Panel Statement

Chair Per­sons: Ste­fan Mit­tlböck-Jung­wirth-Fohringer & Mahir M. Yavuz
Pre­sen­ters: Christoph Kro­n­hagel, Eck­e­hart Loidolt & William Joseph Car­pen­ter

Through­out human his­tory, ar­chi­tec­ture played a key role in terms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the pub­lic do­main. In ad­di­tion to the es­tab­lished in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized ar­chi­tec­tural com­mu­ni­ca­tion (gov­ern­men­tal build­ings, palaces, banks, schools, etc.), a new field of adap­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion based on pres­ence, in­tent and own­er­ship is emerg­ing. Dis­cov­er­ies in the field of media tech­nol­ogy con­sti­tute the dri­ving force in this evo­lu­tion­ary progress. Media, by all means, is ex­tend­ing its ac­tive fields and is cre­at­ing a con­ver­gence be­tween psy­chi­cal and vir­tual spaces. Cities are in a rapid evo­lu­tion age: façades are chang­ing, ar­chi­tec­ture is de­vel­op­ing more into the dig­i­tal do­main and so­cial in­ter­ac­tion of in­hab­i­tants is be­com­ing much more me­di­ated. How are all of these changes af­fect­ing our daily life? It is seen that media ar­chi­tec­ture has al­ready be­come a key re­search topic at the in­ter­sec­tion of many dif­fer­ent fields such as ur­ban­ism, ar­chi­tec­ture, ma­te­r­ial sci­ences and so­ci­ol­ogy. There is a large spec­trum of in­ter­est­ing top­ics to dis­cuss within this new field rang­ing from con­tent to au­di­ence and from new mod­els of in­ter­ac­tion to ma­te­ri­al­ized media. With the con­tri­bu­tion of prac­ti­cal re­searchers work­ing in di­verse fields and com­ing from dif­fer­ent coun­tries, this panel aims to raise ques­tions such as: What is the im­por­tance of media ar­chi­tec­ture in the evo­lu­tion of land­marks and city de­vel­op­ment? Does media ar­chi­tec­ture cre­ate a new way of so­cial in­ter­ac­tion in the pub­lic space? Are media ar­chi­tec­ture pro­jects­gras­pable and leg­i­ble by the pub­lic with­out a leg­end? With in­def­i­nite bound­aries in ques­tion, how can media ar­chi­tec­ture de­velop into media space?

About Ars Elec­tron­ica Fu­ture­lab : Media Art and Ar­chi­tec­ture Group

Today, tech­nol­ogy and media are among major tools used in ar­chi­tec­tural prac­tices in de­vel­op­ing global cities. Ars Elec­tron­ica Fu­ture­lab Media Art and Ar­chi­tec­ture Group con­sists of artists and re­searchers from var­i­ous fields in­clud­ing com­puter sci­ence, so­ci­ol­ogy, de­sign, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and media sci­ences. The re­search group aims to focus on emerg­ing in­ter­faces and com­mu­ni­ca­tion meth­ods among ar­chi­tec­ture, cit­i­zens and en­vi­ron­ment. By ex­am­in­ing the em­ploy­ment of in­ter­ac­tive media as an el­e­ment of art and ar­chi­tec­ture in pub­lic spaces, the group also aims to re­al­ize prac­ti­cal pro­jects in se­man­tic and func­tional con­text. Smart cities, ma­te­ri­al­ized in­for­ma­tion, re­spon­sive/adap­tive ar­chi­tec­ture and in­tel­li­gent en­vi­ron­ments are some of the key re­search top­ics of the group. Like­wise, the group con­cen­trates on the po­si­tion and the role of media ar­chi­tec­ture with re­spect to dis­cus­sions on art and com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies.

• Ste­fan Mit­tlböck- Jung­wirth- Fohringer holds a de­gree in fine art, with a tech­ni­cal back­ground as an elec­tri­cian. He has been a mem­ber of the Ars Elec­tron­ica Fu­ture­lab since 2001, where in 2009 he be­came the Di­rec­tor of the Media and Ar­chi­tec­ture focus group.   new.aec.at/futurelab
• Mahir M. Yavuz is an ex­ter­nal se­nior re­searcher of media art and ar­chi­tec­ture in Ars Elec­tron­ica Fu­ture­lab. He is cur­rently en­gaged in doc­toral stud­ies in In­ter­face Cul­ture at Kun­stu­ni­ver­sität Linz Be­sides giv­ing lec­tures at the same uni­ver­sity, he is also one of the prin­ci­pals of Newgray, a re­search & de­sign com­pany based in New York. His works have been ex­hib­ited in­ter­na­tion­ally at sev­eral in­sti­tu­tions and venues in­clud­ing the 49th Venice Bi­en­nial, the 8th In­ter­na­tional Is­tan­bul Bi­en­nial, Sig­graph, Ars Elec­tron­ica Fes­ti­vals, PS1/MoMA, Apexart, ZKM, Karl­sruhe, Ex­i­tart and Kunst-Werke, Berlin.