M&A August Evenings 2003

Evolving Materialism

From Virtual to Actual to Material

Informal conversations by young leading designers and theorists in the field of architecture.
 

The series explores the processes, techniques and effects by which vectors of evolution project from the increasingly accessible domain of digital technology in architecture towards next-generation material environments.  

The event will be followed by drinks, bites, and music.

Outdoor seating

$5 suggested donation


First in the evening series:


Wednesday August 6, 8PM

Marcelo Spina / Principal PATTERNS

Peter Zellner / Curator and Theorist / Baldez Organization

The PATTERNS exhibit, Land.Tiles, is in its final month at M&A. This is the only opportunity to hear the architect discuss this work in relation to the larger scope of his explorations in the virtual realm.

Second in the evening series:


Friday August 15, 8PM

Hernan Diaz Alonso / Principal Xefirot Architecture

Benjamin Bratton / The Culture Industry

Software, simultaneously a technology and a language, continues to transform both the means of architecture and the terrains on which it builds. Hernan Diaz-Alonso and Benjamin H. Bratton are faculty at SCI_Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where they teach Theory and Design. Together they will discuss what is specific to software-based space, what is incidental, and what is permanent.


Third in the evening series:


Friday August 29, 8PM

Marcos Lutyens / Artist & Theorist, MindbrowserTM

Christophe Cornubert / Director of Architecture, PUSH

Digital design tools have become instrumental in creating both built/analog and virtual /digital environments. Soon, the seamless integration of the two realms will result in responsive software/surface/structure systems that will be indispensable for built applications. This discussion will develop potential uses for responsive "SmartSurfaces"* and explore potential interfaces; i.e. ranging from simple touch-based sensors and temperature or light-sensing switches, to more complex and immersive mind state synapse mechanisms and the implications involved.

The New York Times releases an article on a “SmartWrap”:

August 7, 2003

LAST week, Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake watched a worker install a banner for their show, "SmartWrap," on a garden wall of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. It was not just any banner. It had been printed on plastic, as Mr. Kieran and Mr. Timberlake, who are architects, believe building walls of the future will be. Those lightweight walls will also be "smart." Just as circuits are printed on plastic for small electronic devices, SmartWrap prints onto PET plastic (what soda bottles are made of) flat devices that will insulate, heat and provide power and light.