & Sketch

Evening: FORMAT

12

13

14

15

90min world cup challenge: Blitz 3D iterations (computer lab)

Interim Crit - Start by presenting concept

Inspiration Presentation: Re-iterate Command list & Introduce new processes (Vacuum, Clay 3D printing)

Making (Workshop)

Bake it!

Drawing (Computer Lab)

Kintsugi & Making (Studio)

Ad-Hoc tutorials

Present Mega-Drawing of Specific fragments, technique, process (in progress)

Spin it!

Massage it!

Spin it!

Massage it!

Drawing (Computer Lab)

Ad-Hoc Tutorials (Story Writing)

Spin it!

Massage it!

Present city drawing in progress

Tutorials in workshop to expand narrative.

Smash it!

Ad-Hoc tutorials

Present all fragments digital & Physical

Evening: FORMAT

Layout of big city drawings Mini Pin up (wall in studio)

Evening: Ideas for Giga-Obelisk

Evening: FORMAT

Mini Pin-Up: City Drawing (Storytelling Evening)

Drinking game with artifact 16

17

18

19

20

Drawing (Computer Lab)

Making (Workshop)

Bake it!

Printing

Crit

Ad-Hoc Tutorials

Start Curating Exhibition Space: Installation of Giga Obelisk

Installation of Giga Obelisk

Installation of Giga Obelisk

Smash it!

Mega-Drawing Towards Completion City Drawing Towards Completion

Add Finishing Touches to Mega-Drawing

Finishing City Drawing

Document Installation

21 De-Install

22

“In the depths of matter there grows an obscure vegetation; black flowers bloom in matter’s darkness. They already possess a velvety touch, a formula for perfume.” -

Rodin in his studio

Gaston Bachelard

Gate of all nations

Breath of the pot

_ Persepolis

_ Del Harrow

REFERENCES Bachelard, Gaston The Psychoanalysis of Fire, Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, Earth and reveries of will : An essay on the imagination of matter.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, “Die Natur: Fragment” [Nature: A Fragment], in Böhler, Michael (Ed.), Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft: Auswahl Greg Lynn The Archaeology of the Digital N. Katherine Hayles My Mother was a computer Works by Mariko Mori

KEYWORDS _Archaeology: the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artefacts and other physical remains. _Baking: transformation process of the clay into metamorphic rock. _Clay: a stiff, sticky fine-grained earth that can be moulded when wet, and is dried and baked to make bricks, pottery, and ceramics. _Data Bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_bank _Isomorphic Algorithms: (better known as ISOs) were a race of programs that spontaneously evolved on the Grid, as opposed to being created by users. Their existence was considered a miracle by Kevin Flynn; however, Clu considered them be an obstruction in his mission to create the perfect system. _Kintsugi: Japanese art of repairing broken ceramic fragments with gold. ‘It treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise’ (Wiki). _Kitbashing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitbashing _Katamari: ‘a magical ball that allows anything smaller than it to stick to it and make it grow—and collect enough material for him to recreate the stars and constellations.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katamari_Damacy _Polygon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygon _Unearthing: the process of revealing

COMMANDS Throw

Revolve

Coil

RailRevolve

Extrude

Sweep1 | ExtrudeAlongCurve

SlabBuild

Roll | Unroll

Carve

BooleanDifference

Score&Slip BooleanUnion Cut

WireCut | Trim | Split

Push

Cage

Drape

Drape | VacuumForm

Trim

Fillet

SlipDip

Smooth

nasios varnavas | architect | arb Nasios grew up in Nicosia – Cyprus, where his architectural anima flourished between lines, thresholds and obscure histories. He studied Architecture at the University of Bath and has completed his education at the Bartlett School of Architecture - MArch Architecture/ RIBA II in 2014 with distinction. He has worked for leading design offices – Kengo Kuma Associates in Tokyo, Coop Himmelb(l)au in Vienna, and for Prof.Will Alsop in London who he worked for, side by side as a designer and painter. More recently his passion for digital tools, fabrication and craft, lead to a position at Based Upon, directing the R&D on new projects. Nasios has been involved in academia as a guest critic at the Bartlett, AA, and University of Greenwich where he also co-run Alsop’s Unit 1. Currently he is an undergraduate Design Tutor at the University for the Creative Arts and a Visiting Tutor for Media Studies at the AA. His work fuses digital and analogue techniques into novel meditations that envision architecture as an ephemeral amalgam guided by destruction and construction.

Nasios believes that architecture, similar to fishing, should involve travel, long stories, preparation, anticipation and daydreaming. negmarchs.com

patricia mato-mora | ma(rca) | mrbs Patricia grew up in Palma – Mallorca, her young imagination soaked up by the stories of mercenaries, mermaids and buccaneers that lace the collective imagination of the Balearic archipelago. She was particularly captivated by the island’s landscape and architecture, containing numerous traces of legendary maidens’ and dragons’ adventures. In an attempt to harness these stories into spatial experiences, Patricia studied architecture at the Architectural Association, where the constellation of references that now pepper her work – from Bachelard to Blade Runner – was formed. She also studied materials at the Royal College of Art, and has been a resident sculptor at the European Ceramic Workcentre (2016), Konstfack University of Art and Design (2017). Fascinated with the translation from digital to physical, Patricia has worked as a digital craftswoman and fabricator since 2013, in Factum Arte in Madrid; Millimetre in Brighton, and independently for Heatherwick Studio and Magdalene Odundo OBE. Patricia is a First Year Studio Tutor and Technical Studies Ceramics Tutor at the AA; where she has also taught alongside Ana Araujo (2015-17). She has been a visiting critic at Leeds Metropolitan, the University of Cambridge, Chelsea College of Arts and Design, as well as a Design Studio Tutor at the University for the Creative Arts (2013-17) pmatomora.net

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UNIT 4

Sabrina Morale & Lorenzo Perri

AntropoTypes

The Self & the Palimpsest

“The reality that I perceive for you is in the form you give me; but this is the reality for you and not for me; the reality you perceive for me is in the form that I give you; but this is the reality for me and not for you; and for myself I have no other reality except in the form that I can give myself. And how? Building myself, indeed.”

Through these words, the protagonist of One, No One and One Hundred Thousand (L. Pirandello, 1926) concludes that if his body can be one, his spirit certainly is not. His true persona, exposed to the multiple masks, dictating the reality of social existence, is constantly in the process of being constructed.

The unit will question London’s multiplicity, to grasp its faceted self. We will investigate tratidional markets - emblematic places of accumulation - to craft composite masks. We will dissect urban characters and re-compose spatial fragments - to construct AntropoTypes, within a collective architectural piéce.

The Self: Unmasking London’s Markets During these three weeks, we will sample and represent London’s multiple architectural self. We will investigate the city’s main markets - traditional, touristic or ethnic - as they have always been privileged spaces of accumulation to grasp the London’s relentlessy evolving culture. Etherogeneous landfill of fragmented props, they feed the soul of hungry observers and compulsive collectors. Markets exceed their architectural stageset, clashing the primitive flavour of ancestral routines with constantly updated sets of mirabilia. Much more than a series of stalls, sellers and buyers, they offer an effective portrait of contemporary urban rituals - framing a crucial part of the image that London offers to its inhabitants and visitors.

We will operate gathering objects, recording moments and drawing urban fragments to translate London’s markets into a series of urban characters. The unit will use this compound of goods, actors, procedures and spatial details in order to define spatial personalities: conceptual simulacra, enabling architecture to be represented as a cluster of personified instances. To delineate this process, we will draw analogies with famous British collectors. Particular cases, where the house and the accumulated objects are shaping the owner ‘s identity - as essential layers to define personality and perspective on society, space and culture.

AA Summer School 2â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 20 July 2018

1. Kyoto Face House 2. Bertjan Pot, Masks 3. Anthropomorphic house in England 4. Magnhild Kennedy, Damselfrau 5. Edson Chagas, Tino Passe 6. Anthropomorphic house in France 7. Paul Klee, Puppets 8. Casa Mila, Gaudi 9. Anthropomorphic house in Germany 10. Mahakala, Buddhist mask 11. The Boston Government Service Center 12. Edson Chagas, Tino Passe 13. Marie Rime, Masques 14. Church in Florida 15. Bertjan Pot, Masks 16. Anthropomorphic house in Italy 17. Bruno Munari, Alla Faccia

AntropoTypes We will finally craft Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personified instances into a series of composite masks, each of them becoming a physical archetype with antropomorphic features. We will be affected by Pareidolia, always looking for hidden human traces when examining architectural examples. We will hybridize the extrtacted geometrical rules with the symbolism of folkloric masks to find the appropriate proportions between the elements.

Eventually, through a process of appropriation, accurate composition and intuitive assembling, students will define and implement effective techniques to craft archetypical lineaments into facial expressions.

The final outcome of the project will be a peculiar snapshot of London, where its multiple Self - the Antropotypes - stand and act in front of a continuous architectural stage set. Each AntropoTypical mask will be paired with his owner/creator, becoming thus an alive puppet to embody its assigned market within the reconstructed urban realm of London. We will create a theatrical background, a crafted animated panorama where to act as spatial characters - performing the impossible attempt to re-compose and present Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s multiplicity into one single piece of layered work.

The Palimpsest: Constructing the Architectural Piéce The whole course will be a journey through different modes of production, where the fabrication process will be as relevant as the final outcome. We will focus on model making, from 3D printing, lasercutting and cnc machine to casting and moulding.

1st Phase: The students will be divided in four groups, each of them creating a mask based on the analysis of a specific market.

2nd Phase: The students will collectively fabricate a layered background, where to stand while inhabiting the masks previously created.

WEEK 1 Monday 2 10:00 Introduction + Unit Presentations

Tuesday 3 Visit: Billingsgate Fish Market Visit: Smithfields Meat Market

Wednesday 4 Visit: LASSCO (The London Architectural Salvage and Supply)

Thursday 5 Work Session: Fabricate the structure (skeleton) of the masks.

Friday 6 Guest Lecturer Lorenzo Vitturi

Saturday 7 Work Session: Fabricate the structure (skeleton) of the masks.

Sunday 8 Brick Lane Market/ Columbia Rd Flower Market Collecting found objects

14:00 Unit Selections +

20:00

John Soane Museum collection

Introduction to the brief AntropoTypes + Group Division

Work Session: Curate the selection of props, pictures and fragments collected from the markets.

(Consistent topics) Film Session: The Best Offer G. Tornatore

Drinks!

Guest Lecturer Magnhild Kennedy

Work Session with Lorenzo Vitturi:

+ Collective Discussion

Catalogue of props + Assembling the masks

Work Session:

Enjoy London!

Markets translated into characters: curate the catalogue of props (drawings, pictures, videos)

Film Session: Vatel R. Joffé

WEEK 2 Monday 9

Tuesday 10

Wednesday 11

Thursday 12

Friday 13

Saturday 14

Sunday 15

10:00 Work Session: Refining Mask’s Skeleton + Catalogue of Props

INTERIM JURY

Guest Lecturer Marie Rime

Workshop: Originals & Replicas 3D Printing casting LaserCut

Work Session:

Work Session:

Assembling the Masks

Assembling the Masks

Work Session + Tutorials

Work Session:

Enjoy London!

14:00 Work Session with Marie Rime

Pre-Jury Rehersal

Transform the Catalogue of Props to shape the Mask’s Skeleton

Work Session: Assembling the Masks

Enjoy London!

Refining the AntropoTypes

20:00 Dinner + Drinks!

WEEK 3 Tuesday 17

Wednesday 18

Work Session:

Work Session:

Work Session:

Construction Masks vs Stage-set

Defining Narrative and Symbolism

Curating the Architectural Piéce

Work Session:

Tutorials in Unit Space

Tutorials in Unit Space

(Refining the AntropoTypes)

(Refining the AntropoTypes)

Thursday 19 Pre-Jury Rehersal

Friday 20 FINAL JURY

14:00 Crafting the animated panorama

Pre-Jury Rehersal

20:00 Party + Drinks!

Saturday 21

Sunday 22

AA Summer School 2– 20 July 2018

Monday 16 10:00

Bibliography Alla faccia! by Bruno Munari, Paperback, 1992 El Alto by Peter Granser, Paperback, 2016 Maske, by Phyllis Galembo, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Hardcover 2016 Deep Veils: Erik Laheureux and Pencil Office, by Erik L. Heureux, Grit Vltavsky, 2014 The way of the masks by Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1988 Paul Klee: Hand Puppets by Eva Widekehr, Felix Klee, Zentrum Paul Klee, Hardcover 2008 Dusk by Axel Hoedt, Hardcover, 2015 Filmography La miglior offerta, G. Tornatore, 2012 Vatel, R. Joffé, 2000

Sabrina Morreale Sabrina is an Architect and Illustrator based between Bangkok and London. She is collaborating with various magazines as Rivista Studio, Cartha Magazine and Elle as illustrator and with the RIBA as curator assistant. Her projects have always been related to the idea of fragmentation, using different media, enhancing the process of how things are made and assembled together.

She constantly work with model making experimenting through casting, weaving and different fabrication techniques.

Lorenzo Perri Lorenzo graduated with Honours from the Architectural Association in 2016. He has taught as a consultant for Intermediate 7 and Diploma 8 at the Architectural Association, while participating to several competition with international firms (Amid.

Cero9, Elemental). He is the cofounder of the research-based Plakat Platform and architectural practice Ecòl. Obsessed with geometry and aesthetics, precision and expression, before architecture he studied engineering and classical piano.

Lemonot is a design and research platform co-founded by Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri, who graduated together from the Architectural Association in London. Their work investigates architectural production and its implications on other disciplines. They use Architecture as a methodology to reach different outcomes: from toys to pastry tools, from tattoos to story-telling.

Programme Heads of the AA Visiting School El Alto, their academic activity focuses on contemporary folklore and cultural assemblages.

They taught at the AA Summer School since 2016, investigating gifs and kitbashing techniques. They are now Adjunct Professors at INDA International Program in Design and Architecture in Bangkok, Thailand. www.lemonot.co.uk

@_lemonot

UNIT 5

Caspar Frenken, Benjamin Groothuijse & Korbinian Kainz

*SUMMER SCHOOL AS A STAGE* 22 June 2018 Zurich/London/NYC

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUS (in: The Savage Mind, 1966) ‘It might be said that the engineer questions the universe, while the bricoleur addresses himself to collection of oddments left over from human endeavors…’

INTRO: The AA building consists of an amalgamation of townhouses, secondary structures and interventions, providing the backdrop to a history of academic life and education.

There’s not one part, not one facade, not a single hall that represents the school as a whole. Rather it is comprised of an accumulation of anecdotes and scenes——memories of canonical events, mythologisations of personal recollections.

SUMMER SCHOOL AS A SCENE

1

The Association is a summary of its fragments, impossible to define in one particular architectural moment, beyond the sum of its pieces——an anatomy reflected in its educational set-up.

The unit will seize on the capacity of summer school participants, often visiting the AA School for the first time, to revisit the building ‘as found’. The participants will explore its spatial potentials, questioning relationships, mirroring, echoing and enhancing its character as a bricolage and add to its narrative themselves.

London Summer School Architectural Association Monday 2—Friday 20 July 2018

ANNA VIEBROCK (img.2) (on her working method as a set designer) ‘Sometimes I feel like a hunter, when I find something, a place, a house, which tells me a lot about history, (MORE) 2/12

JAN DE VYLDER (img.3) (on DVVT’s extension-by-replication for the Twiggy store in Ghent, 2013) ‘We need two, three, four extra stairs, we get a garden, and extend the back facade, for the stairs, just for the stairs.’

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atmosphere. I take pictures of these places often without having a plan, what to use them for. Often later I recall these pictures and I use them for a set——a little bit like an archaeologist.’

We will reconsider the AA building complex and its direct surroundings as the stageset on which the Summer School will take place. In doing so, we will explore defining moments as they present themselves and are uncovered over the course of the three week studio.

Subsequently we will assemble and reconfigure these stagesets into a new, synoptic whole——a summary of situations with the capacity of framing scenes that lie between the everyday and those mythologies found, remembered or yet to be constructed.

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUS (cont’d) ‘The engineer is always trying to make his way out and go beyond constraints imposed by a particular state of civilization while the bricoleur by inclination or necessity always remains within them.’

Participants will reveal and utilise the fragmentary nature of the building, not by attempting to create clarity but by adding to the complexity, through rehearsal and restaging, replication and reprise.

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... MADAME POMPADOUR’s apartment at the Palace of Versailles: The replication of interior surfaces and ornamentation allows for the reconfiguration of rooms in plan and section, providing sheltered walkways where the walls used to be, by the rearrangement of an architecture already present. (img.4) Employing a specific set of model building and construction techniques characteristic of scenography and set-design, we will be working on several scale levels simultaneously, from 1:20 to 1:1 studies on-site, restaging the AA building onto and into itself in preparation of the final presentation.

SAVVAS CIRIACIDIS & (img.5) ALEX LEHNERER ‘During the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014 the German pavilion featured a full-size partial replica of a building made famous through its function as a backdrop to 30 years of political news (MORE) 4/12

broadcasts. The image of the “Kanzlerbungalow” [Chancellor’s Bungalow] in Bonn was recreated based on its mythologized status attained by its media portrayal.’ * BEDFORD SQUARE AS A STAGE

2

After studying the building’s scenographic qualities and narratives by means of very precise 1:20 theatre models, we will use on-site, 1:1 mock-ups of building fragments to create newly articulated situations: by reworking existing spaces through scenographical techniques (in cardboard where possible, plywood and prints), we will construct photorealistic interventions that only need to survive for the duration of the summerschool, but will be extensively documented at every stage as part of the programme.

THOMAS DEMAND, ANNA (img.6) VIEBROCK & ALEXANDER KLUGE (on The Boat is Leaking, the Captain Lied. Fondazione Prada 2017) ‘...three commonly accepted ideas are questioned: the traditional separation between spectators and theatre set designs, the reduction of filmic products to mere exhibited objects and the visual isolation where artworks are usually presented within a show.’

Throughout the Summer School we plan an additional programme of film screenings and site visits to scenography workshops, film/tv-studios and architectural sites in and around London that are relevant to our studio, such as Inigo Jones’ Banqueting House which was devised and designed for the specific purpose of masques and theatrical performances, and the Royal National Theatre.

ACT 1 In the first week, we will re-enact prolific scenes and anecdotes that make up the (in)formal history of the AA, and consider the role of the building within these histories and memories. We will build 1:20 scenography models of the building’s representative spaces and use these as a test site for spacial interventions.

Simultaneously, we will replicate specific parts of the building in a photorealistic manner, rehearsing techniques that we will later need in our 1:1 set pieces.

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ture and was fabricated from standard outdoor advertising and construction materials.’

ACT 2 The design work will concentrate on designing set pieces and interventions in relation to the existing spaces. In the process, the school’s presentation spaces and courtyard will become a test site for a 1:1 mock-up of a scenography that will reconfigure the space of the crits itselfs.

KORBINIAN has been a visiting critic at numerous institutions including the Architectural Association, the Bartlett School of Architecture and the University of Cambridge.

BENJAMIN GROOTHUIJSE ...is an architect, editor and educator based in Zurich. He studied at ETH Zurich and TU Delft, where he graduated at TONY FRETTON’s chair of Interiors, Buildings and Cities. Having worked for Atelier PETER ZUMTHOR and VON BALLMOOS KRUCKER Architekten, he recently co-founded the architectural practice GROOTHUIJSE DE BOER in Amsterdam.

He currently teaches at the chair of Prof. ADAM CARUSO at ETH Zurich and he is regularly a visiting critic at the Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst, TU Delft, ETH Zurich and the University of Cambridge.

CASPAR FRENKEN ...studied architecture at the TU Delft and ETH Zürich and previously worked at the chair of TONY FRETTON at the TU Delft, and currently teaches at the chair of Prof. DANIEL ROSBOTTOM, Interiors Buildings Cities. CASPAR is a studio master at the Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst.

FINAL CRITS The final presentation will encompass a change of scenography as performance, 1:1, real-time. * UNIT STAFF

3

KORBINIAN KAINZ ...is an architect and researcher based in London. Educated in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, he graduated from ETH Zurich. Before joining 6a architects he worked at MEILI PETER Architekten and taught at ETH Zurich, where his research focussed on the shift in national representation in the early 20th century. Together with Prof.

Dr.-Ing. UTA HASSLER, KORBINIAN has worked on the project for the 2014 German pavilion for the Venice Biennale.

(MORE) 7/12

(img.7) KRISTIN POSEHN (on Reclamation, 2008) ‘This archway was reconstructed at 1:1 scale as a public outdoor architectural installation in Almere, the Netherlands. A three-dimensional replica of the decaying Lincoln School was clad with high-resolution photographs of the original. The work was a combination of architecture, photography and sculp(MORE) 6/12

* * * * * 8/12

IMAGES

IMAGES

Img.2 Stage set for Offenbach’s La Grande Duchesse

by ANNA VIEBROCK. Photo © THEATER BASEL

Img.1 VETEMENTS Pull à capuche gris et Rouge Cut-Up 181669M202003 © SSENSE.COM

Img.3 Photo (fragment) © FILIP DUJARDIN

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IMAGES

IMAGES

Img.4 From: GALLET, D 1991 Madame de Pompadour et l’appartement d’en bas au chateau de Versailles, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol.118, No.1473

Img.6 Photo © DELFINO SISTO LEGNANI & MARCO CAPPELLETTI

Img.5 Photo © BAS PRINCEN

Img.7 Photo © KRISTIN POSEHN 12/12

UNIT 6

Ana Nicolaescu & Sebastian Tiew

Bubblebust!

A Game about Bits, Bytes and Fragments in 2018

AA Summer School 2018 | Unit 6

Bubbleverse (The World in 2018: Hi-Res, yet without us) Bubbleverse is the World in 2018, a Bubble of Bubbles: extremely large or microscopically small, iridescent spheres floating out of a bubble machine that we have built too well. (1) In Bubbleverse small bubbles pop fast: news and trends, pics and home made videos, memes and vines, adds, posts and links, faces of familiar people and Youtube one-hit-wonders, flowing chaotically through networks of platforms that we follow, sign-up or subscribe to. (2)

1.

In Bubbleverse large bubbles engulf us, and never seem to pop: filter bubbles and cultural bubbles, institutional bubbles and belief bubbles, art market, real estate and financial bubbles. (3) In Bubbleverse, bubbles proliferate, intersect, disappear and reappear: a pop star becomes a meme while a meme makes it to Coachella (4), a luxury bag becomes art while art becomes activism and protest. (5) In Bubbleverse .jpegs become objects (6), truths become lies, histories rewrite. Its form is constantly morphing, between cab rides and point systems, Universities and URLs.

2.

In Bubbleverse, we are bubbles among bubbles, each at the center of our own 360 World pictures, streaming chaotically out of a bubble machine, which has now outsmarted us- In Bubbleverse, we see in Bubble Vision.

In BubbleVerse we have gained resolution: from selfies to little-planet-selfie modes. (7) So have our desires, fantasies and weaknesses: from cinema screens, to personal screens and VR experiences; our Instagram feeds: from single images to series and stories; our Facebook posts: from one minute ago to live streams. Our routines: from panning and clicking to yawing, pitching and rolling in circles, endlessly. (8)

3.

Bubbleverse has us at the center, yet we are slowly disappearing: we use iMacs, iPads, iPhones, we repair them at iSmash, we watch iPlayers and use iWork, we iDate.co.uk and we iStudy.org - but in the process we are transformed into code-fleshed scripts.

In Bubbleverse, our skins become filters, our presence becomes a geo-location, our curiosities, hidden pleasures, interests and beliefs become datasets, stored in servers, mined and sold as assets. In Bubbleverse we are at best the half-bunnies we selfie-snap. At worse, we are not there at all: when looking up and down and left and right through our headsets, our bodies are not there. (9)

4.

Bubbleverse is the World in 2018: a digi-real space, inhabited by pixel-peach-fleshed actors, timed through systems of timescales that constantly wind and rewind.

Bubble verse is our Hi- Res World, yet our bodies are in pieces. Withdrawn and dismembered, hidden behind our avatars and fake profiles, floating at the center of our own kaleidoscopic bubbles, we are orchestrating our own disintegration while directing our own performances – yet, we are somehow always late for the show.

5.

Bubblebuster (The Architect in 2018: Low-Res, yet here and now) The Bubblebuster is (for now) “Man Scan 1”: a naked asset, a skin of meshes, a scan of a real man, waiting to perform. (10)

6.

Once performing, the Bubblebuster will be The Architect in 2018: A character-player, a half-avatar, a digi-real renaissance man-woman-action figure: The Bubblebuster will be a collector, a surveyor, a poet or scientist, a low-res superhero of the Bubbleverse.

The Bubblebuster will design a project for the Bubbleverse: it will draw a map and build a landscape, it will recompose and stitch, it will design bridges, forests, mazes and tunnels, enfilades and portals between slowmo, flattened bubble skins.

7.

Bubblebust (Project for the Bubbleverse: A low-res game, with us there)

8.

In three weeks, we will be designing a low-res game, its map and its protagonist. A Bubblebust is the careful flattening of a number of bubble skins, from iridescent sphere to worlds and landscapes that rearrange and recompose (11), stitched together in between real news and digital tools, in a map of the Bubbleverse that can be traced, a landscape that can be explored, an event with us there.

A Bubblebust means seeing the World and its architectures as a point of departure into many games, versions of bubbles, all deeply intertwined with one another.We will test tools of game design and find their application with the Architects’ world, defining and exploring a practice beyond representation. We will use the space of the game as the very site or landscape in which our individual bubbles may coexist. Within the game, we will be able to explore, journey, learn and create beyond the boundaries and constraints of the Bubbleverse, as we know it.

For three weeks, we will jump between Bubbleverse tools: we will write, archive and collect (12), we will download assets and screen capture screens(13), we will draw maps and build real digi-worlds, between pens and controllers, notes and game engines. Through group seminars, debates and focused skill-based workshops, through individual working and collective reworking, in a constant shuffling of scales, ideas and ourselves, we will plan, design and orchestrate the Bubblebust.

9.

10.

Bubblebust Plan (A Three Week plan for desigining the Bust of the Bubbleverse) Week 1: Bubblebuster 11.

12.

In the first week, we will collectively build the Bubblebuster. We will commence with a Faceshift scanning ritual (14): one by one, you will become points and meshes, transforming into your digi-real selves. Meanwhile, you will individually start thinking of possible missions, challenges, agencies that the Bubblebuster might take on, on behalf of you: is the Buster a surveyor, a scientist or a blogger? Does the Buster archive, code, write or draw?

You will subsequently embody the Bubblebuster collectively. Equipped with the necessary tools and skills, the Bubblebuster will be able to intervene at various scales, photographed, imagined, written or drawn.

The Bubblebuster will then be dressed, morphed, and ready to be there: He will present himself and his missions as a Buster of the Bubbleverse, in a MoCap live performance at the Interim Review. (15) Week 2: Bubbleverse In the first couple of days, you will use your own piece of the Bubblebuster to build and inspect your very own Bubbleverse. In order for this to be possible, we will begin by discovering our individual bubbles, collecting, presenting, shuffling and assembling elements, working individually yet together in a common ground.

13.

14.

We will begin by designing the level of our own bubble within the Bubbleverse. We will start by drawing our own bubble maps by recombin data, objects and pictures; we will be pinning up and pinning down, moving left and right, scrapping and discovering. Ranging from libraries of images, obsessive collections or a city of memes, our individual bubbles will be unique and distinct. (16) You will be introduced to the tools of game engines. In a 3 day Bubbleverse building session, you will lean the space of Unreal Engine to translate your elements into digital assets: you will scavenge for assets on Sketchfab, 3dwarehouse, you will download and digi-atlas your digi-bubble and by the end, we would have designed our very own Bubbleverse game: a place we can revisit and endlessly re-experience. (17) Week 3: Bubblebust!

In the last week, you will Bubblebust your Bubbles. Your maps will be recombined and recomposed through collective debates, design sessions and fights. You will start thinking about hierarchies, multi-linear narratives and game trees in Bubblebust Workshops. (18)

15.

For the last half of the week, we will have intensive collective sessions of Bubblebusting: you will continue with skill-based sessions in Unreal Engine to imagine textures, natures, universes in which you bubbles might be restitched. You will decide what is the project for a flattened Bubbleverse: is it a bridge, an institution, an event?

You will create a Bubbleverse Map, a re-composition of bubbles, threaded by half real half digital narratives, spaces and inhabitants. You will create a community of Bubbles, designed, threaded, multilayered. (19)

16.

17.

The Bubblebuster will present the Bubblebust. On behalf of all of you, he will explore, stop, examine, turn around, fly, circulate through spaces of the Bubbleverse Map. The Architect Player Character, a collection of fragments of you, will reveal a low res game: with all of us there, replaying again and again the bits, bytes and fragments of 2018. (20)

Bubbles To Read

18.

BitRot, Douglas Coupland; Wasting Time on the Internet, Kenneth Goldsmith; Emissaries- Guide to Worlding, Ian Cheng; Understanding Media, Marshall McLuchan; Ready Player One, Ernest Cline; What is Different, Wolfgang Tillmans; Cyberreader: Critical Writings for the Digital Era, Neil Spiller.

To See Serious Games, Harun Farocki; Ribbons, Ed Atkins; Geomancer, Lawrence Lek; How Not to be Seen: A Fucking Didatic Educational. Mov File, Hito Steyerl; BOB, Ian Cheng; Zornâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lemma, Hollis Frampton; Annlee, Liam Gillick, Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Alex Da Corte, Eminem.

19.

Bubble tools 20.

Real: Cameras, notepads, pens, post-its, glue sticks, paper; Digital: Rhino, Unreal Engine, FaceShift, Substance Painter, Fuse, Daz3d; Web: sketchfab.com, turbosquid.com, cgtrader.com, free3d.com, grabcad.com

Bubbletime Bubblebuster

Afternoon

Morning

Monday

Intro

Tuesday

Unit space Set-up

Wednesday

Bubblebuster Phase 1

Bubblebuster Phase 2

Friday

Saturday

Bubblebuster Phase 3

Sunday

Bubbleverse Phase 1

Unit Selections

AA Tour and Inductions

!!! LONDON DAY OUT !!!

Brief Intro

(Intro to Bubbleverse)

Bubblebuster Kickstart

!! 18:00 FORMAT !!

Evening

Thursday

!!!Bubblebuster Debate!!!

! Drinks ! + (quick) Unit Meeting

!! 18:00 FORMAT !!

Itinerary TBC FREE

! Unit dinner and drinks !

Bubbleverse

Morning

Monday

Bubbleverse Phase 2

Tuesday

Wednesday

!!!!! 10:00 - 17:00 !!!!

!! 10:30 AA Student Work Presentations !!

Thursday

Bubbleverse Phase 3

Friday

Bubbleverse Phase 3

Saturday

Sunday

Bubbleverse Phase 3 FREE

Evening

Afternoon

INTERIM REVIEW !! BLOOMSBURY TRIP !!

Rehearsals + Review Set-up

POST-REVIEW

!! 18:00 FORMAT !!

!!!! Unit Pin-Up !!!!

!! 18:00 FORMAT !!

(with drinks)

! Unit dinner and drinks !

Bubblebust

Morning

Monday

!!!Bubblebust Debate!!!

Tuesday

Bubblebust Session

Wednesday

Bubblebust Session

Thursday

Bubblebust Finals

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

!!!!! 10:00 - 17:00 !!!!!

Evening

Afternoon

FINAL REVIEW Bubblebust Map

Rehearsals + Review Set-up

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PARTY

Bubble Bios Ana and Sebastian graduated from the AA this year. Here they produced work about virtual imprisonment and digital natures while writing about thresholds of resolution and .jpeg networks. They both share an interest in discovering ways of practice and representation that challenge current methods, working together on a range of projects that use tools borrowed from game design, animation and computer science.

Some work at www.anaandsebastian.com

Bubble Pictures 1. Billion Bubble Machine, 2. Tag a friend and say nothing Meme, 3. Filterbubbles, 4. Yodelboy at Coachella, 5. Louis Vuitton x Jeff Koons, 6. Kimoji Butt Charger, 7. Little Planet Effect, 8. VR head movements, 9. Hand in VR, 10. Man Scan 1, 11. Bubblebust in slow-mo, 12. Soane Museum Collection, 13. sketchfab.com assets, 14. Faceshift, 15. Adobe Fuse, 16. Garden of Emoji Delights, Carla Gannis,17. RMB City, Second Life, 18. Mission Game Tree Score, 19. Second Life Map, 20. Mass Multiplayer Game Event.

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