Space Popular HOW I STARTED HANGING OUT WITH HOME: Anthropomorphic Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence MAI 2018
Wenn Gebäude Roboter werden und Roboter Menschen,
und leistbarer Technologie drängt sich die Frage auf, ob
wie menschlich werden dann unsere Gebäude sein?
Gebäude bald ein Bewusstsein entwickeln werden? Wenn
Gebäude bewegen sich bereits und sprechen mit uns,
ja, wie werden ihr Geist und Körper beschaffen sein? Wie
sie treffen Entscheidungen aufgrund von Daten, welche
werden wir uns mit ihnen in Beziehung setzen? Werden
über uns erhoben werden. Mit dem fortschreitenden
sie unsere Gefährten sein? Werden sie wie wir aussehen
Einsatz künstlicher Intelligenz und immer effizienterer
oder sprechen? Wie wird der Anthropomorphismus die Architektur beeinflussen? Die Installation vor Ort setzt sich mit diesen Fragestellungen durch eine Serie architektonischer Elemente auseinander, wie ein Portal und eine Säule, die auf der Ebene des Formalen
sowie
auf
jener
des
Verhaltens anthropomorphe Züge aufweisen. Ein haushaltsüblicher Staubsaugerroboter zeigt menschenähnliche Züge durch die Art seiner Bewegung
und
Gemeinsam bewohnen
Urteilsbildung.
schaffen diese
und
Elemente
den
Raum gleichzeitig. Sie verkörpern den
Raum
indem
sie
sind,
umgeben uns, während sie uns wie Eindringlinge fühlen lassen. Die Präsenz jenes Anderen – sogar wenn jenes Andere nicht lebend oder nicht mal physisch ist – verändert
unser
Verhalten,
ver-
anlasst uns, uns zu treffen, uns damit
auseinanderzusetzen
auszutauschen.
Während
und
unsere
Lautsprecher unsere Emails verlesen, unsere Türen sich selbst abschließen und unsere Waschmaschinen uns darüber informieren, wie dreckig oder sauber wir sind, ist bewusste Architektur im Kommen. Ob physisch
oder
virtuell,
vorliegend
oder imaginiert, fragen wir uns welche Form sie annehmen, wie sie kommunizieren und wie eng unsere Verbindung mit ihr sein wird.
H o w
I
W i t h
H o m e :
O u t
Whether if physical or virtual, actual or imagined, we
A n t h r o p o m o r p h i c
wonder what will it look like, how will it communicate
S t a r t e d
A r c h i t e c t u r e A r t i f i c i a l
H a n g i n g
i n
t h e
A g e
o f
with us and how close will our bond be.
I n t e l l i g e n c e Space Popular
If buildings become robots and robots become humans, how human will our buildings be? Buildings already
is directed by founders Lara Lesmes and Fredrik
move and speak to us, they make decisions based on input
Hellberg, who are both graduates from the Architectural
data. With artificial intelligence at our doorstep and ever
Association in London. The practice, founded in Bangkok
more efficient and affordable technology, will buildings
in 2013, works on different scales of intervention: from
soon be conscious entities? What will their minds and
furniture and interior design to architecture and
bodies be like? How will we relate to them? Will they be
urbanism. The duo has extensive teaching experience
our companion? Will they look or talk like us? How will
at INDA, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and at
anthropomorphism influence architecture?
the Architectural Association in London, where they questions
launched Tools for Architecture: a studio that explores
through a series architectural elements, such as a
experience-driven design methods, using immersive
portal and a column carrying formal and behavioral
digital simulations to describe the unique atmospheric
anthropomorphic features; and a domestic vacuum
conditions and psychological effects of architecture.
cleaning robot displaying human-like behavior through
According to Space Popular these simulations serve as
motion andjudgement. Together they create and inhabit
blueprints for a project that develops from the inside out,
space at once. They embody the room they are in,
translating a narrative for emotion and perception into
surrounding us whilst making us feel we are intruding.
geometry and built elements. Beyond their academic
The presence of another -even if that other is not a
experience, Space Popular has realized several built
living or even a physical thing- changes our behavior,
projects in Europe and Asia, such as the widely published
leading us to meet, engage and exchange.
Infinity Spa, which reinterprets the Thai shophouse
The
installation
explores
these
As our speakers read our emails, our doors
generic typology into a fully embodied and immersive
lock themselves and or washing machines tell us how
experience. Space Popular also exhibited at the Venice
dirty or clean we are, concious architecture is coming.
Biennale and at the Salone del Mobile in Milan.
Conversation with Space Popular
domestic appliances and the evolving virtual potential of architecture, where human forms as we would see
In May, members of the curatorial team sat down with
them in architecture before would necessarily not need
Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg (Space Popular) to
to be physical in the future, which means that they
have a conversation about the motifs behind and their
could actually take on animated form as well. When
interpretation on the new installation in Vienna.
that links together with the things that most people actually already have, especially in the United Kingdom,
Matthias Moroder
a little talking speaker in the corner of the room, which
We were thinking about starting this interview with the
does not have any anthropomorphic features, but they
evident shift in your work, where the exhibition at the
have names – people speak to these things, give them
MAGAZIN is the first manifestation of your new focus
names, attributing gender to them, Alexa is a female, Siri
on anthropomorphic architecture. This seems to be its
is a female – especially in the case of Alexa, an entity of
main theme; it would be interesting to know how this
some kind that is sharing the home with you, clearly at
shift came about, if you agree that this is a shift towards
the mercy of your will. We basically see it as an inevitable
anthropomorphism in architecture.
step – as these things get more and more clever and take over more and more functions in our homes, offices –
Fredrik Hellberg
that we will desire anthropomorphic features, we will
There are perhaps two lines of thinking where this
want it to have a face and that we do not just speak out
interest comes from. One side is a deep interest in the
into the nothingness. It already has a physical form, but
time of architecture, where buildings actually had
we think it will have more of those anthropomorphic
symbols and ornamentation and Vienna being one of
attributes in the future.
the centres of the world where human figures were prominent in the facades of buildings. Because they
Lara Lesmes
are so incredibly common they are rarely thought of
As you were saying, it also depends on what they can do.
as human figures. Almost every single door has a face,
If Alexa can speak, maybe it does not need to have a face
a torso, an atlas or a caryatid of some form. But then
- in the same way as the vacuum robot in the exhibition
the engine of the thinking of the exhibition comes
can move and that gives it life. So perhaps what is put
from the evolving world of domestic machinery, or
into question in the exhibition is if the peripheral world,
namely architecture – columns, doors, etc. –, does not
Lara
move, if it is relatively static- and it does not necessarily
Regarding the question of product design and architecture,
speak, perhaps it should have anthropomorphic features
the question that follows up is: Can you perceive as a
for one to strongly relate to it. Architecture, the thing
creature something that surrounds you? Something that
that is static, might be the thing that will need to have
you cannot perceive as an object? I think this is what
visual anthropomorphic features.
we actually would be interested in trying:
whether
something that you are within, you can relate with as Matthias
a creature. When we were developing Infinity Spa in
One interesting point that opens up here is the difference
Bangkok in 2016, we were discussing with the clients the
between product design and architecture. One of you
possibility of designing a spa with parts that speak to you,
gave an interpretation of anthropomorphism which comes
or that provide visual augmentations of treatments. We
more from a point of view of product design, the other one
were thinking that the whole experience of going into
more from architecture – I am not sure if they merge.
the spa would be delivered to you through the building itself, and that, in that way, the building would become
Fredrik At
this
a person for you – even if you are inside of it. We are so home-
used to understanding creatures as something that we
monitoring devices – that literally have eyes and
stage,
some
of
these
products,
can see as an object, but if it is peripheral, surrounding you,
anthropomorphic features – are clearly a very small
if it is an enclosure, can that be understood as a being?
thing in a space. But what they do is in fact monitor or control the space. In some cases they are a camera or
Eva Sommeregger
a monitoring device, which is keeping control of the
The question of appearance is a really interesting
space, of whatever intruder – so that your children
one: How does this peripheral envelope, as you call it,
are not eating laundry detergent; or as in the case of
appear around us? Going back to the notion of product
Alexa, controlling the sound or, let’s say, increasing
design, there exists the so-called MAYA-threshold. It
domains of the space, not necessarily the physical
is the question of the ‘most-advanced, yet acceptable’:
fabric of the space. We think that, as the network
will customers accept new technology it it also looks
starts to control more and more appliances, it might
new? Right at the moment, we are sitting in front of a
even 3D-scan the spaces live, so it even knows exactly
laptop – this advanced device that still looks like a TV
where you are and what you are doing.
and a typewriter combination. In that sense, it has a reactionary appearance. So it is good to challenge that, and to bring in anthropomorphism. Fredrik To elaborate on that, we actually think that it will be almost necessary at some point. Let’s say my logical wiring or pattern recognition in perceiving living objects will not change, but when things in architecture are literally conceivably alive to some level, we will crave anthropomorphic features. So when our laptop, if it ever gets loaded on a commercial level as a product that we begin to think of as an entity, you will begin to look for its eyes. Lara In the same way, smart cars – what is the TV show called in English with the fantastic car? Fredrik Knight Rider!
Lara
the desire for abstraction. Obviously, the elements that
The car in Knight Rider for instance is a being and it
we see in the exhibition are highly abstract and are sort
has a voice. When smart cars or homes speak to you, this
of, let’s say, a speculation on an evolved version. Maybe
issue of the voice, if it could be transferable?, if you get a
the first desire would be beyond the sort of cartoon for
new car, can they then put in the voice?
how real can it be? And obviously, the human body, as it is referring to, is incredibly limited. In this series, in
Fredrik
the scenes of the AI hotel, the narrative is even greatly
This is something the car industry has been working on
suffering from the fact that this has to be manifested in
for over a decade. It would need to have some kind of soul
a realistic human body.
so it can be transferred from object to object. So of course that you do not try to keep the decaying object of your
Matthias
old car alive forever with its personality intact, because
Totally!
you have an emotional attachment to it as a living thing. Jerome Becker Lara
I do not know this series, but could we maybe describe the
So in a home - I am branching out between different
difference between these two models with the difference
things - you have Alexa: it is that little box that starts being a part of your home; in which case do those become irreplaceable? Or do those become more meaningful? And then, who is the voice? I guess then, that is the other question; the more we start having this presence mainly through voice: Who embodies that presence? Matthias Did you see the recent Netflix series ‘Altered Carbon’? Fredrik I have seen a little bit, with these Artificial Intelligence hotels... Matthias The AI hotel is quite absurd, because it does exactly the opposite of what you are talking about. There is the hotel, an old and slightly shabby hotel, and then there is the hotel owner inside the hotel, that is a being, which is systematically also the AI hotel, but represents it for the guests. So it is split up in this very classical notion of the hotel owner on one side and the hotel infrastructure
that Venturi and Scott Brown made between the ‘decorated
on the other, despite there being no need at all for this
shed’ and the ‘duck’? And how close is your exhibition to
split. That seems to be the totally opposite conception of
this notion of the ‘duck’ in the postmodern context?
what you are talking about and that also seems how the film industry broadly deals with it at the moment.
Fredrik That is a very interesting question. I do not actually think
Fredrik
it is applicable to the digital and the virtual, because
It is a super-interesting example. I think our response to
what Venturi and Scott Brown were working with is
that would be that – with speculating on these future
a notion that architecture is signifying one thing: one
scenarios – architects or designers or futurists often
corporation has one piece of architecture, or one piece
underestimate humans’ capacity for abstraction, or even
of architecture is one person’s home. It signifies one
thing. And that was the kind of symbolic, ornamental,
Fredrik
linguistic understanding that the ‘duck’ and the
Yes, I know which one it is. It’s called electric something…
‘decorated shed’ are implying. I think that the future is
But indeed, it is not something new, buildings are
much more complex when these things don’t need to be
increasingly covered with screens, of course what the
static or costly. If you look at the ‘duck’ itself, obviously
building signifies changes with how fast we can perceive
it is a nightmare to build and a quite impressive thing.
LED lights changing their colour, their light. Obviously
If we instead imagine that those features are just light
those sorts of pre-digital ideas of the way we visually
or sound or something that you perceive only through
or linguistically understand buildings they have to be
a device that you are wearing, then obviously it can
re-written. There has to be a sort of new ‘Learning from
change within seconds and signify fluid things, not just:
Las Vegas’!
“We are selling duck!” And in that sense it is much more like the way we might attribute identity to ourselves,
Clemens Nocker
which changes with every moment. Potentially, we need
But concerning the exhibition, why did you choose
a third option. We are not sure what that would be, the
digital printing on cotton instead of putting screens? I
‘decorated shed’, the ‘duck’ and then the …
mean ok, it is also a budget question, but I think if you do projections on screens it is much more related to the
Lara
idea of the future than doing digital printing on cotton,
The gender fluid dragon!
no? The material way is very old school.
Fredrik
Fredrik
Yeah, the gender fluid dragon!
This is a really good point. I think one side of that is obviously that it is speculative, because the sort of world
Matthias
that we would imagine this sort of things to happen
Venturi himself even wrote a book in the 1990s about
in is really not here yet and a projector or a screen is
changing facades and thereby tried to somehow address
nowhere near what these things might be like. Projectors
this. That seems interesting…
and screens are also so well known in an exhibition context. I think our prediction is that it would be read as something else…
Lara
shapes, they can wrap stuff ... So I think, than yes. But
As a video! I mean, it is just a matter of communication.
the problem is the rectangle! With the rectangle it is not
If you imagine the exhibition with a series of projected
going to work.
rectangles – because in the end you cannot really even get rid of that shape– it wouldn’t be perceived in the same
Fredrik
way. But that’s why we usually do, like in the exhibition
And obviously also the future of the interface to the
‘The Glass Chain’ we had last year in London at Sto
digital or the virtual will be through...
Werkstatt, the mixed reality experience, so that you can have another format to understand the dynamism. But
Lara
then the static version is mainly because of limitations,
It will be 360°. It will be all around yourself. But I agree
if we could have headsets for everybody.
that screens are going to continue to be around, a lot! But I think more and more they are starting to wrap
Fredrik
around and to take on volume, which I think is the big
Yes, the headset is another thing. But I think it’s interesting
difference: it is surface and volume, and also shade.
that the screen or the projection is conceived as the sort of window into the digital. It is our only interface at the
Fredrik
moment. And because it’s so ubiquitous we look at these
One other thing to add to this is economy, not just in a
things every single day. We thought, if we do something
local sense, but in a larger sense, where the economy or
like cotton fabrics, which we have done before, then it
value of the purely virtual is completely shifted. Like
changes the mentality of people that see it. There is then
the effort or economy that goes into creating something
another level of perceptive investigation.
virtual and then how it is interfaced to us. Screens or physical things that emit light have a certain economy and
Lara
they are therefore perceived in a certain way. But if you
The screen as a format I think is also similar to the
perceive a sort of virtual space through a device that you
difference between seeing a perspective framed –
are wearing, than that is completely shifted, because it can
a painting – as opposed to seeing a trompe l’oeil
make almost anything possible. In the future of wearables,
painted dome actually where the dome would’ve been.
when they are no longer this pieces of furniture we put
The format has such a strong effect on the level of
on our face, but something much more non intrusive, the
immersion and how much your mind constructs. If you
economy and value systems will completely change.
enter Sant’Ignazio in Rome and you see the fake dome, since it is in the place where the dome is supposed to be, even though it is not dynamic and you eventually figure out the trick, you are still willing to believe! It has much more of the placebo effect as opposed to looking at a painting of a forest on your wall, even if the painting is incredibly amazing it is not immersive in the same way. So I think it is a matter of the format and in that sense screens or projectors have the same limitations. Eva Yes, they are totally loaded with being associated with something that is represented rather than being space itself. And I am really wondering whether we will ever be able to challenge that, to actually think of screens as space. Lara I mean it depends on what the screen can be. Now you can do also such
Matthias
Lara
Before your shift towards anthropomorphism how
Honestly we were just trying to do something that looks
would you frame your work? Because what I find very
architecturally enough to be perceived as architecture.
interesting is that this anthropomorphic exhibition
So the column, the arcade... And taking references
stylistically obviously has a lot from Space Popular’s
of what an arcade looks like or what a tiered column
previous work and that body of work, or more precisely,
looks like and then trying to shift some of the parts into
the methodology developed through it, leads you to
parts that could have anthropomorphic features. Then
abstract and represent the human and animal body in
usually our taste somehow leads us to a certain colour
a very specific way – it has an implication on the very
and material palette and things happen ... And – am I
method of abstraction and representation.
allowed to say this? We still don’t fully understand how it comes to be, actually.
Fredrik Yes absolutely! I guess what you are saying is very true, that
Matthias
if you just take the brief for what the exhibition is and
But not only colour or the material palette, but
you give it to someone else, then it would look incredibly
also
different. If you speculate on what anthropomorphism
anthropomorphism.
the
abstraction
and
how
you
represent
Lara It is like a simplification. Matthias Yes, but highly specific and very abstract in the way that now we have the exhibition show for almost two
months
and
the
reaction
of visitors showed that it is not evident for an observer, who is not precisely observing, that it has anthropomorphic features. Fredrik Yes, which is kind of the point. We tried to create it so that it would be ideally just in the threshold, that it would really require a certain level of scrutiny and inspection. A space, or a piece of architecture might be on the peripheral level just pleasant or interesting to have around you, but on closer inspection let’s say, that there is more things to discover. Especially if you are working with anthropomorphism. If there is one thing that the human mind is trained to recognise, it is other might be in the future of a semi-virtual AI architecture
human faces. So if you place human faces our eyes will
then yes, it might look completely different. Obviously the
be drawn to that immediately. And if you somehow, as we
actual creation of the exhbition, is quite intuitive, based on
tried to do, obscure them enough that maybe you will even
the way that we work and the sort of qualities that we are
miss them, then if you start to recognise them, the sort of
interested in. In certain types of architecture of the 1980s and
curiosity to hunt for the rest of them might kick in and
90s you might see things that have similar qualities, let’s say.
therefore an interest for or a kind of curiosity and a desire
There are also certain references to classical architecture.
to keep looking might emerge.
However, our aim in terms of how they are just perceived is hoping that there would be a certain level of surprise in
Lara
the kind of awkwardness of how some of this shapes and
And also something that is really exiting with pareidolia
colours come together, and some of the materiality.
– seeing faces or recognizing patterns – is that you can
go for a long time without seeing it but once you see it, maybe because someone tells you or it just clicks, you can never un-see it! It is the fact that you could have a long relationship with a part of a building as one thing and then suddenly something clicks and it is another. That was something we were very keen on! And that it just might have to do something with the angles from which you look at it or how close you are to it and suddenly you see it and you cannot see anything else. That’s something that you find a lot in Moorish architecture, which doesn’t have any anthropomorphic features, but works with levels of resolution depending on how far or how close you are. As you see it at the Alhambra, where you see one pattern and then maybe you get closer and you completely see another one and then you are totally locked with that and it is really hard to shift and see the one you saw before. That means the relationship or the way you actually break down what you are perceiving can
exhibition: the column. Because in a way the column -
actually change even if you have seen the same thing
that is called a column by you - for example, can also
many times.
be read as a totem. A lot of visitors told me that this is clearly a totem and not a column - probably because of
Fredrik
its strange shape and the bird faces. So the ambiguity
And there is one other interesting kind of component to
already starts with this column, which cannot clearly
this, the level of abstraction or let’s say the design of how
be defined as a column, before continuing on the other
they come about in the exhibition. If we think about
scales and layers of the exhibition. Itis a column, but also
human’s ability or even interest for pattern recognition
at least a bit not a column, therefore we were laughing
and indeed what’s in the subtitle of the exhibition of
a lot and asking ourselves what it is, right after its
Artificial Intelligence and its relation to the future of
assembly was finished! So the ambiguity concerns also
labour and what types of profession might be taken over
entire architectural objects and then is in interplay with it
by algorithms: the ones that require the highest level
or goes on to the different levels of figures, patterns, and
of pattern recognition will be the last ones to go. One
other architectural elements.
example based on a study is archaeology, which requires an incredibly high level of pattern recognition which
Lara
is incredibly difficult for a computer to do. So that’s
Yeah, I guess it’s also the case with anthropomorphism,
also an interesting kind of component that actually for
but also generally this level of ornamentation in
computers it is the hardest thing to learn to recognize
architecture, that we don’t really see much anymore,
really complex sets of patterns, so the more complex
leads us to project meaning onto it. These days whenever
they are, the more it is for us and less for the computer.
there is ornamentation, there must be a sort of purpose or meaning behind it and obviously when you have an
Lara
object like that – which is potentially holding something
So we will be the last ones standing!
up, but likely not – it has the sort of shape of the column, but because of its level of ornamentation I guess it’s kind of natural to project some other type of purpose or meaning.
Matthias This
ambiguity
you
describe
I
found
especially
interesting also on the level of a whole element of the
If you take the totem it’s somehow either virtually based or some other type of non-practical purpose.
Matthias
a very different way of seeing! That’s why it doesn’t mean
This links back to the discussion before of Venturi’s
anything, because we think much more from a cognitive
‘decorated
the
approach: if it has features that make it rich enough, then
Postmodern notion of a single message you were talking
you will want to store stuff on it, on the image of it. Then
about to a level of architectural objects, because one of
it is whatever it is for each one of us and that’s why I am
the failures of Postmodernism would again be exactly
thinking of this as a comparison to mnemonics, where
the opposite of what you are talking about also on that
you actually construct the space just to store very personal
level, where for Rossi for example the window can only
memories, which is a much more interesting comparison
and anymore be the square window, because that is THE
perhaps than some of Postmodern Architecture, which
window. So this revival of a kind of, I don`t know how
was much more concerned with communicating a very
we want to call it, new Postmodern on the axis Milano to
particular message.
shed’
and
the
‘duck’
and
brings
London and thereby crossing Switzerland and Belgium really also seems to have to do with this ambiguity of
Matthias
the architectural elements and a shifted system of
Obviously in Vienna you are probably read by a lot of
reference, where not only highly symbolic elements are
architects and students as just Postmodernists and they
worth quoting.
probably don’t really understand how someone could ever do this kind of work now, which is also very funny
Lara
and makes it interesting for us to exhibit you here. To
There is no wrong way of reading them. We are not going
have an exhibition in a city, where Postmodernism was
to tell you the meaning they have, in that sense people
killed in the mid-90s and there has been almost no
keep bringing up Postmodernism and it is really not! It has
debate about it ever since.
nothing to do with that, although I completely understand, with Modernism being the only thing that separates us
Fredrik
from Postmodernism, that people are obviously going to
Yeah mid 90s, I don’t know about Vienna specifically.
relate us to Postmodernism, but it has much more to do with a mnemonic approach in a way that if things are rich
Clemens
enough you can use them to store meaning, but they don’t
You told us before about the archaeological side and
have a meaning per se. That is interesting. So I think it’s
about the history of stories on columns or on facades,
when for example there was a war or monuments of
Eva
kings we could say that there was no media to preserve
Because it’s up to us who project! So there are these
it otherwise, so they had to put it in stone, but now
sorts of added levels, so it’s even a layer that is added
you have Facebook and Instagram and maybe the most
by us interfering with it, like bringing all this features
memories of somebody are on his or her Facebook-
into the patterns by recognizing them. Therefore I was
account or on the Instagram-account ... What is the need
wondering, because before you were talking about the
then to put it on a facade of a building or on the interior
notion of resolution and the Alhambra, I just could not
of a flat?
stop thinking about whether the model of the layer would maybe make more sense in that context, because
Fredrik
we add a layer by projecting these things onto them. It is
That’s super interesting and something that we
also about an architect’s everyday’s life, where we open
want to get to! If you compare with
the way the
softwares and all of these softwares contain layers, such
Postmodernists were doing things, the way that
as AutoCAD, Photoshop and so on ... I was wondering
our generation works is more like the logic of the
whether that could maybe be the way to update Las
Internet and applying it quite directly to the logic of
Vegas. So it might need learning from layered spaces
architecture.
rather then, I don’t know, from the single layered ones. Lara I think it is not something that necessary needs to be explained, but to be experienced. Umberto Eco in the ‘The Open Work’ talks about how an artwork can be constructed by the viewer, by the person who is experiencing it and, in that sense, you are projecting so much of you into it. For that to happen it needs a series of features that act as triggers and that help you construct narrative or project emotion onto it. We are intuitively working with the idea that a certain level of intricacy and a certain amount of abstracted references need to be there for you to start seeing patterns, seeing things, seeing faces. He or she who is experiencing is actively constructing this thing. Fredrik And that leads to our interest in a cognitive approach to architecture and
the
experience
of
space.
Going back to the question ‘does Lara
it make sense to build these things’, the answer is
But it has much more to do with developing a cognitive
maybe not, we can now allow ourselves to really be
and emotional attachment than reading into it and,
free in reconsidering what should be carved in stone
in that way, it is so different from the way a cathedral
and what should be numbers in a graphic card, and
would work. The cathedral was meant to be an open
of course we will never be able to judge or to value
book, yes, and it was meant to teach even people
these things as equal, if something is carved in stone
who could not read and to communicate a particular
or if something is a rendering or an animation. The
message, but here there is no message. It is only creating
meaning we project onto it will be different, but
the opportunity to develop an attachment to this thing,
we are trying to be as fluent as possible and to not
because it is reminding you of so many things that you
discriminate any format of reality.
end up building a character.
Lara The virtual, at the moment, still doesn’t exist. We really want the virtual
world
to
be
here
and
Augmented Reality to be here, but it is really not and we don’t know how soon in our career it’s going to be there, so maybe we will have to do some more of these things. Right, if we really think about today it is not quite clear, even if it might be very soon. Then there is also the aspect that virtual experiences would not be as intense as they are, if it wasn’t for our very rich experience of the world. When you are seeing the printed materials in those fabrics your understanding of how terrazzo feels or how granite feels, or plastic, is informing what you are projecting onto those forms. You need to have the experience of those materials in order to gain the virtual experience, so certain things are relying on the physical world and always make us think that we will still need a very rich physical reality to enhance our Fredrik
virtual experiences.
Absolutely. It was interesting to see Zumthor’s models on Fredrik
show at the Venice Biennale and how they are almost
Matthias, I will come back very quickly to the point
perverse. They are so loaded and shocking in their
earlier
big
materiality. They are dripping with a sort of exuberance,
difference is that the Postmodern way of doing this was
all covered in wax or models made solidly in marble.
almost purely through linguistics: the using of symbols;
They seem to somehow go against perhaps the common
whereas in our case we are interested in experiential
understanding of what that type of modernism has
symbols – not knowledge that you need to have acquired
meant to be, not necessarily exuberant.
about
the
Postmodern
thinking.
One
–, where the kind of semiotics are not relying on your knowledge, but just on your experience.
Jerome There’s another important feature in your exhibition
Matthias
at MAGAZIN, which is a robot vacuum cleaner that is
If we for example look at a career like the one of Zumthor,
driving autonomously through the exhibition spaces.
which starts as a kind of classic Postmodernist directly
And it is really interesting to observe how visitors are
quoting Kahn and all these things and then radically
reacting to it as soon as we switch it on and how it
goes off in the mid 1980s and becomes, I don’t know if you
affects their spatial behaviour, especially for children.
want to call him a Minimalist or a Phenomenological
This little robot thus clearly tackles the question of how
architect, where it is really about things like his own
these ‘smart machines’ will more and more interact with
personal memories as an author and your personal
us in our homes. Luciano Floridi wrote about it in an
experience of the spaces and the materials as a visitor and
interesting way. He is speaking about a sort of revolution
so on... This, obviously done on different levels of quality
we are experiencing right now. And this revolution is
and stringency, has in a way become the new general
happening on a spatial level in the way that ‘smart
architectural style of almost everything. In that sense,
machines’, he writes, have already been part of our lives
it seems that your architecture and your emphasis on
for quite a long time, but they have always been acting
experience and on being fully embedded in a space are
only within a very restricted area of space. He gives
also very influenced by the experiential shift instigated
the example of a dishwasher. The dishwasher can be
through Phenomenological architecture.
considered as a kind of smart machine but enclosed in a
container. The space in which it can act autonomously is
comfortable’ – what can perhaps start dealing with the
restricted to that box. And then the mentioned revolution
home, this sort of agency that the robot exemplifies
is starting at the point where the container disappears
in the exhibition. I think it is inside that, that you can
and the machine is leaving its hermetic envelope. In the
understand that this decision making is what will come,
case of your interpretation of a future home, I would
and that we will probably really have to accelerate that
not necessarily say that the box is disappearing, but it
relationship that we are talking about with the home:
is brought to another scale. It becomes bigger and kind
the building being a creature.
of swallows us. So the box is not anymore a dishwasher but it is our house or apartment and we suddenly
Fredrik
enter these boxes and live inside, together with smart
It is super interesting, this analogy of the compartment or
machines. Respectively, the box is kind of a machine and
the container that the little agent is in, not just spatially,
at the same time our home.
but also I guess kind of in the realm of possibilities what it can do. Obviously we wouldn’t expect the robot
Lara
to start dancing or to go up the wall. We understand the
The robot in the exhibition really is a little creature and
parameters... But of course the level that they are now,
what makes it different from a washing machine is, that
even this cheap little vacuum robot, is still a little bit
it has agency. You don’t press a button,it starts doing
shocking to most people, because they step from outside
things on its own. And it seems to be making decisions -
of the washing machine box, as you were saying. Just
based on some sort of parameters. So that agency is what
experientially it is kind of shocking. I guess, the next
triggers this extreme understanding of it as a being. But
step will be when it actually leaves the home or the
referring to your comment, I was thinking about Tim
architecture and goes to do the shopping or whatever
and his relation to his automated curtain at home. A
it might be.
friend of us, who has this enormous window, which is, I don’t know, five metres high. And he has this enormous
Matthias
curtain, which at some point of the day opens or closes
Now the level of shock is when you leave the architecture.
depending on the lighting. It is that sort of feature that
When you have Alexa playing super loud music and then
is making a decision – it is making the judgement ‘It
the police comes, but no human is inside the flat. This
is too bright so I am going to close for you to be more
happened in Germany. You leave the architecture and…
Eva And it misbehaves! Matthias Yes, it misbehaves. And it also misbehaves in the exhibition. At the bottom of the column there is this very small step, where the column is fixed and the robot obviously doesn’t get the step and then instead of cleaning, all the dust falls out, when it tries to drive over it. It is quite amazing that it reverses the result when it is misbehaving. Fredrik Actually I think we project more anthropomorphism onto these objects when they have shortcomings. And when they can’t see your feet and then they go up a bit on your shoes and sniff a bit. Lara Mistakes make you human. Everyone wants to see you break. Fredrick Which is why at the opening, people were stepping on it, putting their beer on it. Testing their own limits by testing the ones of the robot. Lara You always expect a kind of perfection within robotics, right? An inhumane perfection. Fredrik There is obviously something in the difference between the way adults and children interact with animals and their different ability to perceive abstraction, where there is some barrier, where it is very ambiguous and where it is not quite understandable where the boundaries go... And I guess, as the technology gets more and more evolved, we become more and more like children..
M A G A Z I N . Ausstellungsraum für zeitgenössische Architektur. Weyringergasse 27/i A- 1040 Wien info@architektur-im-magazin.at architektur-im-magazin.at
Das
MAGAZIN
ist ein Ausstellungsraum für zeit-
genössische Architektur in Wien, den der Verein für zeitgenössische Architektur betreibt und der 2018 von Jerome Becker, Matthias Moroder, Clemens Nocker, Florian Schafschetzy und Eva Sommeregger gegründet wurde. Das MAGAZIN fördert vor allem junge Architektinnen und Architekten aus dem In- und Ausland, die dabei sind
sich
im
eigenständig
zeitgenössischen zu
positionieren
Architekturdiskurs und
in
deren
Architekturprojekten bereits ein eigenes Arbeitsprojekt abzulesen ist. Das MAGAZIN präsentiert die Arbeit dieser vor allem jungen Architektinnen und Architekten in eigens für den Ausstellungsraum konzipierten Einzelausstellungen und rundet diese mit dazugehörigen Publikationen sowie Vorträgen ab.
Alle Photos: Moritz Ellmann Schriftarten: modum, RNS Miles Breite Gasse Publishing Wien 7,. Breite Gasse 3/2 ISBN 978-3-9504111-2-6
Für Ihre Unterstützung möchten wir vor allem dem 4. Wiener Gemeindebezirk und dem österreichischen Bundeskanzleramt danken.