[ISEA2022] Artist Talk: Ian Callender & Benjamin Akhavan — Uptown underground and untitled times square intervention

Artist Statement 

June 13, MACBA – Convent dels Àngels. Session: Time and Space: Zooming in/out

Keywords: Urbanism, interaction design, interactive technologies, new media, interventionism

The use of physical-digital technologies in public-realm interventions can offer fuller engagements in our current realities. Uptown Underground uses projections data to bring urban context into an underground subway ride, and an in-progress intervention uses photovoltaic cells and air cooling methods to critique energy waste in Times Square.

This talk will address the potential for leveraging physical-digital technologies in public-realm interventions which help offer fuller engagements in our current realities. It will serve as a platform to present the project Uptown Underground, which uses projections and accelerometer data to bring urban context down into an underground subway ride, as well as an in-the-works intervention which uses photovoltaic cells tuned to LED screens and air cooling methods to critique mass energy waste in Times Square.

  • Ian Callender (USA) is a New York City-based artist and designer exploring the intersection of the built environment and digital technologies. His work challenges traditional dialectical oppositions of structured / organic, form / un-form, and digital / literal. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and is currently pursuing a Master of Architecture at Columbia University GSAPP. His work has been recognized by the Media Architecture Institute, iF, and the Art Directors Club; covered by ArchDaily, Designboom, and Hyperallergic; and exhibited internationally.
  • Benjamin (Benjy) Akhavan (USA) is a multidisciplinary designer and educator based in New York. He is a principal at FOAWM, a nondescript Firm / Office / Atelier / Workshop / Milieu with polyvalent interests at the intersection of design and urban life. Benjy holds degrees in architecture from the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York and the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University. He teaches visualization and design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and has exhibited design work in New York.