[ISEA2011] Paper: Teresita Scalco – The interactive and immersive experiences shape the new architectural language

Abstract

The interaction of art and new technologies, design/architecture and science is the basis of visual languages innovations.

The 3D technologies and interactive projections enable artists and film makers to set new visions both for architectural and landscape scenes. There is a broad litterature about the relation between art, architecture/design and film, so the aim of this paper is not to deepen this discourse, while instead undeline the new hybrid relationships establieshed: architecture provides the spatial and visual  scenario to artists and storytellers, while 3 D digital artworks offer new sensorial explorarions for broadcast new ideas in museum studies and help understanding the environment we are living in.

This paper examines closely the role of interactive multimedia installations and 3D narrative fictions in order to communicate the representation of architecture within the exhibition design contests and how interactivity develops new behaviours and connections when it is a project of public art.  In order to confirm its arguments the essay examines and put in dialogue with Deleuze’s aesthetic positions and the transformations that occur in the exhibition and public space, when these installations are implied. This will be illustrated and analized by two case studies : ‘If building could talk…’ by the German film maker Wim Wenders presented at the last Architecture Biennale di Venezia in Italy and « Sandbox » by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer at the beach of Santa Monica in California, still in 2010.

In the final part of the paper, I will explore how the immersive experiences and ‘contemplative immersion’ positions of the viewers/participants are enriching opportunities to learn and generate new form of sense in our contemporary society.

  • Teresita Scalco is a Phd candidate in Museology of Design at the Univesità Iuav di Venezia, Italy. Currently, in the framework of her doctoral research in the museum policy in Istanbul, she is visiting at the Istanbul Bilgi University. She received her European MA in History of Architecture (2006) from the Università Roma Tre with a specialization in Contemporary Architectural Heritage at the World Heritage Center of UNESCO in Paris and her BA in History of Art (2002) from the University in Padua. For her BA thesis she received a grant from the Univerity of California Santa Barbara (USA), where she studied feminist art critics, visual arts and photography. Passionately fond of the memory and heritage contained in architectural archives, she started working in 1999 as assistent curator at the Architectural and Design collections at the Univesity Art Museum in Santa Barbara, then in Italy at the Archivio progetti, Università Iuav di Venezia. In 2002 and 2005 she had optained two EU grants for promoting intecultural educational projects on these fields in several cultural institutions in Venice and in Madrid in order to empower youth through art and culture. Also, in 2009 she became a member of the Scientific and Executive Board of AAA-Italia, the National Association of Architectural Archives. With a cross-cultural approach, Scalco’s current research interests aim at studing themes related to the intersections between arts, design and architecture and explore the ethical and educational role of contemporary musuems in its ‘inclusive’ and curatorial practices.

Full text (PDF) p. 2156-2158